From Nabataeo-Arabic to Palaeo-Arabic: Two new pre-Islamic graffiti from the Jordanian Ḥarrah

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study is to shed light on two recently discovered graffiti, which were identified in the context of the Badia Epigraphic Survey (BES) project. These graffiti are Nabataeo-Arabic and Palaeo-Arabic inscriptions. The research presents an analysis of these inscriptions, which are rarely found in the Jordanian Ḥarrah.

KEYWORDS:

• Jordan heritage
• Jordanian Ḥarrah
• inscriptions
• Badia Epigraphic Survey
• Nabataeo-Arabic
• Palaeo-Arabic
• Pre-Islamic

Acknowledgements

The author is greatly indebted to Michael C. A. Macdonald (University of Oxford), Ahmad Al-Jallad (Ohio State University), and Loura Vollmer for their very helpful comments on these texts.

Sigla

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These Safaitic inscriptions will be excluded from analysis because it is outside the scope of this study.

2 See also Nehmé (2017a).

3 For more details of the differences between these two types of scripts, see Nehmé (2020 141, 142 and 145).

4 See photos in Nehmé (2020).

5 Further discussion of the Safaitic and Nabatean inscriptions are outside the scope of this paper.

6 King discovered the Wādī Ramm graffiti, but only one has been published, which can be found in Nehmé (2020).

7 The first letter is missing, but it should be ‘ʾnh ʿAbd ʾl-ʾilāh’.

8 Al-Ṣaḥrāʾ published a number of Palaeo-Arabic inscriptions discovered between Tabūk and al-ʿUlā on its website نبطية! - فريق الصحراء "لكنة"نقوش عربية بــ (https://alsahra.org).

9 For more information on this type, see Robin, Al-Ghabbān, and Al-Saʿīd (2014, 1088–127).

10 For more information on the Christianization of the Badia, see Ahmad al-Jallad and Ali al-Manaser (2021).