Twitter user @Alsarem_15 (Mamdūḥ al-Fāḍil) recently posted a Thamudic B inscription with an interesting prayer.
The short text reads:
h rḍw ḫmr ly
The inscription attests for the first time the verb ḫmr in Thamudic B in an unambiguous context. The verb should be compared to Ancient South Arabian ḫmr 'to grant', for example:
w-l-ḫmr-hw ʾlmqh s²rḥ l-hw yd-hw
may ʾlmqh grant him safety for him of his hand
Thus, in the present inscription, ḫmr should be understood as 'to grant', with a gapped object, likely a boon. I would suggest the following translation.
'O Ruḍaw, grant me (a boon).'
Note also the spelling of the prepositional phrase 'to me' as ly. The graphic notation of the first person singular suffix with y indicates that it is consonantal, as matres lectionis (vowel letters) were not employed in Thamudic B. This, in turn, suggests the pronunciation /liya/.
I know this is sort of an irrelevant question and deals with hypotheticals, but would it be crazy to entertain the possibility of a "Zabur" equivalent of Safaitic writing? Since I assume that there is some connection with the South Arabian cultural sphere among some of the nomads, they may have picked up some of their writing technology for producing documents. This of course assumes that nomads would have use for producing documentation.
ReplyDelete