Arinscrur

A New Kind of Old Arabic Writing from Ur
Author(s): Eric Burrows

Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 4 (Oct., 1927),
pp. 795-806
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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A New Kind of Old Arabic
Writing
from Ur
By ERIC
BURROWS,
S.J.
fTlHE
two
following inscriptions
were found last
season
by
the British Museum and
University
Museum of
Pennsylvania Expedition
to Ur.
My
thanks
are
due to the
Joint
Expedition,
and
to Mr.
Woolley acting
on its
behalf,
for
permission
to
publish
them,
1. U7815
Irregular fragment
of brick
or
clay pavement,
found
a
little below Nebuchadnezzar's
pavement
in E-nun
mah,
having
on
its face this
inscription
(9x8 cm.).
M
g
1
>?
L-1
The first
part (A)
is scratched
roughly
;
the second
part
(B)
is
more
carefully
done
on a
well smoothed sunken surface.
It seems that A is
a
duplicate,
so
far
as
it
goes,
of
B,
and that
the first line of letters in A
corresponds
to
B,
line
1,
letters
1 to 4
(numbering
from left to
right),
and the second line of
letters in A to
B,
line
2,
letters 2 to 5.
796
A NEW KIND OF OLD ARABIC WRITING FROM UR
Wo
have, therefore,
ten
letters,
as
follows:
(1)
> A
<J,
(2)
N,
(3)
|v
\
(4)
<?,
(5) X,
(6)
n,
(7)
A,
(8)h, (9)
),
(10)
?.
It will be seen that seven
of the ten
correspond
with letters
of the south-Arab,
alphabet (Minaeo-Sabaean, etc.),
and that
the
remaining
three,
while
having recognizable affinity
with
south-Arab.,
correspond
more
closely
with letters of the
Phoen.-Greek
alphabet
from which south-Arab,
originated.
This, then,
is
a
proto-Arab. script,
and
an
important
link in
the
history
of the
alphabet.
The Letters in
Detail.?(1)
d of all the north-Sem. and Greek
alphabets:
it has not
yet acquired
the additional stroke
which is
peculiar
to south-Arab.
(>|, etc.)
(2)
n
of the common-Sem. and Greek
alphabet,
in the
form which
came to
prevail
in
Greek,
and which
already
begins
to
appear
in the oldest Greek
inscriptions.
(In
A 1 the
writer
began
to write
M,
but on
second
thoughts preferred
N,
which he
keeps
in his fair
copy.)
(3) g
of the common-Sem. and Greek
alphabet,
akin rather
to earliest north-Sem. and Greek than to
south-Sem. forms.
(4)
y
in
a
pure
south-Sem. form
(Min.-Sab.,
old
Ethiop.,
Lihyan.,
Saf.,
Tamud.)
which is not found in north-Sem.
or
Greek.
In A 1
apparently
(3)
and
(4)
are
ligatured
:
cf.
ligatures
in
Tamudaean. Here the
top
of the
y
is not circular
as in B
1,
but has what
seems to be
a
single
line
on
the
left
of the stem
at the
top.
If this
was
really
a
variant form of
<p
it would
be
a
link between the northern
^ (Byblos),
3
(Greek),
etc.,
and Min.-Sab.
9
.
Cf. old-Eth.
p
(= q),
and Tamud.
(some
times)
q.
(5)
z
in its
peculiarly
Min.-Sab. form.
(6)
b of Min.-Sab. and other old south-Sem.
scripts.
(7)
Either I
or
g
:
probably
I of
(3)
is
g
: nearer to south
Arab.
(Min.-Sab.,
old
Eth., Tarn.,
Lih.)
or to Greek than to
north-Sem. forms.
(8)
Min.-Sab. k.
(9)
Min.-Sab.
s.
(10)
r
of
pure
old south-Arab. form.
797
Direction
of
the
Writing.?It
seems
clear that
A1,
and there
fore also B
1,
read from loft to
right.
This is also tho
direction,
as
will
appear,
of the unilinear
inscriptions
U
7819,
U 6900.
Starting
from the left
wo can
read tho whole either from left
to
right throughout,
or
boustrophedon.
The
boustrophedon
direction is made
nearly
certain
by
tho variation in the
directions of the
g's
and
eZ's,
and
by
the
space
at the left of B 2.
Division into Words.?One's first
thought
was
that the
rough graffito
A contained the
first,
and
(excepting
a
final
n)
the last words of the
inscription,
an
intermediate word
being
added in B
;
thus the division would be DNGIZBLK*
DRGSN. But I
now
suspect
that this was a
false clue.
Perhaps
rather the writer's
procedure
was as
follows: he
first sketched the
framing
lines of
A,
and wrote therein the
first
part
of his
epigraph?DNGI.
He did this
badly,
beginning
the N in tho
wrong way,
and
bungling
somowhat
the
GI,
and he also found that his framed
space
would be too
largo.
He then
prepared
the smaller and better smoothed
framed surface
B,1
and wrote
fairly
in B 1 the whole first line
DNGIZBLK. Then above in A 2 ho
roughly practised
the
rest of the
inscription
which he had in mind
as
far as the
penultimate
letter,
and then wrote this
neatly
in B 2.
If this is
so,
A is not
an
inscription
that
gives
sense
by
itself
and it does not indicate the division of the words. We
operate,
therefore,
with
DNGIZBLKDRGSN,
without
prejudice
as
to the division.
Interpretation.?ZBLKDR gives exactly
the familiar
(Assyrian
!)
term zabil
kudur(i)
?
bearer of
tribute,
etc. This
may
be
an
extraordinary
accidental
coincidence,
but tho
first
attempt
to
interpret
the
inscription
will
naturally
be
an
examination of this
reading.
How would zdbil kuduri combine
with
(a)
the four letters before and
(b)
the three letters after it ?
1
Tho tail of the
J
in A 2
proves
that A as a
whole cannot havo been
completed
beforo B as a whole was
begun
;
the
preparation
of the sunken
smooth surface of
B,
if done
subsequently
to
the
writing
of tho
j?
, would
have removed the tail.
798 A NEW KIND OF OLD ARABIC WRITING FROM UR
(a)
would
naturally
be
a
proper
name,
and DNGI does
in fact at once
suggest
the well-known
name,
Dungi.
It is out of the
question,
of
course,
that the
inscription
should
date from the time of
king Dungi (twenty-third century),
but
this is not to
deny
that it could have reference to him. His
monuments and
stamped
bricks abounded at Ur. Was
an
Arab
amusing
himself
by composing
a new
epigraph
in his
honour,
or
by faking
a
Dungi brick-inscription
? The character of
the
inscription,
with its
preliminary rough
sketch,
suggests
that it had
no
very
serious
purpose
;
and its finished form
in the sunken
rectangular
frame does look like the imitation
of
a
brick-stamp.
As
a
title of
Dungi,
the
apparently Assyrian
political
term zabil kuduri
might
have its
supposed original
sense
of
"
basket-bearer" with reference to the
king's
foundation of a
temple,
and
perhaps
to a
monument of the
well-known
type
which shows
a
royal
founder with the
workman's basket.1
(b)
The word after
Dungi
zabil
kudur,
so
explained, might
be the
name
of
a
building
or
of
a
divinity
;
but
no
such
reading
of
gsn
seems
satisfactory?hardly
so
gisdni (Bab.
for
kisani,
"
of the foundations
"),
or
gasan (for
emesal
Ga$an,
"
of the
Lady").
On the
whole,
therefore?although something
anomalous
may
be
expected
if the
graffito
was a
faked brick
inscription
done
by
a
foreigner
for amusement?a reference
to
Dungi
can
scarcely
bo maintained.
If,
alternatively, Dngi
is the
name
of tho writer
(not
necessarily
related to the
name
Dungi, perhaps foreign,
or if
Akkadian
possibly
=
Danqi,
for
Damqi, Tallqvist
Ass. Pers.
1
The name of this
king
has of late
(since
Zimmern,
Ber. d. K. Sachs.
Oes.,
1916,
No.
5,
31) commonly
been read
Sul-gi [M=hero]
DUN
having
also
tho value
Sul;
but no
proof
of
the
new
reading
has been
given.
Deimel,
ZA., 22,
47
(1908)
first
proposed
it,
appealing
to a nom.
prop.
DTJN-la
($ul-la).
In
Pantheon,
No. 776
(1914),
however,
he assumed
Dungi,
and
suggested
sus
arundinis
[wild
boar ? cf. Psalms
lxviii, 31, lxxx,
14].
There
is,
in
fact,
no reason
why
the name
should not contain dun in the sense
of
boar;
cf. names like Eberhard.
Langdon,
OECT., i, 29,
considers
Dungi
possiblo
even with the
assumption
that the
first element
meana
mighty
man.
799
Names, 69),
we can
give
zabil kudur its most
obvious
meaning
:
"
D.,
bearer of tribute
(service)."
gsn
would be
perhaps
"
of
Gsn
",
tribal
or
local
proper
name.1?Non
liquet. (Cf.
also
below
p.
806
on
gsn.)
Date.?(1)
Zabil
kuduri,
if
read,
would indicate
a
date
(early
ninth
century
?)
only
if it were
taken in its
Assyrian
political
sense.
(2)
The
find-place,
under
a
Nebuchadnezzar
pavement, gives
the
reign
of that
king,
604-561,
as
lower
limit.2
(3)
The
writing, being
intermediate between that of
Phoen.-Greek,
and the well-fixed monumental form of
Minaean
inscriptions (beginning
c.
800
?) suggests
a
date in
about the tenth
or
ninth
century.
2. U7819
This
graffito
is
roughly
and
faintly
scratched
on a
clay
pot
found
by
a
workman at Ur last season.
The
pot
does
not
represent
an
Ur
type
;
it is
thought
that it
may
be of
the Kassite
period.
Tho letters
(numberod
from the
left)
are :
(1)
south-Sem.,
and
especially,
old
Min.-Sab.,
m
;
(2)
I. As
having
the
angle
at the bottom tho letter is of north-Sem.
or
early
Greek form.
It has the
angle
at the left
probably
because of the direction
of the
writing. (3)
The
sign
is
very
difficult to
read,
but
on
the
right
we seem to have samek
(of
north-Sem. and
early
1
I know no such
name,
except
{j\~*y
(dual),
in southern
Iraq,
Tab.
3,
1617
(quoted by
B.
Moritz,
Haupt
Festschrift, 194).
a
The other
objects
collected from tho
filling
arc of
very
various
periods
;
objects
in
ivory (Phoenician ?)
and
a
Phoen.
inscription,
and also inscribed
material from tho time of
Akkad,
Ur
III,
and Larsa
(U.
7798, 7799, 7800,
7807, 8811, 8812).
800
Greek
form).
Tho rest of the scratches
might
be
regarded
as
an
imperfect
z,
which
was
abandoned in favour of samek
(&),
or as
y
of
north-Sem. and Greek form
ligatured
with the
samek
;
but
probably they represent
a
samek with horizontal
lines which
was
abandoned in favour of
a
slanting
samek.
(4) Probably
the south-Sem.
p.
(5)
The
only
letter much like this in south-Sem. is
Lilly.
/
^JC
;
but this is not to be
thought
of
here,
for the other letters
go
back to
very
primitive
forms
(m
is of the oldest Minaean
form,
I and samek
go
back to the northern
prototypes,
and
p
perhaps
to the
primitive
Sem. form of
pe
"
mouth
").
The
letter
may
be either
aleph
or
h. If the
former,
it is
a
carelessly
scratched north-Sem.
form,
but I know
no
counterpart
(unless
^C
a of the
Cypriot syllabary
is to be
considered).
Probably
the
sign
is south-Sem.
h,
Min.-Sab.
y,
Saf.
'Y, etc.,
from
original
4*
<
lu
<
3-1
1
The
following
table shows that this Phoen. letter
is,
with various
SaA. k
K
k
Sdi
h
h
K
k k
k
k_
U.
k_k_
T^.
k
k
k_k
k.
K
UR_k_
L^c._K <fe_k_
C^-r.
_Kk_Kh
k
k_
e.ak._kk_
WQK_Kk_
differentiations,
probably
tho
origin
of
h, b,
A-letters in
south-Sem.,
in
Lycian
and
Carian,
and in Greek
(cf. already
similar
suggestions
in
Praetorius,
ZDMO.
GO, 1902,
076
; Evans,
Scripta
Minoa 91
f.;
Dussaud,
A NEW KIND OF OLD ARABIC WRITING FROM UR 801
(6) Probably
a
carelessly
scratched
equivalent
to Min.
f~\,
Ur 7815
&\,
old Eth.
Y]>
h>
Tamud.
h,
etc.,
k.
The letters
are
therefore
:
MLI(?)&P'H
or
'K. If the
penultimate
is the
graphic
h found in Minaean
(alternatively
graphic aleph)
wo have
Melusipak,
i.o. almost
exactly
the
Kassite nom.
]rrop.
Mclisipnk.1
Letters
1, 4,
5
(probably)
and G aro
essentially
of old
south-Sem. form
;
2 and 3
are nearer to Phoen.-Greek.
These
indications
agree
with those of U
7615;
probably
both
inscriptions
are
pre-Minaean.
Comparing
U 7615 with the
present inscription,
we
find that letters
2 and 3 are in this
inscription
nearer to thoso of the
originating
northern
alphabet.
The
inscription
may,
therefore,
be
considerably
older than
U
7615?considerably
older than
a date in the tenth-ninth
century (supra,
p. 799). Consequently
MeliSipak
the
distinguished king early
in tho twelfth
century,
may
be
referred to.
3
Another south-Arab,
inscription
is U
6900,
which had been
found at Ur before last
season,
and is
being published
in
a
collection of
inscriptions by
Mr. Gadd and Dr.
Legrain.
By
kind
permission
I have been able to
copy
from the
MS.
On rim of
clay
bowl,
0015
wide,
found
on surface
near Ur:
The letters
(from
the
left)
:
(1), (3), (5)
are
the
ordinary
Les Arabes
en
Syrie
. . .
78).
Our
)f
would bo like
^
Carian
/*,
and
X
Carian
h,
Saf. Tarn,
and east-Greek h
(kh).
The table
seems to
indicate that tho south-Sem.
alphabet
was not borrowed
directly
from the
pure
Scm.
alphabet
of
Canaan,
since it did
not borrow tho letter heth for
h
and
h,
but used differentiated
forms of he for theso sounds
[tho
loss of
heth is
paralleled
in
Lydian, Lycian,
and
Phrygian],
and to show
positively
that it was connected
in
origin
with Greek and Asianic
alphabets.
1
& for $ makes
a
difficulty
;
unless Bab. H was
pronounced
i in this name
{of.
Middlo Hub. I for
Kgypt
rf).
JKAS. OCTOIIK.lt 1927. 52
802
Min.-Sab.
k,s,p;
(2)
is tho Min.-Sab.
r
with direction reversed
as
often in
Tarn.,
Saf.
;
(4)
is
n as
in U 7815
;
(6)
is h
nearly
as in Min.-Sab. and
exactly
as in old Eth. Thus the
writing
is
practically
identical with that of the earliest known south
Sem.,
but has the
n
which is characteristic of the Ur
alphabet.
Tho
reading,
due to Mr. G. R.
Driver,
is Kirsi
nappdhu
or
the like: Kirsi the smith. Or the second word
can
be read
as
Arabic
or
Aram, with similar
meaning.
For
nom.
prop.
Kirsi
(or Kirsu)
cf.
Tallqvist,
loc. cit.
116,
291
;
Clay,
Names
of
the Cass. Per. 100.
The Alphabet of the
New Inscriptions
According
to tho most
probable
identifications,
fourteen of
the
primary
letters
are
represented
in the two older
inscrip
tions
;
none of the additional letters of south-Sem.
occur.
The
following
table shows the
position
of the Ur
alphabet.1
Letters
1, 5b, 6a, 7, 8b, 9, 12,
13 and 14 are nearer to south
Sem. than to northern forms
;
letters
3, 8a,
10 and 11 are
nearer to Phoen.-Greek.
(In
U 7819 the southern character
is
present
in the
proportion
3 : 2
;
in U 7815 in the
proportion
7
:
2.)
Comparing
further the letters of Ur with Phoen. and
Greek
respectively
:
8b, 9,
and 10
(also
4
according
to
p.
800
note)
are nearer to Greek
(with Carian)
than to Phoen.
forms
;
and it is not clear that
any
letter
2
is nearer to Phoen.
than to Greek.
R.
Dussaud,
Les Arabes
en
Syrie
...
78,
has
suggested
that the south-Sem.
alphabet
was
borrowed from the Greek.
There is
now,
in the
alphabet
of
Ur,
new
evidence for
a con
nexion between the two
scripts,
but there
are
also
new
1
Col. 1
==
oldest
Byblos
;
a few
others,
including
old
Aram.,
in brackets.
Col. 2
=
Archaic Greek after
Jensen,
Oesch. d.
Schrift,
158,
and
a
few others
collected
(I hope
with sufficient
accuracy)
from various sources.
Col. 3 and
5
=
suggested
links
exemplified
from minor Arab,
alphabets.
Col.
7,
No.
11,
first
form,
occurs once
according
to
Hommel,
Sudarab.
Chrest.,
p.
4.
*
Except
No. 13
according
to the
hypothesis
made below
(cf.
p.
804
s)
but
ex
hypothesi
the
exception
would not
prove
Phoen.
origin.
chronological
considerations
(cf. pp. 799, 801)
opposed
to a
direct
borrowing
of the south-Sem. from Greek. I would
suggest
rather the
following
indirect connexion: the Greek
i ,
f
* -?
-4-_*
?
r
Ko^tK.
Aly>h.
|
Ut
AlpK.
Mi*.r
Pho?n.
(Jt*cH_U7QI9
U78t^_***?
i
5>
SW
n
n
3 O
^
<I
(A)
t><! />
(A) /* aw^ D|
cf.Li^SatY
*
Y
*
X
I
ctTa*.I,l;k.W X
X
b
tf. Sat
H
4*
2
(2)
cLTWVA-
t
t
*
1(A)
A A
u>
*,
^ r*
S
t.
^($)
(s)
Q)#
11
7(7)
1(n)
fc
0
IS
[On
Wu
letter
Se*
W*w}
#
J
hL
9
lipftiol_I
I
3
I_I
3
and Asian
(e.g. Carian)
alphabets
were
derived from southern
Asia
Minor,
and the old Arabic
was
brought
down the
Euphrates
route from the neo-IIittite eastern
fringe
of the
same
Asianic
region.
804
a new kind of old arabic writing from ur
Additional Note
on the Letters Samek
and
?ade
In the above table the identification of the Phoen.
letter,
which
originated
south-Arab.
$
was
postponed.
Further,
it
has been assumed
throughout
that
3?
and
rS
have in
our
inscriptions
their later
(south-Arab.)
values of
s
and
&
respec
tively, although
these values
are not
necessarily primitive.
(They
are
certainly
in need of
explanation. Why
has
samek,
north-Sem.
s,
the value of & in south-Arab.
?)
j?
is
usually
derived from
a
juxtaposition
of
?
and
i ;
but
the
writing
of
pure
s
by
a
double $ would be hard to
explain,
and there is
certainly
no trace of this
origin
in the earliest
instances of
)?
in U 7815.
Perhaps
rather
]?
is derived from
sade[X.
Materially
there is
no
difficulty;
it is evident that
the south-Sem.
^-letter (Sab.-Min.
^ta,
ft,
old Eth.
f{,
Tarn,
p,
etc.)
comes
from the Phoen. s-letter
fX> fe>
?,
and
obviously
the
same
prototype
could
equally
well have
originated
a
sign
with crossed lines at the
top
(fl> JX> ID-1
Why
then did the south-Semites
use
the north-Sem.
s
letter for
pure
s
? This
use
would be hard to
explain
if
they
borrowed the
alphabet directly
from
a
pure
Semitic
source
;
it would be
explicable
if
they
borrowed it from
an
Asianic
source.
Probably
in most of southern Asia Minor there
was
no use for
a
letter
s,2
whilst
on
the other hand there was
need
for
a
letter to
represent
a
special
Asianic sibilant. I
suggest
that at a
certain date in this
region
the Phoen. s-letter
was
commonly
used for
pure
s,
and the Phoen. s-letter for the
special
Asianic s
;
and that
Greeks,
Carians
(and
others
?)
on
the
west,
and northern
"
Arabs
",
through
traders,
on
the
east borrowed
a
form of the
young
Phoen.
alphabet
that had
become thus Asianized
as to its sibilants. Both sides borrow
a
sade used
as
pure
s.z The Asianized samek
was
used in
1
Materially,
at
least,
the Tamudaean
var. of
s,
fa
(Jaussen
ot
Savignac,
Miss,
en
^4ra6ic,Tam.inscr.,No.
26),
is intermediate between
Q andf^.
*
Cf. the
languages
of the Hittite
Empire,
and
Lycian
and Carian.
*
Earliest
script
of Thera
(M<A*
<
t^)
'
similarly
Carian. South-Sem.
4
<
/$
<
f^.
The Phoen. letter is in this case intermediate between tho
more
open
Greek and the
more closed Bouth-Sem. form.
Greek,
which had
no
corresponding
sound,
variously
as
=
?
(Thera)
and
asa;;
in Carian
(and locally
also in
Greek)
for
the Asianic
s
*;
and
by
the south-Sem. it
was
adopted
for
the
special
Sem.
& for which the Phoen.
alphabet
had not
pro
vided. Thus:?
Conjectured
intermediate
(Asianic)
North-Sem.
usage.
Greek. Carian. South-Sem.
. . .
f
T hH
H4 H rn
)
Asian
s,
*
s> A8.an,c*
>\
m
)
ge^
^
?>
s
M wisI
*
The rest follows
easily
as
regards
south-Sem.
(1)
A
sign
for the Sem. s-sound
was
needed,
sade
having:
lost that value. That letter
was
therefore differentiated
by
a
diacritical stroke into
a
letter for
s,
viz.
*
j?
>
$
which is the
parent
of all s-letters in south-Sem.
(By
differentiation,
like
wise,
this letter
produced
later
on,
in Min.-Sab.
a new
letter
for
z.) (2)
The further
history
of samek in south-Sem. is well
known
;
the sound 4
was
lost in
Arabia,
with the result that
in the various
scripts
samek became
pure
s
instead of
&,
and
$
1
Samek turned
over is Car.
I-H, f,
n\ I
obviously
Halicarnassian
sati
rp,
used as tho
equivalent
of
crcr,
is the same letter
;
and both are
identical with south-Sem.
\*-\, rS
Tho Greek
namo sati is
generally
derived from Sin
;
but
perhaps
rather it
comes from sank
<
samk,
or from sum
<
samk with
n for m
by
assonance
with tho
neighbouring
nun and 'ain.
Similarly
Eth.
sat,
name of tho
same
letter,
may go
back to san
(t
for
n
by
assonance with
bet,
as in Saut for
Sin
by
assonance with
liaiit).
If this is
right,
south-Sem.
nearly agrees
with
Asian Greek in the
form,
the
phon.
value,
and the name of tho
letter?against
Phoen. in each
respect.
,
[Thoname8
of samek and its
neighbours
in the
alphabet
from which both
Greeks and south Semites borrowed
were
perhaps
about
as follows:
moim-nun-san-oin-pc.
The
south-Sem.,
making
some
retranslations,
arrived
at mai-nahas-san <
sat-'ain-af
(cf.
kaf.);
the Greeks of the main tradition
(with ?
?
x), dropping
final
conHonants,
arrived at mo
(^w)-nu-xa-o-po,
and
then,
with two vocal assonances :
mu-nu-xei-o-pei).}
806
(the pure
s-letter derived from
sade) disappeared
as
being
superfluous.
To
complete
the above table
:?
South-Semitic
keeping
&
losing
&
Samek
4
s
Sade
X
s
As
regards
the sibilants in our
inscriptions,
note
(1)
if in
the earliest south-Arab,
script,
s
and
s were
undifferentiated,
there is the
possibility
that the difficult last word of U 7815
was
gsn,
i.e.
conceivably
gass
(gypsum)
+
n of determina
tion :
D.,
bearer of the tribute
or
service of the
gypsum.
It is a
tolerably good
sense
for the
graffito
of
a
foreign
work
man,
and the treatment of the final
n as
non-radical is favoured
by
its absence from the first
draught
of the
inscription.
On
the other hand zabil-kudur in
an
essentially
Arabic text would
be
difficult;
it would be
a
technical term borrowed
by
the
writer from the
language
of his masters.
(2)
If the loss of the sound & in Arabic
began
in northern
Arabia,
it is
possible
that it had
already
occurred in the
dialect used
by
the writer of U 6900. This would
explain,
if
explanation
be
needed,
the
use
of the ^-letter in the nom.
prop.
=
Kirsi.

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A New Kind of Old Arabic Writing from Ur

Author(s): Eric Burrows

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