Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19 CENTURY: ARABIA 727
II
The great importance of Arabia in relation to the Old
Testament and to Biblical study depends not upon its deserts
and oases, not upon its palm trees and camels, nor
even upon its famous products, gold, precious stones and
perfumes (frankincense and myrrh), although the
latter did
also play an important part in the Hebrew worship, — but
upon the inscriptions found by bold travellers east of the
Land of Midian, and especially in Southern Arabia, and
upon the valuable cuneiform records left to us by the Babylonians
and Assyrians concerning the different divisions and
tribes of Arabia, mostly the very ones that are mentioned
in the Bible.
Beginning with the inscriptions found in Arabia itself,
it is only for the sake of completeness that we mention
at the outset the Nabatean inscriptions dating from the
centuries nearest to the time of Christ. Such were
found on the peninsula of Sinai, in Petra and also in Elc
O!a (Oela). 1 The language of these inscriptions is Aramaic,
though the names of their authors are mostly Arabic.
The style of writing, from which the later Arabic writing
was immediately derived, is
a semi-cursive corruption of the
so-called Old-Aramaic, which in turn represents a later offshoot
of the Phenician.
There are, however, some inscriptions
from Taima, not later than the sixth century before
Christ, which are written in
the Old-Aramaic characters and
in the Aramaic language ; the largest of them was mentioned
above in connection with Huber, 1 883. The stele {suwita =
Assyr. asumitu) on which it was engraved shows Assyrian influence,
as do the names of gods mentioned in it (Mahram,
Shungalla = Babyl.-Assyr. Ushumgallu, Ashira, and Selem =
Salmu). In El-'Ola were found, along with Nabatean (socalled
Proto-Arabic, usually containing
1
See under Doughty, Huber, and Euting above.
only names of per-