The Final Passages in two Hadramitic Inscriptions from Dhofar (Khor Rori 3 and 4), What do They Really Mean?

Abstract

The Hadramitic construction inscriptions discovered by the expedition of the American Foundation for the Study of Man at the site of Khor Rori (the ancient port of Sumhurām) in Dhofar in the fifties and early sixties are of particular interest for the study of this peripheral area of pre-Islamic South Arabia. Although their general sense is clear, some important details of their contents remain enigmatic. From this point of view the expression s2lṯt/’ḥṯym attested in Khor Rori 3/6 and 4/6-7 is worthy of note. Its comparison with the Arabic phraseological unit ṯalāṯu ḥaṯayātin “a lot of people” (lit. “three handfuls”), which occurs in the Islamic tradition, namely in al-Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Tirmīdhī and in the Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal, gives a key to a better interpretation of the strongly similar passages used at the end of these two inscriptions. In both cases the process of immigration into a recently founded colony of the kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt is concerned. The author of Khor Rori 3 remarked in its final part that “he brought with him as colonists a lot of people, since they separated until they expanded” (l. 5-7: w-ḥ<w> | <r>/<‘>m-s1/šlṯt/’<ḥ><ṯ>ym/ bn-mw | k<t>b‘/’d/s1tfḥ/). In Khor Rori 4/7 a short addendum is made to that statement: s2b[‘]<t>(m) “in abundance”. This reading appears to be preferable to the previously accepted restoration of the toponym Shabwa (S2b[w]<t>), the name of the capital of ancient Ḥaḍramawt.