Nabataean is only known through inscriptions and, more recently, a small number of papyri.[4] It was first deciphered in 1840 by Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Beer.[4] 6,000 – 7,000 Nabataean inscriptions have been published, of which more than 95% are mostly short inscriptions or graffiti, and the vast majority are undated, post-Nabataean or from outside the core Nabataean territory.[4] A majority of inscriptions considered Nabataean were found in Sinai,[4] and another 4,000 – 7,000 such Sinaitic inscriptions remain unpublished.[5] Prior to the publication of Nabataean papyri, the only substantial corpus of detailed Nabataean text were the 38 funerary inscriptions from Mada'in Salih (Hegra), discovered and published by Charles Montagu Doughty, Charles Huber, Philippe Berger and Julius Euting in 1884-85.[4][6]
Nabataean Kingdom, Aretas IV and Shaqilath, 9 b. C. – 40 a. D., AE18.
On the reverse, an example of Nabataean script: names of Aretas IV (1st line) and Shaqilath (2nd and 3rd line).[7][8]
History
Sinaitic (Nabataean) inscriptions published in 1774 by Carsten Niebuhr
The alphabet is descended from the Aramaic alphabet. In turn, a cursive form of Nabataean developed into the Arabic alphabet from the 4th century,[3] which is why Nabataean's letterforms are intermediate between the more northerly Semitic scripts (such as the Aramaic-derived Hebrew) and those of Arabic.
Inscription in the Nabataean script.
Comparison with related scripts
As compared to other Aramaic-derived scripts, Nabataean developed more loops and ligatures, likely to increase speed of writing. The ligatures seem to have not been standardized and varied across places and time. There were no spaces between words. Numerals in Nabataean script were built from characters of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, and 100.
Michael E. Stone, 1992. Rock Inscriptions and Graffiti Project: Catalogue of Inscriptions
Roche, Marie-Jeanne (2019). Inscriptions nabatéennes datées de la fin du IIe siècle avant notre ère au milieu du IVe siècle (in French). Leuven. ISBN978-90-429-3882-3. OCLC1229107538.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
12345Healey, John F. (2011). "On Stone and Papyrus: reflections on Nabataean epigraphy". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 143 (3). Informa UK Limited: 163–165. doi:10.1179/003103211x13092562976054. ISSN0031-0328. S2CID162206051. Sinai, for example, is a major source of Nabataean inscriptions: the corpus of M. E. Stone contains 3,851 Nabataean items! But most were written by individuals who had no connection with Nabataea itself during the period of the Nabataean kingdom or its immediate aftermath and they may not normally have spoken Aramaic. The texts have generally been thought to have been written long after Nabataea as such disappeared.
