Between the North and the South. The Minaic documentation from Dedan (al-‘Ulā) (original) (raw)

Abstract

"In the second half of the 1st millennium BC, the South Arabian kingdom of Ma‘īn was engaged in international trade, with its caravans crossing Arabia. Alongside a considerable number of texts from the Minaean homeland hinting at this commercial activity abroad, a number of Minaic inscriptions and graffiti was left outside South Arabia, being the direct proof of the presence of Minaean traders in different parts of the Near East. The largest number of inscriptions has been found in the oasis of al-‘Ulā, modern Saudi Arabia, where the kingdom of Ma‘īn established a crucial outpost for its trading activities.The paper will present the results of the overall study of this corpus, which has allowed a better reading and interpretation of some texts and the possibility of an analysis of the relationship between the political, cultural and linguistic world of which these texts are expression and their North Arabian milieu. In the light of the latest hypothesis regarding the Minaean chronology and the recent studies on the Dadanitic sources, special attention will be devoted to the historical frame of this documentation, to its textual features – script and language – and to the significance of monumental inscriptions as a means of assessment of one’s own identity in a “foreign” context."

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