A Sabaic votive inscription from the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm with two lexical notes on bḥr and bṭl
Résumé
A Sabaic inscription on an alabaster block in the Medelhavsmuseet in Stockholm, dating to the middle of the 3rd century CE records the consecration of a monument to the god Almaqah in his temple at Maḥram Bilqīs in Maʾrib. The dedication is stated to be in gratitude for the safe return from the war expeditions of Ilīsharaḥ Yaḥḍub, king of Sabaʾ, and dhū-Raydān, son of Fāriʿum Yanhub. The inscription indicates that the dedication was done as a renewal offering in replacement of an earlier offering of a silver statue. Our discussion focuses on two rare lexemes in the ASA corpus, bḥr and bṭl. We argue that the preposition bḥr originates from the root √bḥr, one of the meanings of which in ASA is “to replace” from an original meaning of “to choose”, and that the term bṭl in the present context is a G-stem suffix conjugation verb signifying that the dedication of the statue had “failed” or “was cancelled”.