A Qatabanic Dedicatory Inscription to Bashamum Yathaʿān

This article presents the edition of a dedicatory inscription addressed to the god Bashamum Yathaʿān, which is part of a private collection examined in Ṣanʿāʾ in 2013. The cult of the god Bashamum appears to have been particularly concentrated in the Wādī Marḫa region, and the epithet Yathaʿān had previously been attested in a single text associated with the ancient city of Ḥalazūm in modern Hajar Lajiya (UAM 507). This provenance can therefore be postulated for the present inscription as well, despite the absence of further internal evidence. The dedication concerns a statue and a ritual element within the Ḫirāf temple, believed to have been located at Ḥalazūm and to have constituted one of the principal cult sites of this deity. The present study highlights the text’s palaeographic features. It examines the linguistic characteristics of the document, with particular attention to its Sabaic features, which require an evaluation within the linguistic and socio-political background of the region.