An Ethiopian Sabaean Inscription

Journal of Stmitu Studits XXIX/I Spring 19S4

AN ETHIOPIAN SABAEAN INSCRIPTIONFROM SOUTHERN TIGRE, ETHIOPIA

A. K. IRVINESCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

C.F.B. amicitiae ergo

The inscription which provides the subject of discussion here iscut into the side of a substantial fragment of an altar slab andwas first published in 1978 as no. 56 in part VI of the importantseries "Documents dpigraphiques de l'Ethiopie".1 Although adegree of mystery surrounds its original provenance and thefacts of its discovery, it is of considerable interest not onlyas a complete example of the Ethiopian Sabaean-type textsassigned by A.J. Drewes to his group 11, that is, inscriptionswhich are drafted in an acceptable form of the South Arabianmonumental script but whose language exhibits features di-verging from normal Sabaic,2 but also because with a probableprovenance in central south Tigre it becomes the southernmostexample of this type of inscription so far recovered fromEthiopia, and considered alongside the enigmatic finds fromMaqalle,3 provokes interesting speculation regarding the south-wards extension of the South Arabian-type civilisation inancient Ethiopia. The conventional view is that such texts werethe work of indigenous Ethiopians living alongside and subjectto the cultural influence of Sabaean "colonists" who arethought to have entered the country, for whatever purpose,some time around the end of the fifth century B.C. To these lastare attributed the purely Sabaean texts of Drewcs's group I

1 AtmaUs JEtbiopit, xi (1978), 132-5.2 Cf. A. J. Drewes, Inscriptions dt FEtbiopit mtiqut, Leiden 1962, 97, and

AE, m (19)9), 84- See also his remarks on "code switching" in Kaydan, ra(1980), 36.

i Published by A. Caquot and A.J. Drewes in AE, 1 (1955). 16-41- Noinformation seems to be available on the archaeological contexts withinwhich these important objects were found.

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AN ETHIOPIAN SABAEAN INSCRIPTION

with their cryptic references to South Arabian localities andinstitutions.4

The original editor of the inscription, M. Roger Schneider,was apprised of the altar's existence and shown photographs ofit by Ato Sergew Hable Sellassie in December 1971, its locationbeing given as the town of Gijet on the Waza plateau ofEnderta.5 Subsequently, in 197} a further set of photographs ofthe object was taken by M. Jacques Merrier, also at Gijet, andcommunicated to Schneider. These formed the basis of hispublication in 1978.6 His editorial comment is very terse,presumably because he was not able to inspect the actual stoneor to obtain information on its recent history. The onlydimension he gives is 29.50 cms. for the inscribed face of thealtar and he does not mention the type of stone.

The present writer was informed of the existence of thealtar by Mr Patrick Gilkes in a letter from Maqalle dated3 November 1971. The letter was accompanied by a set ofphotographs of the altar and its inscription, including a series ofsectional dosc-ups of the latter. The altar is illustrated here inPlate I(a) and the inscription in Plate I(b). It had been shown toGilkes in October of 1971 in the grounds of the new school atSamre, a market town on the road from Maqalle to Sakota.Although Samre lies only some 45 km. southwest of Maqalle asthe crow flies, the physical problems of the terrain entail ajourney of 78 km. by road.7 Unfortunately, Gilkes did not payparticular attention to the type of stone of which the altar was

4 See generally Drewes, Inscriptions, 94-5, and A. K. Irvine, "The relation-ship of early Ethiopian Semitic to Old South Arabian", in Abbay, ix (1978),43-8.

5 Information on this region of Tigre is very scant. The Guida dell' AfritaOritntale Italians, Milan 1938, indicates the Waza plateau on the map betweenpp. 304-5, but supplies little or no information in the text. Waza lies justsouth of the Gheva river, about 30 km. WSW of Maqalle. Gijet is notshown, but I am informed that it can be reached from Samre by road.

6 There is a brief allusion to the text by Schneider in BO, xxx/5-6 (1973),389.

7 See the Guida, 323-5, which draws particular attention to the difficultiesencountered by the Italians in building this road in 1936. The region is saidto be hilly and wooded, fertile but sparsely populated. The Samre roadcontinues southwestwards to Sakota about 120 km. further on. On thisimportant trade centre in Wag, with its links to Lasta, Begemder, Gojjamand Simien, see the Guida, 326-9, and Richard Pankhurst, History of Ethiopiantowns (Athiopistische Forschungen, 8), Wiesbaden 1982, 182, 214, 309.

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made, but he later recalled it as being honey yellow in colourand possibly limestone. Be that as it may, since the object was inGijet by December 1971, and again in 1973 when Merrierphotographed it, one must suppose that it was moved therefrom Samre very shortly after Gilkes's visit in 1971, though thedirection of the move, from a reasonably well-known locality toone which is relatively remote and little frequented, is difficultto account for.

Gilkes reported no other antiquities in Samre or its environsand there is thus no immediately compelling reason to supposethat the altar was found in situ. However, his photograph clearlyshows the altar slab resting on a small block of stone which it istempting to visualise as forming part of the total assemblage.Although this type of altar is not uncommon in South Arabia8

and a few specimens are known also from Ethiopia,9 we haveas yet no evidence as to how they were set up for use.10

Nevertheless, if the block is associated with the altar slab, and itfits in so neatly that it is difficult to resist the condusion that itdoes, then the mere fact that the two parts have remainedtogether increases the possibility that Samre, or some sitenearby, was the original location for the altar. It is noteworthythat there is no sign of the block in Mercier's photographs fromGijet.

8 See Carl Rathjens, Sabaeica. II. Teil. Du unlokalisitrten Fund* (Mit-tcilungcn aus dem Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg, XXTV), Ham-burg 19)], i)4') and photos. 538-9, 5)6-69, for a discussion of the formsand functions of this type of altar in South Arabia. Basically, such altarsconsist of a rectangular block of stone with a matching depression cut intothe top. A projection, usually in the form of a bull's head, leading from oneof the lesser sides, permits liquids to flow along a runnel from the altar on tothe ground. There are many minor variations to this general form, includingone with two spouts, illustrated in Wolfgang Radt, KataJog der ttaatlicbtnAntiktnsammltmg von $tm'a' und andertn Antiken in Jemen aMfgenommtn von dtrDtHtubtn Jtmentxpedition 1970, Berlin 1973, plate 4 (no. 8). The altar fromSamre probably originally had two projections, but the outflow runnel laybetween them, as the photograph in Plate I (a) shows. Whether such altarswere for libations or for blood sacrifices is still a matter for debate. Rathjensinclines to the latter, Schneider calls this one a "table d'offrande". Thetechnical term for them in South Arabian appears to have been mtlm or m/rb.

9 See, for example, DEE 48 from Matara (AE, ix (1972), 109-10) andparticularly DEE j1 from Yeha {ibid., x (1976), 81), which is dedicated toHWBS.

10 Rathjens, lot. fit., thought they would be laid flat on the ground, butthis seems unlikely.

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Plate i(a) The altar from Samre in southern Tigre(b) The inscription DEE jL on the above


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If we turn now to the inscription engraved on the altar,further discrepancies become apparent between Schneider'sreading and that offered by Gilkes's photograph. It must beadmitted that neither set of photographs is really ideal forcpigraphic purposes, but there can be no doubt that Gilkes's areby far the clearer. Schneider has given an adequate assessmentof the palaeography of the text, the most notable featuresbeing letter-height to width proportions of roughly 2:1,the exaggerated right-angled n with inconsistent orientationcharacteristic of unsophisticated workmanship, the reducedheight of b andj, and the forked b. Such features rightly inclinehim to assign the script to Pirenne's palaeographical stage A, orjust possibly B, and he would date the inscription to the latefifth or early fourth century B.C. There is no reason to dissentfrom this. Unfortunately, in the present state of our knowledgeof such inscriptions it is not feasible to make sensible com-parisons with the palaeography of other Ethiopian texts or toplace it in any overall palaeographical context. The irregularline separating the two lines of the text is not uncommon inearly Ethiopian epigraphy11 and in this writer's view mayrepresent an attempt to convey the raised band which forms asort of base line for some more sophisticated Ethiopian texts cutin relief.12

Using Gilkes's photograph we may read the text of theinscription, which is inscribed boustrophedon, as follows:

bn'mjbttjqsmmbqnyjliybn

"HN'M son of QSM/w dedicated [this altar] to SYHN."- Line 1: Schneider reads the first name as bn'm, comparing thegraphically identical name bn'm in a Sabaean text from Marib,Jamme 723/1. It is true that on his photograph the initial letterof the name does have a short stroke slanting slightly to theright from the base of the b, but there is no trace of this onGilkes's photograph and, indeed, on his close-up the verticalshaft of the b is visibly drawn down to the base line. In any case,the cut of the stroke in Schneider's photograph appears to differfrom that of the rest of the text, being noticeably heavier, andone must suppose that it represents damage inflicted on thestone subsequent to its removal from Samre. The name bn'm is

» ' cf. D r e w e s , Inscriptions, n o s . 14, 17 , 18 , 4 3 , 4 4 , 4 6 , 4 9 , j o , J3.u See, for example, AE, vm (1970), plates 17, 18 (DEE 32 and 33).

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Plate z (a) Detail from the altar from Samre(b) Detail from the altar from Samre


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new both for South Arabia and for Ethiopia,13 though bn'mt iswell represented in the Qatabanian texts of the Timna'cemetery, occurring six times as a second name and four as aclan name preceded by d-u Examination of the close-up of thissection of the inscription showed that it was not possible to readthe common Sabaean royal name jbn'm.

For qsmm, Schneider reads qbmm, a name otherwise unknownin the Arabian and Ethiopian onomastica. His photograph isnone too clear at this point and he does admit the possibility ofreading the second letter as an s. The vertical shaft on top of thes can just be seen on Gilkes's photograph and is quite dear onhis close-up, and it might be added that as a b the letter wouldbe unusually squat compared with the earlier occurrence in bn.qsm is common as a personal name in Safaitic and occurs also inThamudic, but in South Arabian it enters only into thecompounds qsm1/ in the Hadrami Ryckmans 434 f/i, and thetribal name qsmlt in Ryckmans 444/11, a late Sabaean text fromthe Najran region where North Arabian names are notuncommon.

Line 2: bqny in Ethiopian texts is frequently construed with /and provides a sort of shibboleth for distinguishing indigenousinscriptions. The construction has been compared to the Ge'ezaqnaya /a-.iS It is excessively rare in South Arabian.16

Sybn must be a divine name, as Schneider notes, but isotherwise unknown in Ethiopia or Arabia, whether as a nameor epithet, divine or otherwise. The root is also unattested in theGe'ez lexicon and in Sabaic is rare,17 probably having referenceto the idea of completion. The Arabic sbiyab, "drought, dearth,scarcity", might suggest that the term be interpreted as anepithet of the sun goddess, otherwise well known in Ethiopianinscriptions in the persons of dt HMY/w (or dt HMN) and dtB'DN. However, it should be noted that with inscribed altars ofthis type from South Arabia, the deity, when mentioned, is the

13 The common Lihyanite bn'm is subject to a different morphologicalanalysis.

14 See A. Jamme, Piicts Ipigrapbiqvesdt \itidbin 'Aqil, la nkropolt de Timna'(Hagr Kobldn) (Bibliotheque du Mutton, 30), Louvain 1952, nos. 225-7, 23°>232-3; 228-9, 231, and Jamme 868/1.

15 cf. Drewcs, Inscriptions, 7, and AE, in (1959), 84 and 92.16 Four occurrences are listed by J. Ryckmans for Middle Sabaic. See

Ertt\-lsrael, ix (1969), 106 and n. 35.17 Sec A.F.L. Beeston, M.A. Ghul, W.W. Mullcr and J. Ryckmans,

Sabak dictionary, Louvain-Beirut 1982, 136.


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moon god, as one might expect since the outflow projections areusually carved in the form of a bull's head. It is probably safer,therefore, to assume that SYHN is an aspect of the moon.

Schneider claims to see traces of letters, notably a /, on thefront face of the altar. In fact, there is a dear m between theprojection and the outflow (Plate II(a)). It is presumably amason's mark and its sophisticated ductus suggests that themain inscription may have been added later to the altar. Thereare also marks on top of the projection (Plate II(b)), but theseare probably decorative features.

This enigmatic altar thus has a modest contribution to maketo the onomasticon of ancient Ethiopia and may yet shed morelight on the pantheon. However, perhaps its greatest signifi-cance lies in its probable provenance in or around Samre. Otherpre-Aksumitc sites yielding inscriptions of this type tend toconcentrate in two main regions, one in the Eritrean AkkeleGuzai (Kaskase, Matara, Feqya, Dibdib, Addi Gramaten) andthe other round the future centres of Aksum and Adwa(Hawelti, Melazo, Yeha).18 Till now, Maqalle has been anexception, lying somewhat off the path of subsequent Aksumiteexpansion down the major route from Asmara through Adigrattowards Wallo and the south. Maqalle how makes sense as astage on a branch route leading off towards Lake Tana and thecentral Ethiopian provinces of Gojjam and Begemder and thenon to western Ethiopia and the southern Sudan. It is to behoped that more evidence for the presence of such ancientsettlements.may yet come to light.

18 A convenient summary of the archaeological background of earlyEthiopia is provided by Joseph W. Michcls's "Axumite archaeology:an introductory essay", prefaced to the English translation of Yuri M.Kobishchanov's AXMM, University Park and London 1979, 1-34. A selectbibliography is provided.


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An Ethiopian Sabaean Inscription

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