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A Nabataean Funerary Inscription from the Blaihed Museum

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A Nabataean Funerary Inscription from the Blaihed Museum Arab. arch. epig. 2015: 0: 1–5 (2015) Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved 1 2 3 4 5 6 A Nabataean funerary inscription from the 7 Blaihed Museum 8 9 1 2 10 This paper presents a study of an unpublished Nabataean funerary inscription from Mahdi Alzoubi , Sahar Smadi 11 1 Dumat^ al-Jandal in Saudi Arabia. The inscription, in the Blaihed Museum private col- CRM, Queen Rania Institute for 12 lection in al-Jawf District in Saudi Arabia, is an important addition to the study of Tourism and Heritage – CRM, 13 Nabataean funerary inscriptions, as it gives the rst and only indication of the sale of Hashemite University, Zarqa, 14 a tomb, a practice that is considered abnormal for the Nabataeans. Parts of the inscrip- 13115, Jordan 2 15 tion are missing or eroded. It is our hope that the publication of this article will lead to Department of Arabic Language, 16 further research concerning the missing parts of the inscription. University of Damman, Khafji, 17 Dammam, Saudi Arabia 18 Keywords: Nabataean inscriptions, funeral inscriptions, Dumat^ al-Jandal, Blaihed 19 Museum, Semitic inscriptions e-mail: [email protected] 20 21 22 Introduction 23 A considerable number of Nabataean funerary — the prohibition of writing any deed of entitle- 24 ment and against burying any non-relative in inscriptions are spread over a wide area of the the tomb; e.g. CIS II 210 reads: wl’ rsy ‘nws 25 Nabataean kingdom. Despite the fact that the majority of lmktb bkpr’ dnh tqp klh wl’ lmqbr bh ‘nws r q lhn 26 ‘sdq b’sdq, “and no one has the right to write these inscriptions, especially those found in Sinai and in : : 27 aur^an, are brief and short, providing only personal for this tomb any deed of entitlement or burying 28 names, a considerable number of funerary inscriptions in it any non-relative other than by 29 reveal a good deal of information concerning the tomb hereditary title”; 30 and its assets. Speci - cally, thirty-nine tomb inscriptions — the prohibition of buying or selling the tomb; e.g. CIS II 31 containing legal formu-lae have so far been recovered, 208 reads: wdy l’ ytqbr bkpr’ dnh lhn 32 thirty- ve of which were found in Hegra, two in Petra, one ‘sdq b’sdq wdy l’ ytzbn wl’ ytrhn kpr’ dnh, “and : : 33 in al-Jawf and another in Madeba (Healey 1993). no one shall be buried in this tomb except by 34 Long funerary inscriptions generally contain several hereditary title, nor shall this tomb be sold 35 clauses that vary from one inscription to another and nor given in pledge”. 36 may contain the following: the tomb’s owner, the Penalties consisting of nes (e.g. CIS II 211; 212), 37 inheritances, the protection clause, the penalty (curse, curses (e.g. CIS II 197) or both (e.g. CIS II 206) apply 38 nes), the date and the sculptor’s name. We may nd to anyone violating the sanctity of the tomb. In the 39 some of these clauses but not all in the same case of nes, disrupters pay the dues to the king (e.g. 40 inscription, with the possi-bility of their order changing CIS II 199) or his local representative “the governor” 41 from one inscription to another (1993). (e.g. JS 38), to the deity (e.g. CIS II 198) or to both 42 (e.g. CIS II 3 206). Normally, Nabataean funerary texts emphasise 43 the restrictions on the use of the tomb and its Our inscription, the subject of this study, is different 44 inalienability through protection clauses (1993: 45). from all the funerary inscriptions hitherto recovered. This 45 Such clauses may contain the following: inscription does not regard the tomb as a family property, 46 the prohibition of burying any stranger to the — as other inscriptions do; rather, it describes the sale of a 47 family in the tomb; e.g. CIS II 219 reads: tomb to an unrelated person. The inscription, which c 48 wl’ rsy ‘nws dyy dy ytqbr bh, “and no belongs to the epigraphical collection of the Blaihed pri- 49 stranger has the right to be buried in it”; vate museum in al-Jawf in Saudi Arabia, was found, as 1 M. ALZOUBI AND S. SMADI The inscription 1 mentioned above, at D^umat al-Jandal in al-Jawf The inscription is carved on a rectangular block of Province. Unfortunately no further information on the sand-stone measuring 52 cm high and 165 cm wide = context in which this inscription was found is (Fig. 1). It consists of six lines; some parts of the rst, 4 available in the Blai-hed Museum. second, fourth, fth and sixth lines are missing, but this 5 does not prevent us from providing an acceptable 6 reading and translation of the text. We therefore 7 Dumat ^ al-Jandal suggest the following reading and translation: D^umat al-Jandal is a historical city located in north- west- ern Saudi Arabia in al-Jawf Province. It is located about Transcription 45 km from Sakakah, the main city of al-Jawf. The name 1 1. dnh qbr’ w’w[n’] dy mtqr’ qbr qysw dy zbn {‘}{ D^umat al-Jandal literally means “D^umah of the Stone”, } [yn br] c as 2. {m}ly{k} br ‘b[sl]m br myw mn qysw br [mtr]w this was the territory of D^umah, one of the twelve sons of : 3. rm k lyqt rm dy yhw ‘ yn dnh wbnwhy mn Archaeological remains yield Babylonian, Nabataean, 4. ‘ rwhy w’ rhm mtqbryn bqbr’ hw wqbryn b[h] c c c 5. d l[m’ b’]rb b 29 bsbt snt 13 l. ... Arabian and Islamic records, which show that D^umat : al-Jandal was one of the most ancient settlements in 6. tllw br ms[lmw . .. ] : Ara- bia; it played an important role as a trading centre on the trade routes which connected South Arabia Translation with Mesopo- tamia and Syria (1988: 150). The city This is the tomb and the [eternal] dwelling called qysw’s was known to the Assyrians as Adummatu, describing tomb that {‘}{ }[yn son of] {m}ly{k} son of ‘b[sl]m son of c it as “the seat of the King of the Arabs”. Excavations in myw bought from qysw son of [mtr]w . (These) are invio- the city have indicated a prosperous community : during the time of the Naba- taeans (Charloux & Loreto lable according the nature of inviolability. This ‘ yn and his sons after him and their descendants may be buried in 2013: 13; Loreto 2012). Historical evidence shows strong Nabataean occupa- this tomb, and they may bury (members of their family) in it forever, on Wednesday on 29 in sbt in the year 13 of tion in Marid castle at D^umat al-Jandal; graf ti, pottery : and painted Nabataean remains were found around the . .., tllw son of msl[mw. .. ..]. : castle (al-Muaikel 1988: 17). A Nabataean dedication inscription from the al-Jawf area was published by Comment Savi- Nabataean funerary inscriptions are of great importance, gnac and Starcky (1957: 196–215) and contains a dedi- in addition to their main purpose as the proclamation of a c tomb’s property. This is because they reveal religious, cation of a sanctuary made by a person called nmw, social and, to some extent, legal traditions, namely, pat- commander of some unidenti ed fort. According to al- terns of inheritance, engagement and obligations and the Muaikel (1989: 17) this fort was the Marid castle of transmission of the property. D^umat al-Jandal, and he uses this in support of his the- This funerary inscription is, as it has been indicated, a The city of D^umat al-Jandal was annexed to Provincia ory that D^umat al-Jandal was part of the Nabataean \ new addition to our knowledge regarding Nabataean fun- Arabia in AD 106 (al-Sudairi 1995: 49). During the kingdom. eral tradition, as it refers to a cession of tomb and an reign of the Roman emperor Trajan, the governor of (eter-nal) dwelling by sale to a non-relative, which gives Syria Cornelius Palma annexed the Nabataean the rst and only indication of such a practice in Nabataean kingdom inscriptions. A funerary inscription from Hegra (CIS II 204) on behalf of the emperor, and the old Nabataean king- contains a tomb cession by donation to a relative: a man dom became part of the new Provincia Arabia. The \ transfers the absolute ownership of a tomb to his wife details of Rome’s annexation of Nabatea are not known, (Healey 1993: 191–192). We note that tomb cessions are but some epigraphic evidence suggests that a military also common in Palmyra. Certain Palmyrene tombs have invasion, commanded by Cornelius Palma, swept the inscriptions, the so-called “concession texts”, which region. More speci cally Roman forces seem to have allowed the owner to sell portions of the tomb (Piacentini come from Syria and Egypt, as is shown by a papyrus 2005: 250). found in Egypt (Bowersock 1971: 224–231; Taylor 49 2005: 25–31). 2 XXXXX 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Fig. 1. The Nabataean funerary inscription. 27 28 29 The inscription comprises the following main clauses: Nabataean territory (Healey 1993: 69). The noun kpr’ also 30 - the proclamation of the act. This contains two occurs in a Syriac inscription found near Serrın and dated main elements: the nature of the property, 31 which is the subject of the inscription, and to AD 73 (Pognon 1907: 15–22).
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