The Historical And Cultural Heritage Of The Middle East

[Kamal900]

#RockArtGallery no 5: A camel's hump

The dromedary #camel is the most popular theme in #Safaitic #RockArt. There are 1000s of them!

Their humps are often carved larger than life, like on this camel. He has thin hairs on his hump and tail, which some camels grow in the winter.


This is bull camel. They are depicted with their tail hanging down in #Safaitic #petroglyphs. Female camels are depicted with their tail curled up.

Female camels are more common than male camels in the rock art.

PS Did you notice the little human figure on the top left with its arms up in the air? The figure has 7 dots under its body instead of legs. The symbol of 7 is recurrent in #Safaitic #RockArt. More on that in another post!

The dromedary #camel would have been an economically and socially important animal to the pastoral nomads who made these carvings. It's no wonder the camel is so dominant in #RockArt throughout #Arabia.


That’s right. The names are bs’ = bas’ “amicable” and śddt = śadīdat “severe”, maybe śaddādat as well. ha- , the article/proximal demonstrative “the, this” and gml = gamal = camel, cognate w English “Camel”, which comes from Greek κάμηλος , which in turn comes from Semitic gamal-
https://twitter.com/natbrusgaard/sta...94042553200641

[Kamal900]

Greek culture had a big influence in the cultural heritage of the pre-Islamic Arabs of that time.

Old Higazi, the dialect(s) of Arabic spoken in NW Arabia up until the rise of Islam, pronounced the alif maqsurah ى as ē. Here is a Greek graffito from N. Higaz by a man named يعلى demonstrating this pronunciation.


Ialēs hellenizes Arabic يعلى spelled y’ly in Nabataean and Safaitic. Arabic nouns ending in ē are hellenized in ης, cf. Δουσαρης = ذوشرى. You might be tempted to call this Imala, but don’t! Imala describes the raising of ā, but the ē vowel here does not come from ā.It comes from an original triphthong: ya’layu or diphthong ya’lay. This pronunciation is reflected in the Quranic spellings and in 1st islamic century Greek documents, Μαυλε = مولى. AFAIK, the contemporary Higazi dialects no longer realize the alif masqura in this way. The short Greek text i shared comes from this book, edited by F. Villenueve.


https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1259901397635665926

[Kamal900]

The tomb of King Abgar V, Barr Moainu, king of Edessa. The Roman historian, Tacitus, called him "the king of the Arabs". The Kingdom of Edessa was called the Land of Arabia. Abgar the fifth, was suffering from a tumor on his face, so he was called Abgar, and was interpreted in Syriac as “black”, but the word is Arabic which means bad. And the severity is rotting and sickness relative to his tumor.




https://twitter.com/inesandsammy/sta...39756392783876

[Kamal900]

Did you know the earliest Arab Christians worshipped Mary as ‘mother goddess’?

Don’t believe me—Check out the influence of Collyridians through HB, church fathers & Qur’an below!


The cult of the Mother goddess was a staple of Near Eastern antiquity & native to early Semitic churches, prior to Greco-Roman supremacy. It left an indelible mark on all churches through the veneration of the virgin Mary & medieval Mariolatry & Mariology


Mary was incrementally added to a long list of Mother goddesses, including al-‘Uzza, Atargatis, Asherah, Ishtar and Inanna whose cults thrived mainly in Syro-Arabia. Her cult flourished throughout late antiquity.


By the 3rd C the “mother of God” (Syr. yaldat alaha) was venerated by the nascent Syriac church, connected to the Protovangelium of James & liturgy of Mari and Addai. Mary’s petitioners were women; and they baked cakes to beseech their mother goddess, the “queen of heaven”—precisely as in the cult of Asherah in Mamre—which was bemoaned by Sozomen and by the Hebrew Bible centuries prior (Cf. 2 Kings 23:4-14).


The female cultic practices of Semitic peoples, esp. Phoenician & Arabian communities, offended the male sensibilities of the rising Byzantine church father, who dedicated whole tracts to denigrating the cultic practices as heresy & associated them w/ ‘motherhood.’


Epiphanius (403), Panorion, attacks dozens of 4th century groups as “mothers of heresy.” Among them he identifies the “Collyridians” of Arabia (Cf. Gk. kollyris bread cakes).


He describes Arab women petitioners, “For some women decorate a carriage or a square by covering it with fine linen, and on a certain definite day of the year [on certain days] they set forth bread and offer it as sacrifice in the name of Mary.”


Theodoret (466), is credited w/infamous slur, “Arabia the mother/bearer of heresies” (Lt. Arabia haeresium ferax). Mother worship exerted influence on the Roman-Byzantine empire a tribunal was called condemning/coopting it into the masculine Christian imperium.


Council of Ephesus 431 disputed semantic range & theological significance of Mary as the “god bearer” (Gk. theotokos), originating in correspondences between Dionysus of Alexandria (d. 264) & Paul of Samosata during the 3rd century…harkening back to Mary the Mother goddess.


Sozomen (450) says Mamre was site of annual ‘Abrahamic’ festival & marketplace for Arab tribes. He describes staples of Arabian religion/trade, “some placed burning lamps near it; some poured out wine, or cast in cakes; and others, coins, myrrh, or incense.”


Sozomen adds the Constantine destroyed the site’s symbols of pagan idolatry & erected a basilica in its place—ultimately likening the emperor to ‘good king Josiah’ who torched the Asherah groves during the temple’s purported restoration (2 Kings 23:4-14).


Mamre (home/burial of Abraham, Sarah & biblical patriarchs) outside Hebron was the site where Jews, Christians & adherents of Mary Mother goddess (formerly Asherah) worshipped together until their disbanding under Constantine …because his mother in law did not approve!


I argue Mother goddess was part of 4th-7th C church/Qur’anic debate on Mariology, Christology & ecclesiology. Q 5:17-116 preserves echoes of Mary Mother goddess among Arabs.


How did the earliest Arab Christians venerate the Father or Son, what impact did this have on purposed ‘Hanifs,’ and the veneration of Fatima al-Zahra’?

You have to check out my book of ‘female power in late antique Arabia,’ in progress & coming soon to a #Covid19 free world!


https://twitter.com/emrane/status/1249351193073201153

My Masterclass from our Texas ranch (not!)

I gave a guest lecture for Prof. Tamber-Rosenau
@UHouston
on "Female Divinity in Late Antiq Arabia"

In Nabataea & Al-Hijaz female power resided in the office of Priest/ess (كاهنة، أفكل ; kahna, apkala) of al-'Uzza

Check it out!


A handful of Nabat evidence confirm both priests & priestesses served female deities, eg. Allat in Hawran, al-‘Uzza in Sinai and Manat in Hegra. Functions & status of priestesses are typified in tomb inscription of Kamkam bt. Wa’ilah bt. Haram, dated 1 BCE. al-Hijr/Hegra.


Like their Mesopotamian, Egyptian and even South Arabian neighbors, the Nabataean priestly class came from the ruling, royal house...typically a queen, consort or princess who served as guardian of a particular goddesses’ temple, gifts or fertility cult.


Medieval Arabic sources suggest the vitality of pagan priestesses in Hijaz in the centuries prior to Islam but after the fall of the Nabatean empire. The fabled grandfather of Muhammad ‘Abd al-Muttalib (5th-6th C) is portrayed as a second biblical Abraham...


He is said to have made a vow to sacrifice one of his sons to the god Hubal in gratitude. Before doing so he consulted the oracle—a woman—of Wadi al-Qura in the Hijaz, most likely Hegra/al-Hijr or Khaybar. She likely served the goddesses al-‘Uzza.


Names priestesses include Fatimah al-Hat‘amiyyah in Mecca, Zarqa’ al-Yamamah in Najd, Turayfah of Yemen, and Zabra’ of Hadramawt; male priests include Salman from the tribe of Hamdan and Hadas from the tribe of Ghanam.


Arabic sources also claim male priests from the tribe of Sulaym, esp. Shaybanids, served al-‘Uzza. Muhammad himself is reported to have worshipped al-‘Uzza before his prophetic mission & Q 53 condemns her triple deity.

So where are the Hanifs? You'll have till I finish my book!


Sources:

M. Maraqten, “Der Afkal/Apkallu im arabischen Bereich...,” Alter Orient und Altes Testament 252, 2000

H. al-Fassi, Women in pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007

C. Robin, “Les ‘Filles de Dieu’ de Saba’ à La Mecque” Semitica 52–53, 2002–2007

https://twitter.com/emrane/status/1245364333414096896

Diodorus of Sicily: "The always invincible Nabataean Arabs have always preserved their freedom and there is no conqueror who has subjected them. The Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians and finally the kings of Macedonia were forced to abandon the enterprise of subjugating them "





https://twitter.com/AlFadlanAylan/st...25844903272449

[Kamal900]

The inscription of Ajilo bin Abd al-Lat:
Tadmuri's inscription was found near the temple of Baal Shamin and is written on an altar dating back to the month of March in the year 248 AD. Its lengths 48 cm - 19 cm, and is currently preserved in the museum of Palmyra. It is referred to in the inscription the Arabic word, and it is a name known by its significance for the Arabs and this name was mentioned in Greek inscriptions in the form of arabiou.


Read text:
1 - Break Shamma for information
2- Taba Abd and Moda
3- Ajilo Barr Abdallah
4 - Arab righteousness
5 - He greeted his father alive
6 - I love him with Ader
7 - 560 mounted

- Blessed is his name forever
It is good to make an altar
- Ajilo bin Abdul Lat
Ibn Arabi for his life and
- The life of his father and life
- His brothers in the month of March
Year 560

https://twitter.com/HistoricArab/sta...51210193334274

Safaitic is @ home in the desert but a few inscriptions can be found in settled areas. This text has been reused in a modern structure, but was originally a building inscription attached to a grave. It mentions the construction of a tomb-chamber, mạġārat.


The inscription is from the town of Rushaydah, on the eastern slope of Jebel al-ʿArab.
le-hāneʾ ben waḥf wa-banaya ham-maġārata
لهنء بن وحف وبني همغرت "لهانئ بن وحف وبنى هالمغارة"
'by Hāneʾ son of Waḥf and he built this tomb-chamber' (reading and trans. MCAM, see biblio).

A number of Safaitic inscriptions have been discovered at Umm al-Jimāl and Bostra as well. I'll post a new draft article soon, w. my colleague A. al-Manaser, with new texts connected to the settled areas, including new bilingual Greek-Safaitic texts. and more (New Epigraphica III). The inscription mentioned above was published in one of my favorite articles by M.C.A. Macdonald, https://www.academia.edu/4591966/Bur...Kahf_in_Jordan.

A fantastic read with many important insights about the complex interaction between script and identity.
https://twitter.com/Safaitic/status/1263467585796026373

[Kamal900]

For my good German friend, Teutone:

Malik live for fifty years, including 13 years, lived in the third Italian regiment in the Rhine basin (Mainz, Germany), dating back to the first or second century AD.
The name is Arabic in its form, meaning, and composition, and it is miniaturization of Malik. And the nickname is either to the tribe or the village of Smoot, Smoot, or Shammout.

https://twitter.com/TaissierK/status...17963876081665

[Synapsid]

For my good German friend, Teutone:

There was a stele in Roman Britain with the name Abd' from Syria

[Synapsid]

For my good German friend, Teutone:

There was a stele in Roman Britain with the name Abd' from Syria

[Kamal900]

Legal inscription from the Arab urban kingdom in northern Iraq, written on a large monument surmounted by an eagle, that places the death penalty by beheading the thief if he is from the urban population, and stoning the thief from foreigners. In the text, weird words that we find in Arabic dictionaries are no longer in circulation, such as Qutail and Dirdak, and Quranic phrases such as Rajim and Austafa.

https://twitter.com/TaissierK/status...07988752695296

On the name of Hazael:
Hazael in the Assyrian word is an Arabic/Aramaic name, and today this name is used especially in central and southern Iraq in the name of Khazael after the Arabization because the Akkadian language in its Assyrian dialect does not contain the sound of the letter(ع). Hazael in the Assyrian sources was an Arab-Aramean mixed Qedarite king, as is the text of the Assyrian king Sennacherib:


Text :
"Malakhouno, the Queen of the Arabs in the middle of the desert ... she took ... camels from her and Hazael, overthrew them (talking about himself Sennacherib) deserted her tents and fled to save their lives to Adumatu (Domat Al-Jandal) which is located in the middle of the desert, the city of sneezing where there is no food or drink"

In another text of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon:
"From Adumatu, the fort of the Arabs which my father Sennacherib had previously seized, and he had obtained the spoils of their possessions and statues of their gods and the queen of the Arabs as spoils, and took them all to the lands of Assyria. He pleaded with me to return the statues of his gods, so I sympathized with him and repaired the statues of Tarsmeen, Nohay, Roldi, Abdel, and the Arab gods itched with my name, and send these gods and her back to him."
https://twitter.com/Sargon_0/status/1264962394771656704

After the king, Santaruq, the king of the Kingdom of Hatra, defeated the Roman army and withstood them before him, Santaruq called himself Mansoor, as well as the Arabs.

Among these writings:
"Sallama de Santrouk, the king de Arabs (g? K? Ya?), Barro Nasro Maria, Barre Nachriheb."


reading :
"The statue Santaruq, king of the Arabs al-Mansoorin, ibn Nassro Sayd ibn Nashareehb."

An inscription and statue of Abgar the Sultan of the Arabs in the kingdom Edessa:

1- ܗܢܐ ܨܠܡܐ
2- ܕܥܒܥ ܡܥܢܘ
3- ܒܪ ܡܩܡܝ
4- ܫܠܝܛܐ ܫܠܝܛܐ
5- ܥܪܒ ܥܪܒ
6- ... ܢܘ ...

Translation:
1- Here Sallama (this idol)
2- Abdul Maan (who Maan constructed)
3- Bur Muqami (Bin Muqimi)
4- To Abgar Shalita (To Abgar Sultan)
5- D Arab(Arabs)
6- .. No ...

Photo: statues of the Sultans of Arabia who were defaced inside the building

According to Pliny the elder of Edessa, it was named after an Arab tribe that he called Orrhoei and with them the Arab Mardin tribe (Mardin today in Turkey). The tribe were a Nabatean Arab tribe from what is now modern day Jordan and Southern Israeli and NW Higaz of Saudi Arabia.

Though most of Osroene's rulers were from the Abgarid dynasty of Arab origin, the kingdom's population was mainly Aramean, with a Greek and Parthian admixture.[11] In addition, though Arab cults were attested at Edessa (the twins Monimos and Azizos), its cultural setting was fundamentally Aramaic (i.e. Syriac) alongside strong Parthian influences.[24][13] Thus, according to Maurice Sartre: "It would hence be absurd to regard Edessa as solely an Arab city, for its culture owed very little to the nomadic Arabs of the region".[13] Later, within the Roman Empire, Edessa was the most important center of Syriac civilization.[25] Under the Nabataean dynasties, Osroëne became increasingly influenced by Syriac Christianity[26] and was a centre of national reaction against Hellenism.

In his writings, Pliny the Elder refers to the natives of Osroene and the Kingdom of Commagene as Arabs and the region as Arabia.[27] Abgar II is called "an Arab phylarch" by Plutarch,[28] while Abgar V is described as "king of the Arabs" by Tacitus.[29]

The Edessene onomastic contains a lot of Arabic names.[30] The most common one in the ruling dynasty of Edessa being Abgar, a well-attested name among Arabic groups of antiquity.[31] Some members of the dynasty bore Iranian names, while others had Arab names.[1] J.B. Segal notes that the names ending in "-u" are "undoubtedly Nabatean".[1] The Abgarid dynasts spoke "a form of Aramaic".[1]

It was in the region in which the legend of Abgar V originated.

In his writings, Pliny the Elder refers to the natives of Osroene and the Kingdom of Commagene as Arabs and the region as Arabia.[32] Abgar II is called "an Arab phylarch" by Plutarch,[33] while Abgar V is described as "king of the Arabs" by Tacitus.[34]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osroen...on_and_culture

[Kamal900]

A list of Roman soldiers in the year of 218 AD:

Mocimus Bolani: مقيم بولاني
Magnus Vabalathi: ماغنوس وهب اللات
Monimus Aufei: منعم عوفي
Monimus Salluma: منعم سلومة
Charifas Iuli: شريف يولي
Aurelius Malchụs: أورليوس مالك
Aurelius Abbas: أورليوس عباس
Ọcbanẹṣ Ạbiḍḷaha: عقبان عبدالله


This is a sample of the names of hundreds of officers and soldiers in the Roman garrison in the city of Dora Europe in Deir Ezzor on the Euphrates in Syria
Latin Papyrus: HGV P.Dura 98 Photo: Portrait of soldiers and garrison officers in Dora Europe
https://twitter.com/TaissierK/status...98192037953538