Hudhud
Hudhud Logo
𐩠𐩵𐩠𐩵
ID: 6060

Text:

Translations:

1S¹ʿdtʾlb Ytlf, of the family Gdnm, kbr of
2the Arabs of the king of Sabaʾ and Kinda and Mḏḥgm and Ḥrmm
3and Bhlm and Zydʾl and all the Arabs of Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar
4and the Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, dedicated to his Lord ʾlmqh,
5Lord of ʾwm, a statue in bronze in praise of what
6his Lord ʾlmqh, Lord of ʾwm, granted him when
7their lord Ys¹rm Yhnʿm and his son
8Ḏr ʾʾmr ʾymn, kings of Sabaʾ and ḏu-Raydān and the
9Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, ordered them to go on an expedition and act as vanguard for their two lords Ys¹rm
10and his son Ḏrʾʾmr, kings of Sabaʾ and ḏu-Raydān
11and the Ḥaḍramawt and Ymnt, to the land of the Ḥaḍramawt and
12their lord Ys¹rm ordered them to go on an expedition and lead them and
13his contingent of the Arabs of Sabaʾ and Kinda and the inhabitants of Ns²qm
14and Ns²n and they went on an expedition against ʿbrn and 
15all their contingent assembled and mustered, seven hundred and fifty soldiers 
16mounted on camels  and seventy horsemen, and they went up from the watering place 
17and detached thirty camel-riders and four horsemen as vanguard;
18and those vanguard soldiers came into conflict with seventy 
19soldiers mounted on camels from the Ḥaḍramawt that the king of the Ḥaḍramawt
20had detached to capture prisoners for him from the expedition of (between) the two towns  
21and Mrb and their vanguard confronted them and some of their detachment 
22in ʾrk and killed and capture all of them and
23among those Ḥaḍramis (only) one camel-rider and three 
24men on foot were safe, and then  they rejoined their contingent and conducted a raid to
25Dhr and Rḫyt and got killings and war prisoners 
26and civil prisoners and camels and bulls and cattle and sheep,
27that satiated their contingent; then they went back and
28waged war in the plain of the sources Ḫrṣm, and then they moved during the night
29before dawn and the army of the Ḥaḍramawt confronted them with 
30three thousand five hundred soldiers mounted on camels and a hundred 
31and twenty-five horsemen and their commanders were Rbʿt, 
32of the families Wʾlm and Ḏhlm, and ʿlyn and ʾfṣy, of the family Gmn, 
33the mercenary captain of the camel-riders and the ʾqwl and the ʾkbrt of the Ḥaḍramawt, and
34they (the Ḥimyarites) crushed  them and killed  eight hundred and fifty of them  
35in combat and captured among them ʾfṣy, the mercenary captain, and
36Gs²m, the mercenary captain of the horsemen, and four hundred and seventy
37soldiers (serving under) the ʾqwlm and the chieftains of the Ḥaḍramawt, and seized 
38forty five of their horses and slaughtered thirty horses 
39and seized one thousand and two hundred riding camels with their equipment, and
40after that an alert was given to them that an offensive had been mounted against their force
41by the contingent of Bs³ʾm so the one of Gdnm (the dedicant) went to their relief and with him there were thirty-five
42horsemen from their contingent and  they crushed them and captured all
43their beasts for water transport and their riding camels and what escaped from them together with
44Bs³ʾm were any swift riding horse and she-camel; all their contingent returned
45in safety and sound and with glory and killings and war prisoners and captured animals
46horses and riding camels and booty, and they praised the might and the 
47power of their Lord ʾlmqh, Lord of ʾwm, and may ʾlmqh continue to grant them 
48that they and their contingent return in safety and nobody
49among their contingent were lost, even one man, from the expedition. By  ʾlmqh.

Translation Notes:

34, 42For a discussion of the meaning of s¹bṭ, see Beeston 1972: 543.
34-35ḫms¹y w-ṯmn mʾtm bḍʿm: Stein notes that bḍʿm is in this case a noun "killed".
37Beeston interprets the word nḥl as "mercenary chieftain", noting that it can be compared with Ar. naḥala "applicable to any mode of 'giving' [...] and giving a reward for services rendered, which I now suspect underlies the word" (Beeston 1973: 452-453).
37-39w-hqḏw bn ʾfrs¹-hmw ḫms¹ w-ʾrbʿy ʾfrs¹m w-ʾblw ṯlṯy ʾfrs¹m: "and they took away of their horsemen, forty-five horsemen and they took possession of thirty horses and they saved one" (Jamme); but Beeston 1972: 538 notes that it would be more natural to see some kind of contrast betweent he two sentences and suggests that the sense is "they saved for themselves 45 of the enemy’s horses but destroyed 30 others", comparing ʾbl to Ar. ʾabala "strike with a stick".
49w-ʾl tfqd bn gys²-hmw ġyr (ʾ)s¹m: Jamme considered this part of the sentence as still dependent from the verb ḫmr ("and [that] there would not be sought [in vain] among their troop even one man"). On the contrary, Ryckmans 1966: 494, followed by Beeston 1976, suggested that the verb tfqd is a perfect and the sentence states that only one man was lost.

Chronological

Period: D

Physical

Support: Object → Artefact → Base → Of statue with dedicatory inscription
Materials: Stone
Measures: h. 156, w. 41-42, th. 35-21
Decorations:
Figurative Subjects:
Symbol Shape: Totschläger
Subject Level 1: Symbol
Symbol Reference: God
Symbol Reference Text: ʾlmqh
Letter Measure: 2.5

Linguistic

Language: Ancient South Arabian → Sabaic → Central Middle Sabaic
Alphabet: Ancient South Arabian
Script Typology: Monumental writing
Textual Typology: Dedicatory text
Writing Techniques: Incision
Concordances: ZI 68, Sh 30, Ir 39

Spatial

Site: Maḥram Bilqīs, Maʾrib, Yemen
Ancient Name: ʾwm
Type of Site: Religious area with a necropolis

Similar Epigraphs

No similar epigraphs found.