ʾns as 'people' or a time period? Remarks on GBW 2 (Al-Ghul 2021)

Professor al-Ghul has recently published an excellent treatment of four new Safaitic inscriptions from Birak al-Wisād (Jordan) in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy: DOI: 10.1111/aae.12172. 

These texts contain some new lexical items and expressions that are difficult to interpret. Here, I wish to make a few remarks on the term ʾns that occurs in GBW 2. Al-Ghul reads and translates the text as follows:

Transliteration

l ys¹lm bn ġṯ ḏ ʾl ʾty w wrd h-nhy s¹nt brḥ wrṯn h-rm w ḏkr ns¹r w ʾlhh w wrd h-ʾwl ʾns¹

Translation

"By Ys¹lm son of Ġṯ of the lineage of ʾty. And he went down to the pool, the year Wrṯn left to h-Rm. And he remembered Ns¹r and ʾlhh. And he went down to the water as the first of (all) people"

Prof. al-Ghul cautiously suggests the translation of wrd h-ʾwl ʾns¹ as 'he went down to the water as the first of people', which would be a literal translation of the words as attested previously in Safaitic. While grammatically possible, it is unclear to me what such a sentence would mean. And so I wish to suggest an alternative interpretation and translation, which may be confirmed or disqualified by the discovery of new texts. 

The verb wrd 'to go down/to water' is often configured with temporal phrases, months, seasons, time periods. I would submit that ʾns¹, perhaps to be vocalized as ʾanīs, refers to a period of habitation or perhaps even larger, seasonal tribal gatherings. The use of ʾanīs to refer to the occupation of a certain site is attested, for example, in the Muʿallaqah of Labīd:

دِمَنٌ تَجَـرَّمَ بَعْدَ عَهْدِ أَنِيسِهَـا

حِجَـجٌ خَلَونَ حَلالُهَا وَحَرامُهَا

"traces (of a site) abandoned after its time of habitation

entire years desolate, both sacred and profane months"

I would therefore suggest re-parsing the clause as: wrd-h ʾwl ʾns¹ 'he went down to it (i.e. the pool, mentioned earlier in the text) at the beginning of the period of ʾns¹', where this period refers to the time when tribes gather together and settle around bodies of water. Now, there are some indications that ʾns could be understood as a time period in the published corpus of inscriptions. Let's see: 

WH 3730

w ẓlm f h rḍy wqyt m-bʾs¹ ʾns¹ w ġnmt m- s²nʾ

'he suffered oppression so O Roḍay protect from the affliction of ʾns and let him have spoil from enemies'

In this case, the understanding of ʾns is ambiguous. It could be taken as a time period, perhaps a dry season in light of GWB 2, or simply the generic noun 'man'. 

ASFF 229

rʿy h-ʾnḫl b-qmr h-ʾns¹y

'he pastured the valleys during the moon/month of ʾns¹y'

I have previously suggested¹ that ʾns¹y should be perhaps understood as Virgo and/or the month corresponding to it. Incidentally, this would be a period in the summer where tribes would have to gather at places of water. 

References

ASFF = Inscriptions gathered by S. Abbadi and published on OCIANA.

WH = Winnett, F.V. & Harding, G.L. Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns. (Near and Middle East Series, 9). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978.

¹Al-Jallad, A. 2016. Ancient Arabian Zodiac II. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 27: 84 – 106, pg. 95.