Najran Inscriptions

Abstract

All the epigraphic material dealt with in this note was recorded in and about the oasis of Najran, situated in the Wadi of the same name at the point where it begins to leave the mountains and to splay out into the great south desert of Arabia. The oasis lies at an altitude of 4,500 feet above sea-level between rugged granite and basalt walls surmounted by a frieze of reddish, rather friable, sandstone averaging 300 feet in thickness with peaks rising out of it to a further height of about 200 feet. The highest points are about 2,000 feet above the valley or 6,500 feet above sea-level. This layer of sandstone overlies the igneous rock of the foundations over a considerable area—westward to near the summit of the main mountain range, northwards right up into Najd, and southwards far into the Yaman. It has obviously played an important part in human history by providing relatively easy trade and invasion routes through an otherwise forbidding tract of granite mountains.