DʿMT & early highlandsAfṣe 2

Ṣdqn inscription on an incense burner

A roughly 56 cm-high incense burner with crescent and solar disc carries a short rightward inscription. Weninger treats Ṣdqn as a possible divine name and ḏ- as the possible opening of an epithet; the remaining signs are uninterpreted.

Date: Early 1st millennium BCE (archaic ductus; no narrower date stated by Weninger)
Place: Abba Afṣe monastery exhibition room, Yeha, Tǝgray, Ethiopia
Language: Ethio-Sabaean (Old Sabaic ductus)
Script: Ancient South Arabian

01 · Original text

Ethio-Sabaean (Old Sabaic ductus)

Ancient South ArabianComplete published main reading plus the three additional visible signs named by the editor

𐩮𐩵𐩤𐩬𐩹 …

𐩱 · 𐩵 · 𐩫

The first line is Weninger’s published rightward reading. His commentary separately identifies an ʾ below/right of the crescent and d and k below the presumed divine name; their two-dimensional layout is simplified here and their meaning is unknown.

Scholarly transliteration

ṣdqnḏ … ʾ · d · k

02 · Translation

English translation

Ṣdqn, the one of … [additional isolated signs uninterpreted].

Fresh cautious English rendering of Weninger’s reading and commentary, Aethiopica 10 (2007), pp. 56–57.

Weninger does not print a separate translation. The status of Ṣdqn as a deity and ḏ- as an epithet marker is explicitly tentative; no meaning is assigned to ʾ, d, k.

Sources

Editions & references

Edition, catalogue, and image records used for this entry.

Weninger, Aethiosabaeica minora
Stefan Weninger, ‘Aethiosabaeica minora’, Aethiopica 10 (2007), 52–57.

Habesha History corpus

Stefan Weninger, ‘Aethiosabaeica minora’ (2007), pp. 56–57