Concemlng the ·stone· Inscription whlch was tound several years ago this text ls hltherto unknown. lt ls not the document mentloned by J .C. WIikinson. Water and Tribal Settlement. 1977. p. 135. note 6. tran · slated by Beeston < who sent the exact transcription to me>. My pretimlnary declpherlng Is not very precise because it was quite difficult to read. Severa! Indications suggest that the tuneral inscriptions written in south arablan trom Hasâ < Saudl Arabla > date trom th~ ·Hellenisttc· era < 3rd-1 st century B .C. >. Dlfferences in the palaeography allow us to distinguish two perlods. As for the Mulayha text. it · seems llkely that is the same era. If we can go on the shape of the letters < which is uncertain as the graphies have been caretessly wrltten > especlally the open m1m from line 3 or the waw whlch is qulte smalt ln llne 1. 1 would be lnclined to classify this text in the second period < 2nd-1 st cent. > • This ls of course hypothetically. A date as early as the 5th or 4th cent .B .C. seems unllkely; on this subject. 1 completefy dlsagree with T .C. Mitchell < and lrvine > • but at the rlsk of repeating myself. the conclusions made with the palaeography could be wrong: we are reconstructtng logical evolutions whlch do not necessary correspond to what really happened. We are waltlng for some reliable indications from the archaeologists. The letters on the smalt bronze bowl found at Mulayha are quite easy to read. desplte the tact that they are incomplete on the photos which t have. The palaeography seems retatfvely old < 3rd century B .C. >. To my knowledge. the iconography does not have an equivalent in South Arabia < hair. sword shape. shield especlally >. The name Mara' shams. which is atready known. has nothing extraordlnary about it. except perhaps the tact that Shams < = the Sun> is the great deity of Gerrha and perhaps of Eastern Arabia.

Eastern Arabia has long been underexposed, compared with the south- and northwestern parts of the Peninsula, in terms of the linguistic situation in pre-Islamic times. This is mainly due to the fact that epigraphic evidence from the region is still rather sparse – comprising some forty rather stereotype “Hasaitic” tomb inscriptions and a few small fragments in Aramaic. Only the site of Mleiha stands out from this picture inasmuch as not only the number of inscriptions from there is comparatively high, but also completely new text genres have been found there. These are particularly two votive inscriptions: one in Aramaic and one in Hasaitic – more precisely, in the South Arabian zabūr script which was used in ancient Yemen for everyday correspondence on wooden sticks. These testify for a differentiated use of writing in the region in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC.

Eastem Arabia has long been underexposed, compared with the south-and northwestem parts of the Peninsula, in terms of the linguistic situation in pre-Islamic times. This is mainly due to the fact that epigraphic evidence from the region is still rather sparse – comprising some forty rather stereotypical "Hasaitic" tomb inscriptions and a few small fragments in Aramaic. Only the site of Mleiha stands out from this picture inasmuch as not only the number of inscriptions from there is comparatively high, but also completely new text genres have been found there. These are particularly two votive inscriptions: one in Aramaic and one in Hasaitic – more precisely, in the South Arabian zabūr script which was used in ancient Yemen for everyday correspondence on wooden sticks. These testify for a differentiated use of writing in the region in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC.

Sarah Rijziger The Kāniṭ Museum collection (Yemen) 1 Phillip W. Stokes A new and unique Thamudic Inscription from northeast Jordan 33 Ali al-Manaser & Sabri Abbadi Remarks on the etymon trḥ in the Safaitic inscriptions 45 Ahmad Al-Jallad & Ali al-Manaser New Epigraphica from Jordan II: three Safaitic-Greek partial bilingual inscriptions 55 Fokelien Kootstra The Language of the Taymanitic Inscriptions & its Classification 67 Hekmat Dirbas ʿAbd al-Asad and the Question of a Lion-God in the pre-Islamic Tradition: An Onomastic Study 141 Zeyad Al-Salameen A New Dedicatory Nabataean Inscription Dated to ad 53 151 Hani Hayajneh Dadanitic Graffiti from Taymāʾ Region Revisited 161

This article provides a brief summary of archaeological fieldwork conducted by the Univer- sity of Vienna Middle Egypt Project at el-Sheikh Fadl Umm Raqaba with a special focus on one particular Late Period tomb, A2 T1. Having been discovered by Flinders Petrie in the early 20th century, this rock-cut tomb is of special interest because of a lengthy Aramaic dipinto inscription with a literary text telling the tale of the Egyptian rebel Inaros who fought against the Assyrian occupation during the 7th century BCE. The tomb was fully excavated for the first time by the Austrian mission in 2016 and 2017. Significant and substantial new evidence was uncovered including large quantities of human remains and artefacts that provide insights into the ancient occupation of the tomb as well as its dating. Importantly, the Aramaic inscription and the underlying original painted decoration of the tomb were subject to intensive new study that included first-hand confirmation of the reading of the rebel’s name as ynḥrw being the Aramaic form of the Egyptian name ’ir.t-ḥr-r.r=w (Greek Ináros). Further, the inscription and decorations were recorded with the assistance of Multispectral Imaging (MSI) technology which enabled to coun- terbalance degeneration and modern graffiti to enhance better reading. The first results of this new archaeological work would suggest that the tomb itself probably dates somewhat later than had been previously suggested, which, nevertheless, opens up new possibilities to explain the significance and provide an interpretation for this unusual inscription as well as for the tomb, the site and the region surrounding el-Sheikh Fadl.