The Umm al-Jimāl inscription (or Umm al-Ǧimāl inscription) is an undated Paleo-Arabic inscription from Umm al-Jimal in the Hauran region of Jordan. It is located on the pillars base of a basalt slab in the northern part of the "Double Church" (so-named by the excavators) at the site of Umm al-Jimal and was partly covered with plaster on discovery.
The pre-Islamic inscription was discovered by the German orientalist Enno Littmann during the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria. The discovery was announced in 1909, but it was not until 1929 that an edition of the text with a translation and commentary was published. In 1949, Littmann published the facsimile in his work Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1909. During the 1980s, the inscription was rediscovered and photographed by Geraldine King, but the inscription is hard to read from the photograph.
Text
At least two published transliterations and translations of the inscription have been published over the years, including by Enno Littmann and James Bellamy. As the stone that the inscription was inscribed on is pitted and unsuitable for writing on, there is difficulty in reading the inscription and some believe that an entirely adequate reading cannot be accepted until new photographs are published.
Littmann's 1929 German translation
1. Allāh, Verzeihung (Hilfe) dem ʾUlai,
2. dem Sohne des ʿUbaida, dem Schreiber
3. von al Hulaid (al-Habīr), des Vornehmsten der Banū
4. ʿAmr. Betet für ihn, wer
5. es liest!
Littmann's 1949 modified English translation
1. God, pardon to ʾUlaih,
2. the son of ʿUbaid, the secretary
3. of al-ʿUbaid, the chief of the Banū
4. ʿAmr! May have notice of it he who
5. reads it!
Bellamy's 1988 transliteration
1. brzh ʿqdʾ l ʾlyh
2. br ʿbydh kʾtb
3. ʾljnyd ʾʿly tʾny
4. ʿmʾny ʿth ʿth mn
5. yymṣḥh
Bellamy's 1988 vocalized transliteration
1. barrazahu ʿuqadāʾu li-ʾUlayh
2. bar ʿUbaydah, kāʾtibi
3. ʾl-junaydi ʾaʿlā tāʾnī
4. ʿAmmānī ʿutiha ʿatha mman
5. yiʾamṣiḥhu
Bellamy's 1988 translation
1. This (inscription) was set up by colleagues of ʾUlayh
2. son of ʿUbaydah, secretary
3. of the cohort Augusta Secunda
4. Philadelphiana; may he go mad who
5. effaces it
See also
References
- Al‐Jallad, Ahmad; Sidky, Hythem (2022). "A Paleo‐Arabic inscription on a route north of Ṭāʾif". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 33 (1): 202–215. doi:10.1111/aae.12203. ISSN 0905-7196.
- ^ Bellamy, James A. (1988). "Two Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions Revised: Jabal Ramm and Umm Al-Jimāl". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 108 (3): 369–378. doi:10.2307/603860. ISSN 0003-0279.
- ^ Fiema, Zbigniew .T; al-Jallad, Ahmad; MacDonald, Michael C.A.; Nehmé, Laïla (2015). "Provincia Arabia: Nabataea, the Emergence of Arabic as a Written Language, and Graeco-Arabica". In Fisher, Greg (ed.). Arabs and empires before Islam. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 416–417. ISBN 978-0-19-965452-9.
- Hoyland, Robert (2010). "Mount Nebo, Jabal Ramm, and the status of Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Old Arabic in Late Roman Palestine and Arabia". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 40: 29–45. ISSN 0308-8421.
- Lindstedt, Ilkka (2021). "Arabic rock inscription up to 750 CE". In Marsham, Andrew (ed.). The Umayyad world. The Routledge worlds. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 413. ISBN 978-1-138-91350-9.