In a recent article entitled Un problematico graffito nella cripta onoriana dei ss. Marcellino e Pietro, Professor A.E. Felle published a two line graffito from a 7th c. Christian martyrial sanctuary in a Roman catacomb in a curious script resembling Ancient South Arabian or Ancient North Arabian.
Prof. M. Arbach, a leading expert in the epigraphy of Ancient South Arabia, and Prof. E. Peuch, a distinguished specialist of Northwest Semitic epigraphy, provided very preliminary readings of these difficult texts assuming they are inscribed in an Arabian script, given below.
Reading of Professor Arbach
Before attempting a reading of such an inscription, one must isolate the script type. This is extremely difficult, given the provenance and the very late date. As far as we know, no North Arabian alphabets continued to be in use this late, but the Ancient South Arabian script survives well into the Islamic period. However, as both authors recognize, the letter shapes do not correspond with that alphabet; rather, if we assume a South Semitic identification, then they would appear to be a very poorly carved Ancient North Arabian variety. And herein lies the danger. There is so much variation within the Ancient North Arabian script types that, with the entire letter repertoire at our free disposal, one risks being able to read even natural damage on a rock as an inscription. Before venturing down that path of speculation, I would like to make a suggestion on the relationship between the two lines of text. Both editors read these as containing different content, taking what I think was damage as deliberate carvings. Rather, it seems to me that both lines contain the same text. Let me explain. The areas traced in red appear to be damage or etchings not associated with the original texts. On the first line, what was read as an r in fact extends through the diamond-shaped letter to its right; the tracing suggests that the half circle is distinct from the damage, but they appear connected to me. On the second line, the first letter (reading left to right) appears to be a diamond with wings, resembling a Greek Alpha. But I think it is simply the same shape as the first letter (reading right to left) on the first line, the diamond. The penultimate letter on the second line, the bow, is in fact carved much more deeply and is thicker and spaced much more closely to the adjacent letter. I wonder if this was perhaps a pre-existing symbol on the rock or a later addition. Once we remove these irregularities, we end up with the same text, written twice.
Below I suggest a new reading. It is phoneme neutral, meaning I will just give the glyph shapes - or their approximates in the Ancient South Arabian Unicode script.
𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
The two lines encode the same text, but what do they mean? The symbols 𐩲𐩾 can stand for numerals in the Ancient South Arabian script, 10 and 50, respectively, but no date seems apparent here (note 𐩾 is facing towards the right in the inscription itself). The glyph 𐩰 is a f in the Ancient South Arabian script, but could be read as a g in Safaitic. The 𐩽 has many values: it is a numeral in ASA, 1, an n in Safaitic, a š in Hismaic, an r in Thamudic D. With so many potential values, a creative researcher can make this text say anything. And this underscores a methodological issue: the Ancient North Arabian alphabets are not a grab bag of letter shapes that can be used freely so long as they help in producing meaning from a text (to be clear, the original editors did not do this, but it is something common in the readings of other potential Arabian inscriptions from outside Arabia). They reflect discrete scripts and so if one value is assumed for a specific letter, the rest of the phonemic values of that script type must be assigned to remaining glyphs of an inscription. So then, we can experiment with different script types to see what comes up.
Safaitic: 𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
gnwṯyʿw
Ancient South Arabian: 𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
wʿyṯw1f (right to left)
f1wṯyʿw (left to right)
Thamudic B: 𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
fnwṯyʿw
Hismaic: 𐩥𐩲𐩾𐩻𐩥𐩽𐩰
?śwgyʿw
Now, of these the Safaitic solution makes most sense. We can see in it perhaps the writing of two names: gn and (= w) ṯyʿw. The first name is attested but the latter isn't. And it would be extremely strange for an inscription to begin without the lām auctōris, l-, the letter that begins the vast majority of Safaitic texts. The Thamudic B possibility is also intriguing - it could be read as fnw 'died' and tyʿw, an unattested personal name (?). The problem with this, however, is that Thamudic B is attested in the middle of the first millennium BCE! And there is no evidence that it continues as late as the 4th c. CE, much less the 7th. And even so, its contents don't seem to match the context of this crypt.
The Thamudic B example helps us highlight an important point. Just because we can make a text say something meaningful, in the broadest sense, doesn't mean that that is what the text actually says. Indeed, despite the somewhat sensible translation, a Thamudic B reading seems extremely unlikely if not impossible considering the chronology. And while Safaitic remains within the realm of possibility, the Thamudic B example should caution us from identifying these texts as Safaitic. For now, I believe these symbols must remain a mystery. We can conclude with a quote of Prof. Arbach from his section of the article:
"Cependant, si on considère cette inscription comme étant d’écriture arabique,
comme le souhaite le Professeur A. E. Felle, ce qui reste à prouver, on aurait ici,
pour la première fois, un texte rédigé en alphabet thamoudéen/safaïtique, de surcroît
trouvé à Rome et daté du milieu du VIIe-IXe siècle de l’ère chrétienne, alors que
les spécialistes tendent à considérer que l’écriture safaïtique n’était plus en usage
depuis les IVe-Ve siècle de l’ère chrétienne."
Bibliography
Felle, E. with A. Arbach and E. Peuch. 2021. Un problematico graffito nella cripta onoriana dei ss. Marcellino e Pietro. RIVISTA DI ARCHEOLOGIA CRISTIANA 97: pp. 115-131.
https://ricerca.uniba.it/handle/11586/355683#.YJr1yrVKiuU
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