Una bilingue greco-palmirena dal Negev: una nuova interpretazione

Abstract

A dedicatory bilingual Greek-Palmyrene inscription from Ïaluþa (Negev) has possibly another
interpretation for its Aramaic part as to the first publication made by Y. Ustinova and J. Naveh in
1993. The Greek part is a very widespread dedicatory expression Theos Hypsistos “to the God
Most High”, common during the 2nd-3rd centuries AD in the imperial Roman world. Written under
the Greek inscription the Palmyrene one is composed by five signs with a cursive aspect. J. Naveh
suggested different solutions for a satisfactory interpretation of the inscription, but all left the
problem unsolved from morphological and phonological points of view. A new look to the
photograph has allow to observe some differences in the signs’ shape and to propose a new
reading of rb dkt[ƒ] and a new translation, “chief of the place”, to be attributed to the God named
in the first part. In the Negev region a Nabataean inscription make us acquainted about an ƒlt rbt
ƒtr “ƒlt, the lady of the place”. So the expression is already known in the region where our
inscription were found. Moreover, instead of the word ƒtr, the use of the Semitic root dky, with a
nuance of purification for the place, it would seem more accurate for a possibly votive offering
placed in a holy place dedicated “to the God Most High”.