The Ancient Arabian Kingdom of Lihyan ملخص

7/21/2019 The Ancient Arabian Kingdom of Lihyan

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THE ANCIENT ARABIAN KINGDOM OF LIHYAN

By Prof. Werner Caskel, Ph.D.

[An Address Delivered on the Anniversary of the Founding of the University of

Cologne, West Germany, May 24, 1950. Translated by R.W. Lebli ng.]

One who encounters ancient North Arabian inscriptions for the first time feels somewhatlike the foreigner whom E.T.A. Hoffmann led into the Artushof in Danzig: Now a

magical bright-dimness crept through the cloudy windows, and all the curious pictures

and carvings with which the walls were everywhere decorated, became lively and vivid.Stags with monstrous antlers, other wondrous beasts looked down on you with glowing

eyes It is not the inscriptions themselves that awaken this feeling, but the grotesque

things that one reads in them, and the arbitrariness with which one moves them from one

time period to another. Indeed, it is not an easy matter to interpret inscriptions whosealphabet is still not totally known and whose understanding is scarcely illuminated

through other sources, without fantasy being unleashed.

Deep in Arabia, 975 km south of Damascus, lie the ruins of the city of Dedn in a narrowvalley amid bare rocks of red sandstone usually covered with a dark lava cap. Five days

travel to the west lies the Red Sea; to the northwest lie the ancient gold mines of Midian.

Through a valley to the northeast a path travels to distant Mesopotamia, but the mostimportant communication route leads through the valley of Dedn itself, the very ancient

road that runs from the Indian Ocean through West Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea.1

The caravans that plied this route brought besides Indian and African goods the two

products of which South Arabia had a near-monopoly, frankincense and myrrhtradeitems that have been forever glorified by the figures of the three Wise Men from the East,

the three Holy Kings. During the first millennium before Christ this trade was carried onthrough two South Arabian peoples, the Minaeans and the Sabaeans. The Minaeansestablished two colonies on this route, one right in Dedn and the other in Higra, situated

15 km farther north. All the more noteworthy is the fact that the Old Testament, which

has much to say about the Sabaeans, is apparently silent about the Minaeans. Apparently!For Dedn, which is mentioned often, appears in the genealogy of the descendants of

Abraham from [his wife] Ketura (Gen. 25:3) and in the so-called Tablet of the People

(Gen. 10:7) as a brother of Saba. That leaves us with only one explanation: When the Old

Testament speaks of Dedanites, it means Minaeans.2The reason for this usage is clear: In

the north one heard only about the Minaean colonists, because the South Arabian

Minaeans brought the goods only as far as Dedn, where they were taken over by their

fellow countrymen for further transport; this colony served the sole purpose of shorteningthe long and difficult journey.

Another question: Immediately after the first Assyrian thrust against the Arabs, which

followed the surrender of the city of Damascus and the Northern Kingdom of Israel in theyear 733/732 [B.C.], the Sabaeans declared themselves ready to pay tribute, in order to

protect their caravans from the grip of the Assyrians, as did all the North Arabian oases

involved in trade. Why is Dedn absent, why are the Minaeans absent, from the relevant


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and subsequent Assyrian accounts3of Arabian affairs? There is only one possible answer:

The Minaeans traded at that time not with the Assyrian area, but instead with Egypt.4The

remains of Minaean Dedn under Egyptian influence are, apart from the inscriptions,unfortunately scant. Sphinx-like monsters keep watch from the tops of the Minaean stone

tombs, a (later?) statue displays the typical Egyptian hairstyle. The Minaeans relations

with Egypt lasted until or beyond the end of the Minaean kingdom. Minaean merchantsremained in Egypt during the Persian period.5Through an inscription on a sarcophagus of

the Ptolemaic period6we become acquainted with a Minaean who was an Egyptian priest,

and who in this capacity imported myrrh and spices from his homeland and exported fine

linen to that country.

The Minaean colony at Dedn collapsed at the same time that the motherland was

subjugated by the Sabaeans. This event cannot be dated precisely; it appears to have

happened at the beginning of the second century B.C., as we shall see.

Dedn becomes independent, and it introduces a new cult andsomething in the ancient

East closely connected with ita new script. This form of writing developed from avariation of the South Arabian Minaean-Sabaean script. Forerunners of this new script

appear on some pieces of jewelry, two of them of uncertain origin: a gem, a scarab and a

seal cylinder.7Until now the script has been determined according to the age of the

pictorial representations on these pieces, without inquiring much about the evidence ofthe script itself. This is of course unacceptable, for the script may have been added later.

There is a seal cylinder with the inscription: pledge of so-and-so.8Obviously this

inscription was not made at the same time as the object. Now the words, particularly thenames, on the three jewelry pieces are Aramaic. The inscription on the gem,

9which is

estimated at 450 B.C., can perhaps be contemporary with the stone itself. In comparison,

the inscriptions on the other two are also found on 700 pieces estimated to date from

Seleucid times,10

at the earliest from the third century B.C.11

Where did this scriptoriginate? Wherenot far from Dednwere Aramaic letters written along with South

Arabian ones? Only one place comes to mind, lying two and a half days travel northeast

of Dedn, the oasis of Tayma, in whose neighborhood we find on a rock an inscription ofthe same kind as on the jewelry pieces.

12Here Aramaic was used as a written language,

probably under the last Babylonian king (Nabonidus), from 550 B.C., and certainly under

his successors, the Persian Great Kings, from 539 B.C.13

Persian rule over Tayma,however, did not last long, so that the influence of the neighboring Minaean colony was

able to maintain itself. Thus in Tayma Aramaic continued to be written, but from the end

of the fifth century with slightly modified South Arabian letters.

This script was then adopted by Dedn with further changes, only here Aramaic was not

written but rather the indigenous North Arabian. This new language and culture, seen in

individual names in Minaean inscriptions in Dedn, had slowly arisen alongside the

South Arabian.14

On the other hand, much of the old survived for many years beside thenew. In the graffitiinscriptions mostly of a private character carved in the rocks is

found a colorful mix of South Arabian and Dedanite letters, and South Arabian

orthography shows up even in public inscriptions.15

The names of Minaean gods andfamilies survive, and the only king in Dedn of whom we are aware also bears Minaean


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names. The only one! Although many inscriptions have certainly been lost, that suggests

a short life-span for this city-state. At the latest around 150 B.C. a neighboring people,

the Lihyn, seized the city and made it the center of a small kingdom. It appears that thefirst king of the Lihyn was a foreigner from the north, perhaps a Nabataean,

16a member

of that merchant people which, originally confined to the area south of the Dead Sea,

began to expand into other territories in the second century.The precedent that aforeigner appears as founder of a kingdom has many parallels in Arabian history.17

Shortly afterwards, however, we find an indigenous royal family among the Lihyn,

which appears to have ruled for over 150 years. This dynasty continued the Egyptian

tradition of Dedn, as the royal names Tachmai and Tulmai/Ptolemy18

demonstrate.

The Lihyanite inscriptions, considered externally, are broken down into three types:

First, carefully worked relief inscriptions, e.g., on the pedestals of statues. Only a few

of these have been found at their original sites. Most pieces have been reused asbuilding material in the houses and garden walls of the neighboring modern oasis of

al-Ula. Second, inscriptions on the rock walls. For the most part they stand several meters

above the ground, and their execution is thus not so careful as with those mentionedpreviously, which were produced in the workshop. Also parts of some of these

inscriptions have been broken off and transformed into building materials, and others

have suffered from the influences of weather.

Finally, graffiti, which have been scratched on rocks.

The inscriptions are generally dated in two ways, either according to the years of rule of

the king or according to the era; the dating according to kings years, as the charactersdemonstrate, is the later one.

19For most of the inscriptions, the era can only be the South

Arabian, beginning in 115 B.C.

20

This fits the only ancient reference to the Lihyn,

21

inPliny (Hist. Nat.VI, 155: Lechieni), which certainly goes back to an earlier source. Forthree inscriptions, the Bostra era (beginning in 106 A.D.) enters the picture. Theinscriptions dated according to the South Arabian era begin with Year 1 and end in Year

60.22

If we add 25 to thisfor within this series there is a gap of 25 yearswe reach the

year 30 B.C. The few inscriptions23

that are dated according to kings years, if we doublethe figures (to account for longer periods of rule and perhaps lost inscriptions), point to

16 A.D. The reason for the change in dating method is easy to determine. After the

Nabataeans pushed their southern border to Higra, only four hours from Dedn, theLihyn came under Nabataean influence; the Nabataeans dated their inscriptions

according to kings years.

In this careful calculation lies an uncertainty factor that cannot be totally eliminated. Thekingdom may have come to an end some decades earlier or later. Our estimate, however,

is corroborated to a certain extent by Strabos brief account of the campaign which Aelius

Gallus undertook to South Arabia in the years 25-24 B.C. under orders from the EmperorAugustus. Aelius Gallus disembarked at Leuce Come, a distantly situated Nabataean port,

west-southwest of Dedn,24

where today a temple of Hellenistic or Roman style still

stands. After a march of many days, Aelius Gallus reached the territory of Aretas, a


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relative of the ruling Nabataean king. This cannot be Dedn, for Strabo, as he continually

does in his account, would have mentioned the city. Secondly, Dedn lies five to six, not

many, days travel from the port. Also, the march proceeded not toward the northwestbut toward the southeast, and reached the frankincense route above Medina. In this area,

the Nabataeans had established a colony to direct the caravans to their port at Leuce

Come or to exact a toll from those that wished to continue their journey on thefrankincense route through the Lihyanite kingdom. Thus the Lihyanite kingdom stillexisted at that time.

The Lihyanite kingdom seems to have expanded mainly toward the south. In the valley ofDedn, ancient watering places and ruins extend for 20 km to the south, and to the

southwest, Wadi al-Jizl is covered kilometer-wide with ruins.25

Unfortunately the

inscriptions, which may contain hints of places and incidents outside of Dedn, are so

damaged that they allow us only a glimpse of the life of the Lihyanite community withinthe city. This community shares with antiquity the connection of the law to the gods, with

the ancient East the economic meaning of the temple, and with South Arabia the public

nature of the legal system and many other features.

Three gods and one goddess were worshipped in Lihyanite Dedn. The chief deityin

authentic Arabian traditionwas identified only by a descriptive name: Dh Ghbat, the

Lord of the Thicket. Thick tree growth is so rare in Arabia that such a place is sufficientto suggest a divine presence. The temple precinct of Dh Ghbat lay in the middle of the

city. In the broad inner courtyard stands a more than two-meter-high water basin, carved

from a natural sandstone rock, with steps leading into it: clearly designed for culticcleansings. In a hall adjoining the courtyard on the north side stands a row of statues, and

on the opposite side are two much larger-than-lifesize figures. All were sacred offerings,

representing the deities, and not just Dh Ghbat; other gods were also guests here.

The second god was called Salmn, a name derived from a Semitic root meaning peace

and welfare. He seems to have borne the descriptive name Ab Ilf, Harmony Giver.26

I

suspect that he was the god of the caravans. Harmony appears in the Koran27

as a divinegift that enabled the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad to make the caravan trade a

community activity.

The third god bears the curious name Servant of Scribe (where Scribe stands as a proper

name without the article). I suspect that this scribe is the Egyptian god Thoth,28

the scribe

of the gods and patron of wisdom, for the following reason: In all sacred Lihyanite

inscriptions is found a wish-formula for the offerer; an authentic Semitic expression, itreads: Life, luck and posterity! Scholars have puzzled a great deal over this formula,

lthough only the first word offers serious difficulties. The word means literally notch,

and is usually found in the wish as notches, sometimes two notches, and once a

notch. Now Egyptian Thoth is represented by a notched tally stick. In the description ofa well-known scene, it says: Thoth, the Scribe of the Gods, marks on his tally stick the

millions of years which the heavenly ones give to the king. Certainly the sensible Arabs

did not wish for millions of years. How many years a notch meant to them, we can onlyguess.


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Among the statues in the temple of Dh Ghbat are found two images of a foreign god:

Aglibon,29

who was later worshipped under the name Aglibol in the large caravan city ofthe north, Palmyra. The images were offered by a worshipper of Dh Ghbat who had

taken a trip. The power of the gods of Dedn did not extend to foreign lands. By the way,

the vow was fulfilled by his sons, as in another case a mothers vow was fulfilled by herdaughter.30

Often the inscriptions are silent about the reason for the offering of statues. One

inscription reads31

: Because of the catastrophe probably an earthquakewhich DhGhbat inflicted upon the temple and the people of Dedn assembled there, thus in

thanks for deliverance or to propitiate the wrath of the god.

Also people were offered to the gods: a slave was presented to Dh Ghbat by his threeowners. A girl was offered to Salmn by her mother, perhaps as a hierodule [temple

priestess], as was customary among the Minaeans.32

At the foot of the steep mountain

slope to the east lay a second open place of worship, with stone benches from which thecongregation watched the offering ceremonies.33

The stone wall rising behind it served to

some extent as a blackboard! Here events were recorded that affected the community,

as well as occasionally, from our perspective, totally personal things between man and

god. For example, it is recorded that a young woman expiated an offense by her father.However, in the ancient East, people thought differently than we do. The sin of the

individual disturbs the divine order, the relationship between the human community and

the gods. Thus the congregation takes part in an atonement ceremony which has beenpreceded by a confession of sin.

34In addition to the congregation, at least at the

beginning of the second century A.D., there exist two societies. One is called

Hedgehog, and the other appears also to have been named for an animal.35

I suspect

that these societies were formed to manage the caravan trade. But they were alsoreligious associations; for they possess a place with a bench amid the ranks of the

congregation at this place of worship.

The offenses of murder and manslaughter were also recorded on the blackboard.36

This

consists in one case of offerings for the godswhich for Dh Ghbat is replaced by

donation of a statueand a substantial delivery of wine37

to the temple. The family of theslain person

38receives blood money.However, in this connection, the power of the

gods extends only to the community of the Lihyn in Dedn. For in another case,

involving the murder of a foreigner on the road from the harbor to the city, atonement

offerings appear to have been demanded, but for unnamed gods. The murderer refused toatone, so he had to turn over his share of the booty to a trustworthy intermediary.

39

South of the blackboard, many rectangular loaves have been embossed into the rock,

side by side and atop one another. Before them lie graves, which have been sunk into therocky ground, occasionally two of them stacked, one on top of the other. This is the city

of the dead for Minaean and Lihyanite Dedn. In the graves were found scraps of burial

garments, sandals and splinters from wooden coffins.The grave inscriptions containnothing personal, but instead merely a statement mentioning the owner of the grave site


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or of a place staked out for it at the rock wall, more frequently an indication of the

heirs, and less often a formulaic curse against anyone who would deface the inscription.

Near one grave, a man recorded what had been revealed to him in a deep sleep. This is a

dream oracle.40

The inscription is young; even younger is another that five Lihyanites

who lived in neighboring Higra inscribed in the vicinity of a rock sanctuary.

41

Aftertaking part in a religious festival, they proclaimed to a god that one of their fellowtribesmen had committed a dubious act. It is possible that this inscription has no other

purpose than to inform the godfor the gods read inscriptionsthat the five men

distance themselves from this act. However it is more likely that the men are awaiting adecision on the type of sin, perhaps here too through a dream oracle, for the god bears the

name He Who Creates Hearing, and thus the ability to perceive the divine voice.

Now let us return from Higra to Dedn.

The temple of Dh Ghbat or, as the inscriptions assert, the god himself, possessed herds

of camels and urban real estate; it is indeed only by chance that we hear nothing of rural

land ownership. The urban property consisted of towers, i.e., tall houses. This is abuilding type that is widespread today in West and South Arabia, particularly in Mecca

and in Hadramaut. This technique was employed in Dedn under the Minaeans, evidently

because the valley is so narrow that the city could not expand except at the expense of

cultivated land.The camels were doubtless hired out to the caravans.The revenuesfrom the buildings and the herds, whose management was handled by three persons at a

time, were used to pay for construction in the temple precinct.42

Actual economic texts are rare. One such surviving inscription is a bill for the

production of irrigation works.

In contrast to the congregation, the royalty had no close connection to the cult. Only oncedo we hear of two kings donating doors and other items for a sanctuary.43Also the

function of the ruler, at least in Dedn itself, is limited; for the word translated as rule

actually means only review or perhaps oversight. That same word is used to describethe activity of regents who do not bear the title king of the Lihyn but who, judging

from their names, could have belonged to a branch of the royal family.44

There were also times of anarchy, e.g., in the first half of the second century A.D. From

this period originate three reports of murder.45

Two of them are dated with a specific day,

something that otherwise never appears in the inscriptions. In one of them the murderer,

thanks to a signal from the dying man, was seized and humbled by the latterscompanions, and two objects were taken from the killer, probably as security, similar to

the Bedouins pre-Islamic custom of cutting off forelocks of hair from prisoners of war

before releasing them, as proof for later demands of ransom. In any case, no recompense

was made apart from satisfying the legal regulations.

The final era takes us far beyond the end of the kingdom of Lihyn. This end occurs, as

we have said, after 24 B.C. and was certainly brought about by the Nabataeans. A halfcentury later, Nabataean troops were stationed in Dedn; an inscription survives from


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their general, who had his headquarters in Higra.46

But this occupation appears to have

lasted only a short time.Dedn lived on, first under regents and then, as later did so

many oases and cities of the Arabian world, as a community without a government.The threat from the north dwindled in the year 106, when the Syrian part of the

Nabataean kingdom was absorbed by Rome. Roman influence, which soon afterwards

encroached upon the Arabian part of the Nabataean territory,

47

did not reach Dedn. The(Greek) inscriptions of the legionaries who accompanied the caravans end 10 km beforeDedn, i.e., as the distribution of the graffiti along this route demonstrates, at the old

boundary between the Lihyn and the Nabataeans.48

Here merchandise was transferred.

Commerce thus continued until, in the third century, the second great trade route of theOrient, which led through the Persian Gulf to the banks of the Euphrates and across the

Syrian Desert to Palmyra, eclipsed the frankincense route. At that time too the Lihyn

switched their trade route to the east. This route ended at Hira, a locality founded at the

same time, in the third century, on the near side of the Euphrates, 150 km south ofBaghdad. Here memories of the Lihyn and of a town quarter named for them were

preserved up until the seventh century.49

This is not the only trace left by the Lihyn in

the east. Some 175 km south of Hira, on an old trade and later pilgrimage route to WestArabia, lies a station called Salmn, a name that is not found among the otherwise

frequently recurring Arabian place-names.50

The settlement had thus been named for the

god Salmn, guardian of the caravans, for whom the Lihyanite merchants had founded a

place of worship there. In the sixth century, the Bedouins of that area worshipped a godnamed Muharriq. The gods change, the sacred places remain.

Dedn seems to have perished at the end of the third century. Soon afterwards we find inthe area a population that writes in Nabataean, among them many Jews, who left behind

some Hebraic inscriptions. At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, Jews constituted the

only population of Wdi al-Qur, as the oases in the valley of Dedn were sometimes

called.

Now a word about the language of the Lihyn. It is a forerunner of classical Arabic, upon

which it moves before our eyes. Of course it lacks the conceptual worldview of theBedouins, from which classical Arabic derived its words, phrases and compositions. The

culture, or if you will, the unculture of the Bedouin world, in which oral poetry stands in

the place of the written word, lies after the time of our inscriptions.

ABBREVIATIONS

JGJaussen et Savignac,Mission Archologique en Arabie, vols. I, II, texts, atlas, Paris1909-1914.

MllerD.H. Mller,Epigraphische Denkmler aus Arabien, Denkschriften Ak.Vienna, phil.-hist., vol. 37, 1889.

Winnett F.V. Winnett,A Study of the Lihyanite and Thamudic Inscriptions, Universityof Toronto Studies, Oriental Series, No. 3, Toronto 1937.


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GrimmeH. Grimme,Neubearbeitung der wichtigeren Dedanischen und LihjanischenInschriften, Le Muson, vol. L, Louvain 1937.

1 Here we should note the stimulating book by Carl Rathjens,Die Pilgerfahrt nach Mekka, Von der

Weihrauchstrae zur lwirtschaft, Hamburg, 1948.

2 This contradicts the theory of Grimme, pp. 271, 279, who sets the end of the Minaean colony at 650 on

the basis of the biblical passage, just like the proof that Winnett, p. 50, derives for this.

3 Conveniently compiled by Trude Weiss Rosmarin,Aribi und Arabien in den Babylonisch-AssyrischenQuellen,New York 1932.

4 Later the Minaeans also engaged in trade with Syria and Assyria. Cf. M. Rostovtzeff, Caravan Cities,Oxford 1922, p. 22.

5 Rostovtzeff, p. 21.

6

ZS, Vol. 2, 1924, p. 113 ff.

7 Mller, Tablet V, cf. p. 119 f.Cohen,Documents Sudarabiques, Pl. XV, 34; cf. p. 51 ff. Cf. Winnett, p.49 f.

8 W.H. Ward, The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, Washington 1910, fig. 1209, p. 353.

9Il-Yahab agga-Ddwith a phonetically proper rendering of the Aramaicsand with hasMater lectionisaccording to a mistaken Minaean model.

10 (Scarab) Schagga-Dad with the same rendering of the Aramaicsas in the Uruq inscription originatingin Seleucid times; cf. to the last Schaeder,Iranische Beitrge, I 247, and Rosenthal,Die Sprache der

Palmyrenischen Inschriften, MVAG, Vol. 41, 1, 1936, p. 104.

(Seal cylinder)Parp d Barik ben with the Greek wordporpvery appropriate for the seal cylinder,which the owner wore as a clothing-jewel (accessory). The letter whose reading was previously uncertain is

ap, as shown in JS, No. 190, 197.

11 This contradicts Winnetts (p. 30) estimate of the Dedanite script.

12 Huber,Journal dun voyage en Arabie, Paris 1891, p. 327.

13 It is possible that also in Dedn a Persian governor (Pecha) held power for a short period; for this title or

rather name, cf. Pachat Moab in the Old Testament, occurs in the Lihyanite period; JS, No. 349.

14 Cf. Grimme, p. 271, where nevertheless much must be corrected.

15 JS, No. 194, 206, 220, 249, 364No. 49.

16Mas du is indeed not verified in Nabataean, but other names are found in Nabataean that are built fromthe same root which do not occur at all in Lihyanite.Littmann, in a communication to me, places the

inscription in the second or first century.

17 For example Qusai, who won leadership for the Quraysh over Mecca and the Kaaba. He too, as his name

attests, was a Nabataean. And also here indigenous lineages took over the leadership after him. In later

genealogies he was equated with Zayd, an ancestor of such lineages. That is a typical maneuver of the Arab


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genealogists when they cannot trace a hero or ancestor in the ancestral line. They settled upon Zayd

because he had a son named Abd Qusai. By the way, it is related in one of the legends that the young Zayd

traveled with his mother to Sargh = Qalat al -Mudawwara in the old Nabataean country to the tribe of

Udhra and there was named Qusai. It was known that this name originated in the north, and if the

Nabataeans were not mentioned, it was because this word had become disreputable (used by Christian

farmers in the fringe areas). Sargh is based upon good tradition; for place-names form the historical stage

of Arabian legends. The rest is inventionthe Udhra have never camped so far to the northdetermined

by the political tendency to link the Quraysh with the so-called South Arabian tribes. Incidentally, the

Meccan cult shows borrowings from the Nabataeans, e.g., the god Hubal. Cf. the respective article in the

Encyclopedia of Islam, which I of course must contradict in the preceding.

18 Formed on the analogy of Tachmai = Ptahmai. Also Nabataean for Ptolemy. Cantineau,Le Nabaten,Paris 1930-32, II, 156, and appearing as a proper name, JS, No. 315.

19 This contradicts the genealogy of Winnett,Le Muson, Vol. 51, 1938, p. 308, which by the way fails inan attempt to separate the correlated inscriptions JS, No. 82, 83, into four generations, and the reckoning by

Grimme, p. 295.

20 Or earlier. The date has not been determined precisely, see Mlaker, WZKM, XXXIV, p. 57ff. It is only,

however, a question of only a few years difference.

21 Laeana, Pliny VI, 28.32 after Juba, the Laeanitae, Pliny VI, 156, and the Lae(a)nitic Gulf in Juba/Pliny,

Agatharchides and Diodorus, are distortions of the name Aila, its inhabitants and the Ailanitic Gulf.

22 Mller, No. 8: year 1, JS (No. 72:5), No. 85: 9 (No. 68:20), No. 77: 22 (No. 70:22), No. 82: 29, No. 83:

35; Mller No. 28: 60. The three nos. in parenthesis are to be dated according to the era of Bostra.

23 JS No. 45: in Year 2 of Tulmai b. Hni-Aus; No. 75: in Year 5 of Hni-Aus b. Tulmai.

24 B. Mortizs (Pauli-Wissowa) fixing of its location at the mouth of Wadi al-Hamd is unquestionably

correct.

25

JS, II, Text, p. 26; Musil,Northern Negd, New York 1928, p. 124.Musil, The Northern Hegz, NewYork 1926, p. 212; Twitchell, Saudi Arabia, Princeton 1947, p. 75.

26 Cf. JS, No. 77, 6-7 with No. 72, 2-4. In No. 72, 1 is a theophorous name.

27 106.

28 Erman-Ranke,gypten, Tbingen 1923, p. 324.The Servant belongs to Lihyanite theology.

29 The beginning [of the name] in Grimme, p. 301 f., is certainly to be completed in this way; for the bistotally clear in JS, No. 32.

30 Grimme, p. 318: tomb inscription!

31 JS, No. 41.

32 JS, No. 72.

33 JS, No. 76.

34 JS, No. 52.


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35 (JS, No. 72, Grimme p. 313: tomb inscription!) Nais and Neis. The latter name emerged around 1440

with a tribe in the marshes of lower Iraq, Qdi Nrullh ash-Shshtari, Maglis al-Muminn, Tehran 1268,maglis 8, gund 16; Ksrw Tbrz, Tarch-i pansd sle-i Cuzestn, Tehran 1313, p. 11.

36 JS, No. 77 and 40 have been previously misunderstood, because nafswas interpreted as grave steleafter the example of Nabataean, Palmyrene and South Arabian.

37 For wine growing in Wdi al-Qur = Dedn, see Moritz,Arabien, Hannover 1923, p. 39.

38 Here the guardians of the (underage) siblings of the victim.

39 JS, No. 40. Does not appear on the blackboard.

40 JS, No. 69.

41JS, No. 6.

42 JS, min., No. 10.Mller, No. 8; JS, No. 54. In the former, the third personality appears to have died

before the inscription was erected.

43 JS, No. 53. That the word indicates temple doors results from later Arabic language usage. Cf. also JS,

No. 63, where the discussion is about sacred gates.

44 JS, No. 72, 68, 83; Mller, No. 28, 70. One notes the absence of the royal title in JS, No. 45.

45 JS, No. 67, 68, 70. Previous assertions that no Arab knows his birth date precisely are undermined by a

reference to a prince for whom a horoscope was developed.

46 JS, Nab., No. 216, cf. No. 34, 7; 43; 84.

47 See for example Savignac et Horsfield, Le Temple de Ramm,Revue Biblique, v. 49, Paris 1935, pp.245-278.

48 JS, No. 4-13. Twenty-three Lihyanite graffiti between Dedn and km 964, 37 at km 964; 14 Nabataean

graffiti at km 961, 8 at km 964, and 34 somewhat farther south.

49 Tabar, I, 749. The town quarter of Lihyn is verified through the Vers Htim Tej, ed. Schulthess,Leipzig 1897, No. 49, 6, where Lihyn is to be read instead of Lahyn. The interpretation that L. may be a

castle in Hra, Yaqt, IV, 353, derives from the late legend set forth in the poem. It is more often assumed

that the Bedouin tribe of Lihyn, which camped north of Mecca in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.,

originated from our Lihyn. But this assumption is totally groundless: Our Lihyn had become townspeople

long before this. If they had been transformed back into Bedouinand this is what is assumedthen they

could never have ended up near Mecca; for the direction of migration in this part of West Arabia proceeds

toward the north and east, never toward the south. Incidentally, the name Lihyn occasionally shows up in

our inscriptions and also later as a personal name. It is thus not surprising that we find several origins for

this name.50 The legends in Yaqt, III, 121 f., point to a great age for the place.