Four Safaitic Graffiti

Early in the spring of 1933 Mr. Carl H. Rogers, a dealer in automobile tires, visited a spot in Transjordan described as "a hundred miles northeast of Philadelphia and about five miles off the road" and found "in a field of stones" an irregularly shaped piece of sandstone bearing two inscriptions. The stone had been, so he insisted, part of a large jar. Mr. Rogers presented the stone to Mr. Joseph Hawley, a photoengraver of Lansing, Michigan, who brought it to my notice and kindly permitted me to examine it in the fall of 1933. Working with stereoscopic photographs and the original, I found upon the stone no less than four graffiti. These I transcribed and worked out tentatively at the time, but did not publish. The photographs and correspondence were filed with the University Museum; and the latter institution in January, 1940, attempted to acquire the stone but could not locate Mr. Hawley. It remains, therefore, to place the information beyond danger of loss by making the present statements. A spot "about a hundred miles northeast of Philadelphia" (that is, Amman) would be about eighteen miles southwest of the oasis ar-Ruhlba, precisely the region where other Safaitic inscriptions have been found. The stone has maximum dimensions of about 5X14 inches. It is slightly concave on one side and flat upon the other, very heavy, and red in color. It appears to have been originally a piece of architectural molding (P1. I). On the concave side are two inscriptions, in two different hands. The first begins at the upper right-hand corner and turns back toward the center after reaching the left-hand edge. The second is underneath the first and inclosed in a sort of cartouche, at one end of which are strokes resembling a mane or a fin. On the flat side is another inscription, in a third hand. This begins at the lower right-hand corner and runs completely around the edge of the surface, which has been outlined, turning inward after completing the circuit. In the center is a figure of the sun with rays. The inscriptions are all in the Safaitic character. Since the third inscription contains two statements, though written in one hand, I here give the text in the form of four graffiti.