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GL-numbers:
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B5
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A-number:
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B5
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Other numbers:
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Creator:
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Glaser, Eduard GND
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Owner:
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ÖAW, BAS:IS, Glaser Collection
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Legacy number:
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1110000778
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Short description:
Repentance inscription (B5 = GL 1052 = CIH 523 = Haram 40)
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Language:
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Sabaic
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Locality:
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Haram
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Object remarks:
This squeeze survives in very good condition by the standards of the Glaser collection of squeezes. It is one of the few squeezes in this collection to be taken from a bronze plaque rather than a stone inscription. The text is in raised relief.
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Geonames:
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Quality:
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Remark:
The inscription from which this squeeze was taken dates from ca. the second-first century BCE, a period in which groups of Arabic-speaking peoples hailing from the north were beginning to settle in South Arabia. Wādī al-Jawf, located as it was on the southern edge of the great northern desert, was a favored region for settlement by these people. There presence is most evident at the town of Haram in Wādī al-Jawf, from which B5 derives. The settlers brought with them: 1) new deities, such as Dhū-Samāwī and Ḥalfān (the first of whom is mentioned by name in this inscription); 2) a new language, which has left traces in the lexicon and morphology of Sabaic inscriptions from Haram that date from this period; and 3) a new political structure in which a king was replaced by a tribal council. Inscription expressing confessions of sins were particularly common at Haram at the end of the first millennium BCE, thanks to the influx of Arabic speakers.
Of the vocabulary of Arabic origin in this particular inscription, we may note the following:
ḥrm “forbidden period” < Arabic ḥarām
mlṯ “to have intercourse” < Arabic mālatha
ḥyd “menstruating woman” < Arabic ḥāʾiḍ
nfs “woman in childbed” < Arabic nufsāʾ
ṭhr “pure” < Arabic ṭāhir
ʾkswt “clothes” < Arabic kisāʾ
ms “to touch” < Arabic massa
lm (particle of negation) < Arabic lam
yġtsl “to wash” < Arabic ightasala
nḍḫ “to defile, to sprinkle” < Arabic naḍaḥa
Many of the ideas about purity conveyed in this and other confession inscriptions are comparable with later islamic ideas about ritual purity. To what extent similar attitudes prevailed in South Arabia before the influx of Arabic-speaking peoples from the north is difficult to say. The dedicant of the present inscription, one Ḥaram bin Thawbān, appears to have been something of a repeat offender with regard to ritual impurity, the impurity in question being caused by sexual contact. Whether Ḥaram bin Thawbān was married to any or all of the women with whom he had sexual relations is not clear from this inscription. As with all such inscriptions, the dedicant admits his wrongdoing, abases himself before the deity, and agrees to make a compensatory payment, presumably to the temple of the deity. Since confession inscriptions date from a time at which all major South Arabian kingdoms, barring Maʿīn, minted coins, it is possible that Ḥaram bin Thawbān paid his fine in coins.
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Chronology:
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C2
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Text starts:
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right
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Bustrophedon:
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no
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