Bausi, Alessandro

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Review of Abraham J. Drewes and Jacques Ryckmans, Les inscriptions sudarabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la bibliothèque universitaire de Leiden, Texte révisé et adapté par Peter Stein, édité par Peter Stein et Harry Stroomer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016)

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Aethiopica

     Aethiopica 21 (2018) International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies     ________________________________________________________________  ALESSANDRO BAUSI, Universität Hamburg  Review ABRAHAM J. DREWES and JACQUES RYCKMANS, Les inscriptions sudarabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la biblio-thèque universitaire de Leiden Aethiopica 21 (2018), 243–246 ISSN: 1430-1938 ________________________________________________________________  Edited in the Asien-Afrika-Institut  Hiob-Ludolf-Zentrum für Äthiopistik  der Universität Hamburg Abteilung für Afrikanistik und Äthiopistik   by Alessandro Bausi in cooperation with Bairu Tafla, Ulrich Braukämper †, Ludwig Gerhardt,  Hilke Meyer-Bahlburg, and Siegbert Uhlig Aethiopica 21 (2018) REVIEWS ABRAHAM J. DREWES and JACQUES RYCKMANS, Les inscriptions sud-arabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la bibliothèque universitaire de Leiden, Texte révisé et adapté par Peter Stein, édité par Peter Stein et Harry Stroomer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016). xxxii, 300 pp., 125 pl. Price: €100.80. ISBN: 978­3­447­10589­7. This large volume catalogues and edits the collection of wooden sticks in-scribed with minuscule South Arabian script and in South Arabian lan-guages from the Universiteitsbibliotheek of Leiden. This library holds one of the three largest collections in the world of such objects found in pre­Islamic Yemen; the other two collections being in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and in two museums in Ṣanʿāʾ, Yemen: both have recently been published by Peter Stein (half of the Munich collection) and Moham-med Maraqten respectively.1 These objects all originate from the city of Naššān, in the Wādī al­Jawf in the north of Yemen, and document an excep-tional city archive of Ancient South Arabia from the very beginning of the first millennium BCE until the sixth century CE. The study of the Leiden collection—acquired in 1993 by the Leiden foundation Het Oosters Instituut and eventually given on loan to the Uni-versity Library by the board of the foundation—was entrusted to the re-nowned scholars, Abraham Johannes Drewes (1927–2007), from Universi-teit Leiden, and Jacques Ryckmans (1924–2005), from Université catholique de Louvain. They worked jointly on the collection from 1994 to 1999, when, for health reasons, Ryckmans could no longer continue; Drewes keept on working, but was unable to complete the task before his death. In accordance with Drewes’s will, Harry Stroomer took care of the electronic manuscript and had it published. In order to accomplish the work, he sought the collaboration of one of the best specialists in South­Arabian 1  See P. Stein, Die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Baye-rischen Staatsbibliothek in München, I: Die Inschriften der mittel­ und spätsabäischen Periode, 1: Text, 2: Verzeichnisse und Tafeln, Epigraphische Forschungen auf der Arabischen Halbinsel, 5 (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 2010); Mohammed Ma-raqten, Altsüdarabische Texte auf Holzstäbchen: Epigraphische und kulturhistorische Untersuchungen, Beiruter Texte und Studien, 103 (Beirut: Orient­Institut, 2014). ReviewsAethiopica 21 (2018) 244studies and particularly in the analysis of inscribed wooden sticks: PeterStein, who, meanwhile, had begun working on the Munich collection. Steincarried out the work in 2009–2011, and the present volume is the result ofhis careful revision and corrections: his notes are marked with ‘PS’, whilethe contribution of Drewes and Ryckmans is kept intact wherever possibleand, where necessary, is marked with ‘DR’.The catalogued collection consists of 340 items from the Het Oosters In-stituut collection (marked with the siglum ‘L’), plus three inscriptions be-longing to the Leiden University Library (marked with the siglum ‘UB’),forty­three modern fakes, and one anepigraph artefact. After the Preface byHarry Stroomer (pp. vii–x), Peter Stein provides the ‘Remarques prélimi-naires du reviseur’ (pp. xi–xxii) explaining his revision and the differencesbetween his own contribution and the work carried out by Drewes andRyckmans, as well as how the respective contributions are indicated in thecatalogue. Stein’s clear ‘Index des inscriptions’ (pp. xxiii–xxxii) categorizesthe inscriptions according to their genre as letters (74), juridical documents(117), religious texts (12), lists of personal names (9), exercises (31), unde-termined (100), and fakes (43), plus the anepigraph artefact. For each ofthem, the Index provides concise information in table form on the numberof lines preserved (texts normally consist of very few lines, with, for in-stance, the letter L 303 having the exceptional number of 13 + 16 = 29 lines),on the language (Sabaean or Minaean), on the palaeographic period (from Ito IVb), on the material, and, where available, on the corresponding plate(s)in the volume. In the absence of any comprehensive index of words, names,or terms, this Index is an essential tool for the user of the catalogue. Thecontent of the inscriptions varies widely, although it remains within therange of what is usually contained in other ‘ancient archives’ of the AncientNear East and Graeco­Roman world: private correspondence of Sabaeansand Minaeans, legal and business documents, records of religious practices,and exercises in scribal education (e.g. alphabets). Its enormous importancelies in the obvious fact that this is one of the very few known archives fromAncient South Arabia, and that the inscriptions are written in a minusculescript, at variance with the well­known monumental script of the inscrip-tions on stone, rock, or metal.Each item is described with a siglum, a short description of the materialartefact, a transliteration of the texts, and a few accompanying notes mainlyconcerning the different readings; however, there are no translations ordetailed linguistic and philological commentaries. The artefacts consist ofpetioles, namely the stalks that attach the leaf blade to the stem, or of wood-en sticks. All petioles are from the phoenix dactylifera, or date palm, where-as the sticks are from a different kind of wood that Stein could sometimesReviewsAethiopica 21 (2018)245identify by comparison with the items in the Munich collection: the kind ofwood shows that some of the artefacts were not produced in Wādī al­Jawf,where they were actually preserved, and is therefore of considerable im-portance for historical reconstruction.The palaeographic periodization follows the system established byRyckmans in 2001 (I, IIa–d, IIIa–b, IVa–b, with IVb yelding inscriptions inSabaean only),2 yet with some uncertainty as to the absolute dates. If theoldest carbon­14 dated inscription goes back to the eleventh/tenth centuryBCE (L 024, 1073–902 BCE, attributed to phase II by ‘DR’, but to phase I by‘PS’), the Munich collection has one item (X.BSB 74) dating back to 522 CE;yet, the date of transition from one period to the next can only be guessed(IId to IIIa around the fifth century BCE, IIIa to IVa around the third cen-tury BCE).A small paragraph of the ‘Remarques préliminaires’ (p. xvii) is dedicatedto the carbon­14 analysis of some items from the collection, carried out onthe initiative of Michael C. A. Macdonald: thirty­six sticks were examinedin the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit of the Research Laboratoryfor Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford, be-tween 2003 (six sticks) and 2006 (thirty­five sticks), and the results werepublished in 2013 in an article of which Drewes is one of the authors.3 Allcalibrated dates of the carbon­14 analysis are now included in the cataloguedescriptions. The rich ‘Références’ include a special section (p. xxii) onDrewes’s and Ryckmans’s publications on the wooden stick inscriptionssince 1984: this is a useful reminder of the importance of both scholars’contributions to the new domain of South Arabian minuscule inscriptionsbased on the Leiden collection.The core of the volume is occupied by the inventory of the woodensticks according to the shelf mark order. The description includes a sectionwith the transliteration of each single text, but, as already mentioned, with-out a translation (pp. 1–175). The volume is completed by 125 full­pageplates with black and white pictures of quite a large number of inscriptions(174, including a few samples of fakes as well as the anepigraph artefact, i.e.L 273), selected in consideration of the degree of uncertainty of the readings.2 J. Ryckmans, ‘Origin and evolution of South Arabian minuscule writing on wood(1)’, Arabian archaeology and epigraphy, 12/2 (2001), 223–235.3 A. J. Drewes, T. F. G. Higham, M. C. A. Macdonald, and C. Bronk Ramsey, ‘Someabsolute dates for the development of the Ancient South Arabian minuscule script’,Arabian archaeology and epigraphy, 24/2 (2013), 196–207.ReviewsAethiopica 21 (2018) 246It is always difficult to edit and bring to completion unfinished works. Inthis case one can sincerely congratulate the editors, Peter Stein (who alsoacted as a de facto co­author carefully updating the catalogue to the currentstate of the art) and Harry Stroomer (on behalf of Leiden University andthe Het Oosters Instituut as main promoter of the initiative). Firstly, theyhave made available a collection that is essential in any research on AncientSouth Arabia; secondly, they have tacitly acclaimed the two great scholarswho started the enterprise of cataloguing the collection without being ableto bring it to publication. And, although the crucial tasks of understanding,translating and commenting the texts in detail, as well as that of providing astudy of the language and lexicon are yet to be undertaken, nevertheless,this publication, along with the comparable ones on the collections of Mu-nich and Ṣanʿāʾ, is already a remarkable step towards a completely new per-ception of the culture and society of Ancient South Arabia and of the rolethat written culture and archival practices played in it, starting from theearly first millennium CE.4 Nothing comparable has yet been discovered forEthiopia, but such discoveries might encourage further research and alreadyhave some bearing on the question of the origins of the Ethiopic script.Alessandro Bausi, Universität Hamburg4 It is worthwhile to quote what once wrote Christian Julien Robin, almost thirty­fiveyears ago, at the dawn of the work on Ancient South Arabian wooden inscriptions:‘Les études sudarabiques sont donc en pleine expansion comme le montre la biblio-graphie annuelle qui approche désormais la centaine de titres. Des résultats majeurspeuvent être attendus des recherches en cours, mais il ne faut pas perdre de vue quenous ne connaîtrons jamais qu’une infime partie de la réalité antique, d’autant plusréduite que nous ne possédons que des textes solennels et stéréotypés. L’espoir dedécouvrir des textes plus spontanés (correspondances, comptes, archives) ou descompositions littéraires, qui nous éclaireraient sur l’économie, la vie sociale ou lesconceptions religieuses, est bien mince: malgré les fouilles clandestines, on n’a encoredécouvert que deux missives tracées à l’encre sur des bâtonnets de bois en forme decigare. Les textes de cette sorte étaient sans doute notés sur des matières périssables(papyrus, parchemin ou bois) qui, sauf exception, ont disparu. Une découverte con-tredisant cet avis pessimiste aurait évidemment une portée considérable et renouvelle-rait entièrement notre savoir’, see C. J. Robin, ‘La civilisation de l’Arabie méridionaleavant l’Islam’, in J. Chelhod, ed., L’Arabie du Sud: Histoire et civilisation, I: Lepeuple yéménite et ses racines, Islam d’Hier et d’Aujourd’hui, 21 (Paris: Maisonneuveet Larose, 1984), 195–223, p. 222.

Abraham J. Drewes and Jacques Ryckmans, Les inscriptions sudarabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la bibliothèque universitaire de Leiden

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Abraham J. Drewes and Jacques Ryckmans, Les inscriptions sudarabes sur bois dans la collection de l’Oosters Instituut conservée dans la bibliothèque universitaire de Leiden

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Aethiopica

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