This paper presents a new Nabataean inscription dedicated to the Nabataean chief god Dushara and dated to the thirteenth year of the reign of the Nabataean king Malichus II (ad 40–70). It mentions the dedication of ʿlyʾ, a cultic feature rarely attested in Nabataean.Wetensch. publicati

Al-Salameen, Zeyad

Leiden University Scholary Publications

Arabian Epigraphic Noteshttp://www.arabianepigraphicnotes.orgISSN: 2451-8875E-mail alerts: To be notified by e-mail when a new article is published, write“subscribe” to editor@arabianepigraphicnotes.org.Twitter: Subscribe to the Journal on Twitter for updates: @AENJournal.Terms of usage: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. © the author.A Publication of the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabiahttp://www.hum.leiden.edu/leicensaa/A New Dedicatory NabataeanInscription Dated to ad 53Zeyad Al-SalameenDepartment of Archaeology and Tourism,Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, JordanArabian Epigraphic Notes 2 (2016): 151‒160.Published online: 29 September 2016.Link to this article: http://hdl.handle.net/1887/43218Arabian Epigraphic Notes 2 (2016): 151-160A New Dedicatory NabataeanInscription Dated to ad 53Zeyad Al-Salameen(Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Jordan)AbstractThis paper presents a new Nabataean inscription dedicated to the Naba-taean chief god Dushara and dated to the thirteenth year of the reign ofthe Nabataean king Malichus II (ad 40–70). It mentions the dedication ofʿlyʾ, a cultic feature rarely attested in Nabataean.Keywords: Nabataean inscriptions, cultic practice, Dushara1 IntroductionThe photograph of the text that is discussed here was sent to me for identi-fication by a person who claimed that he saw it in Petra. Despite repeatedattempts to visit the site where the text was seen, it has not been possible tofind it. The author was able to study the text depending merely on the availablephotographs.The inscription is of the dedicatory type. Dedicatory inscriptions are at-tested on Nabataean architectural remains including temples, altars and othercultic features and they record dedications made by individuals and corporategroups to deities and rulers. A considerable number of dedications were madeto Dushara (Healey 2001: 86, 105; Zayadine 2003: 59) who is normally linkedwith the royal family (Dijkstra 1995: 313). Dedications offered to this god werereferred to in several Nabataean texts found in the Negev (Negev 1963: 113–117), Arabia (Savignac & Starcky 1957), the Hauran (Healey 2001: 98), Petra(cis II, 443), Miletus (Cantineau 1930–1932: 46), and even as far away as Italy(cis II, 158) and southern Arabia (Nebes 2006). Nabataean marble bases forstatues have been found also in Pozzuoli in addition to many Latin inscribedfragments that mention dvsari sacrvm, meaning “sacred to Dushara”, datedprobably to the end of the first century bc and the beginning of the first centuryad (Schmid 2004: 420–421).Several Nabataean temples were built for the worshipping of Dushara andthese include the temple of Qasr al-Bint (Zayadine 1986: 243, 245). An im-portant example of the Petraean dedications made to this god is found in theTurkmāniyyeh tomb inscription from Petra which refers to dedications of prop-erties to Dushara. The texts states:… and all the rest of the property which is in these places are sacredand dedicated to Dushara, the god of our lord, and his sacred throne151A NEW NABATAEAN DEDICATORY INSCRIPTIONand all the gods, (as) in the documents of consecration accordingto their contents. (Healey 1993: 238)The stone was incised with straight lines, probably by the engraver. Theseincisions indicate that the engraver made mistakes that he corrected by re-wrote some letters again (see figure 1), indicating that the engraver may nothave prepared fully for his work.2 The textThe text consists of three lines engraved on a broken piece of well-cut andsmoothed sandstone (20 cm by 5 cm). The letters are irregular in size butwith identical spacing. They can be clearly read except on the right-hand sidewhich has been defaced and the beginning of the second and third lines whichare missing. The form of the letters resemble texts that have been dated to thereign of Malichus II and Rabbel II.Figure 1: Photograph of the inscription152Z. AL-SALAMEENFigure 2: Drawing of the inscription (drawn by Z. al-Salameen). Grey indicatesbreaks in the stone and blue shows the scratches that represent writing mistakesmade by the writer.2.1 TransliterationThe text reads as follows:d[nh] ʿlyʾ dy qrb brʿtʾ ldwšrʾ dy.....šnt ʿšr wtlt lmlkw mlkʾ...ʿl ḥyy npšh wbrth2.2 TranslationTh[is is] the high place / platform which brʿtʾ dedicated to Dushara who……the year 13 of (the rule of) Malichus the king…for his own life and his daughter2.3 Commentaryd[nh]: “this” (Hoftijzer & Jongeling 1995: 333ff). The second and parts of thethird letters are not clearly visible but our reconstruction of this word, whichis common in Nabataean, is almost certain.ʿlyʾ: Nehmé has already published a Nabataean text with ʿlyʾ. This is aninscription from Mṣayfra in Hauran dedicated to Baalshamin and dated to thereign of Rabbel II (Nehmé 2010: n. 3). The text mentions šrkw ʿlyʾ which hasbeen translated as “le participant/associé de la hauteur (du haut lieu ?)”. Theexact meaning of this word in this text does not correspond to the meaning ofʿlyʾ which is attested in the text that is being dealt with here.153A NEW NABATAEAN DEDICATORY INSCRIPTIONThe word appears in Aramaic with the meaning “height, that which is situ-ated on high” (Hoftijzer & Jongeling 1995: 843). Words derived from the rootʿlʾ are attested in Nabataean inscriptions and they are found in texts referringto cultic dedications that represent ”high features”. The word ʿlytʾ “the high” isattested in a Nabataean inscription from Hauran (cis II, 164). It may be com-pared with the word ʿlwtʾ “the altars” that is attested in a text engraved on analtar found in Hauran and mentions a dedication made to the god Baalshamin(Healey 2009: 207).dy: the well-known relative pronoun meaning “which, that”.qrb: This is the standard verb used in Nabataean to dedicate objects to godsand goddesses, “to offer, dedicate”. It occurs frequently in Nabataean Aramaic,Hebrew, Palmyrene and Hatraean (Hoftijzer & Jongeling 1995: 1029).brʿtʾ: This is the name of the dedicator. The name appears in the form ofbrʿtw, in Nabataean texts found in Sinai (Negev 1991: 17), but has not previ-ously appeared in Nabataean in its current form. This compound name consistsof br “son of” and ʿtʾ which is derived from the Arabic root ʿt that means “toimportune, tease” (Harding 1971: 404). The name is attested in Palmyrene(Stark 1971: 12) and North Arabian inscriptions (Harding 1971: 120).ldwšrʾ: “to/for Dushara”. Dushara was the major Nabataean deity. Hisname, which means “the one of the Shara mountains”, is mentioned frequentlyin Nabataean and North Arabian inscriptions, and was given several epithets inthe Nabataean inscriptions, including “Lord of the House (i.e. temple), “Lordof heaven and earth”, “God of our Lord (the king)” and “the one who separatesnight from day” (Zayadine 2003: 59).šnt ʿšr wtlt: “year thirteen” of the rule of Malichus II (ad 40–70), whichcorresponds to ad 53.lmlkw mlkʾ: “to Malichus the king”. There were two Nabataean kings whoare known to have borne this name: Malichus I (59–30 bc) and Malichus II(ad 40–70). The forms of the letters indicate that it should be dated to theMalichus II who ascended the throne in ad 40. He was the son of Aretas IV(9 bc–ad 40) as mentioned in Nabataean inscriptions.Our understanding of the Nabataean history duringMalichus II’s reign is notclear and the only historical reference that mentions Malichus II is Josephus.He talks about the Jewish war against the Romans that took place in ad 67and mentions that Malichus sent 1000 cavalry and 5000 infantry to supportthe Romans (War III, 68).ʿl ḥyy: “for the life of”. This formula is common in Nabataean, Palmyrene,Edessan and Hatraean dedicatory inscriptions of the first three centuries ad(Healey 2001: 178–180; 2009: 53). Healey concluded that the inscriptions thatinclude this formula are mostly expressions of political loyalty (2001: 178).Dijkstra says that the employment of ʿl ḥyy “suggests that whoever reads thetext is invited to pay his respect to the Nabataean royal family. In arguing suchan attitude on this part of the reader, the dedicator shows his allegiance to hislegitimate overlords” (1995: 65). Anderson (2005: 124) considers that thisphrase “which seems to be an honorific akin to the Greek euergetistic termsτιμῆς χάριν and τιμῆς ἕνεκεν, commemorates the dedicator’s allegiance to thehonored”.There are few ʿl ḥyy Nabataean inscriptions with benificiaries other thanroyalty and those include an inscription that contains the formula ʿl ḥyyh npšh“for the life of himself” (Milik 1958: 247). One dedicatory text from Taymāʾ154Z. AL-SALAMEENalludes to a dedication to Manāt ʿl ḥyy “for the life of his soul and the soul ofhis offspring in eternity” (Dijkstra 1995: 74).npš-h: “self”, with 3rd masculine singular pronoun.w brt-h: “and his daughter”, with 3rd masculine singular pronoun.3 Nabataean dedications: DiscussionThere are only two historical sources that provide us with limited informationon Nabataean offerings and dedications. The first is Strabo who said that theNabataeans worshipped the sun and they used to burn frankincense in theircultic rituals (Strabo XVI.4.26). This has been confirmed by the discovery ofincense burners the remains of burnt frankincense (Hammond 1996: 132–133;Farajat & Nawafleh 2005: 381).The second historical source that alludes to similar practices is the Byzan-tine lexicon the Suda, which refers to pouring out the blood of sacrificial ani-mals as a libation (online at http://www.stoa.org/sol). The offering of sac-rificial animals while practicing certain cults has been confirmed archaeolog-ically and Nabataean discoveries in Sinai have confirmed that some animalswere sacrificed within the temple complex (Struder 2007: 267). In addition,the relief found near al-Deir, which represents two camels being led to a betylby worshippers, indicates this practice (Dalman 1908: 276). The discovery ofterracotta figurines representing animals may be linked with sacrificial activi-ties (El-Khoury 2002).Our main source of information on Nabataean offerings and dedications isepigraphy. The Winged Lion inscription mentions that payments made to thetemple as offerings, and these normally consisted of silver or gold, or currencyeither bronze or silver (Hammond et al. 1986).Many Nabataean inscriptions provide us with a series of religious construc-tions and cultic dedications made or financed by ordinary citizens such as:ṣlmʾ and ṣlmtʾ “statue” (Cantineau 1930–1932: 6; Littmann 1914: 103), ps[ylw]“sculpture”? (Littmann 1914: 18), msgdʾ “cult-stone, a cult-niche with a betyl,altar” (Littmann 1914: 24; Healey 2001: 78), ḥmnʾ “fire-altar” or “temple”(Littmann 1914: 27; Healey 2001: 78), bnynʾ “building” (Littmann 1914: 28),bytʾ, byrtʾ and mḥrmtʾ “temple” (cis II, 182; Littmann 1914: 100; Savignac &Starcky 1957), rbʿtʾ and ʾrbʿnʾ ”cella, rectangular sanctuary” (Hoftijzer & Jon-geling 1995: 1058), qṣr “cella, camp” (Healey 2001: 78), ʾrktʾ “pillar or portico”(Healey 2001: 78), mwtbʾ “part of an altar” (Healey 2001: 79), mṣbʾ “image inbas-relief” (Hoftijzer & Jongeling 1995: 675), mgmr dhnʾ and wkpt kyṣʾ “theoil-burner (or oil-burning lamp?) and the summer vessel (?)” (Al-Salameen& Falahat 2014), mnr and mnrtʾ “lamp” (Al-Salameen 2014, Al-Salameen &Shdaifat 2014).Names of dedications derived from the roots ʿlʾ and ʿlh are attested in Nab-ataean. These include ʿlwtʾ “the altars” and ʿlytʾ “the high” that are attested inNabataean dedications found in Hauran (Healey 2009: 207; cis II, 164). Thefeature that is mentioned in our current text is ʿlyʾ which seems to be a form ofaltars to which this stone fragment was seemingly fixed. This word is parallelto the Canaanite and Hebrew bāmâ which was used to mean raised platformor high place (Hoftijzer & Jongeling 1995: 167; Gesenius 1844: 119). Thisword occurs many time in the Hebrew Bible and was used to describe a raised155A NEW NABATAEAN DEDICATORY INSCRIPTIONconstruction, which is similar, in terms of its linguistic meaning to ʿlyʾ “high,rising ground or platform” that occurs in our current inscription.Address for Correspondence: zeyad.mahdi@gmail.com156Z. AL-SALAMEENSiglacis Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars Secunda, Inscriptiones Ara-maicas Continens, 1889.ReferencesAl-Salameen, Z. 2014. 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A New Dedicatory Nabataean Inscription Dated to AD 53

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A New Dedicatory Nabataean Inscription Dated to AD 53

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