DʿMT & early highlandsGE Ṣ́ǝrḥan 1

Taʿattarat’s altar dedication to ḏāt Ḥamēn

A woman named Taʿattarat dedicated a Maslam altar to ḏāt Ḥamēn under the authority of the previously unattested king ḏū Lakkān, grandson of king Lāmān.

Date: First half of the 1st millennium BCE
Place: Ṣ́ǝrḥan, Aḥfärom, Tǝgray, Ethiopia
Language: Ethio-Sabaean
Script: Ancient South Arabian

01 · Original text

Ethio-Sabaean

Ancient South ArabianComplete surviving five-line inscription

◊ / 𐩩𐩲𐩩𐩧𐩩 / 𐩠𐩤𐩬

𐩺𐩩 / 𐩡-𐩹𐩩 / 𐩢𐩣𐩬 /

𐩣𐩪𐩡𐩣𐩣 / 𐩨-𐩤𐩡 / 𐩹-

𐩡𐩫𐩬 / 𐩣𐩡𐩫𐩬 / 𐩨𐩬 / 𐩨𐩬

/ 𐩡𐩣𐩬 / 𐩣𐩡𐩫𐩬

Normalized letter forms follow Nebes’s edition. The stone is written boustrophedon; the display follows reading order. ◊ represents the separate F-shaped symbol. The edition rests on the surviving photograph.

Scholarly transliteration

[Symbol] / tʿtrt / hqn yt / l-ḏt / ḥmn / mslmm / b-ql / ḏ- lkn / mlkn / bn / bn / lmn / mlkn

02 · Translation

English translation

Taʿattarat has dedicated to ḏāt Ḥamēn a Maslam altar by instruction of ḏū Lakkān, the king, the son of the son of Lāmān, the king.

Norbert Nebes, ‘A Hitherto Unattested Ethio-Sabaean King in a Woman’s Altar Dedication from Ṣ́ǝrḥan (Tǝgray/Ethiopia)—Edition, Translation and Commentary’, Aethiopica 26 (2023), p. 18.

The surviving photograph is low resolution; the original field documentation was lost during the Tǝgray conflict.

Sources

Editions & references

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

Edition and translation
Norbert Nebes, ‘A Hitherto Unattested Ethio-Sabaean King in a Woman’s Altar Dedication from Ṣ́ǝrḥan (Tǝgray/Ethiopia)—Edition, Translation and Commentary’, Aethiopica 26 (2023), 16–29, esp. 17–18.
Discovery and artifact photograph
Gidey Gebreegziabher, ‘A Hitherto Unattested Ethio-Sabaean King in a Woman’s Altar Dedication from Ṣ́ǝrḥan (Tǝgray/Ethiopia)—Discovery and Context’, Aethiopica 26 (2023), 9–15, esp. 10–15 and fig. 6.