Thread by @NaqadStudies

How do we interpret the left word(s) on the 6th c Mt Nebo Saōla mosaic?

Let's discuss some interpretive options and two scripts from the experts, supplied by Hoyland (2010), then a third script option supplied just today.

1. Puech (1984a) argues that this is an Aramaic rendering of the Greek Saōla. This would be satisfying in that the text would then be as simple bilingual one, conforming to to the evident symmetry of the mosaic as a whole (two animals either side of a central large tree, etc).

However, it does require mosaicist incompetence and/or innovation. Puech proposes the first 3 vertical strokes are an open S; the next vertical stroke is either an open W linked to the L or a Y that is substituting for a W; and at the end there is an inverted  Ā (Fig. 2/b).

2. Moshe Bar-Asher (informal dialogue with Hoyland) suggests the CPA reading “b-Ί-y-l-m” “in peace” (so the semantic equivalent ofArabic bi-salām), the shwa being written as a “y”, which,he says, is known from CPA manuscripts.

This is not impossible, but it does require accepting a number of unusual letter forms: the “Ί” as two parallel strokes rather than two strokes at right angles to each other, the “l” with a bifurcation at its apex, and the “m” with an unexplained downward stroke (Fig. 2/c).

3. The CPA reading of Milik is the only one to account for all the letter strokes, but it is by no means problem free. The first four vertical strokes represent the letters“n-y-Ή” of nayyeΉ “give repose” (Fig. 2/d).

The second word of Milik’s reading, Ίawzeb “give salvation”, begins with a “Ί”, which Knauf feels is too tall for a CPA Ί, but there are other CPA inscriptions with a tall Ί (e.g. Fig. 3/c)

The whole phrase in Milik's interpretation equates to the common Greek formula: hyper sōtērias kai anapauseōs “for the salvation and repose of."

Keep in mind that this inscription is bilingual, and Greek was the dominant prestige script and language in this region.

4. The first publishers on this mosaic, Saller and Bagatti (1949: 171), took it to be the Arabic bi-salām “[rest] in peace”. Knauf (1984) restated that the word was in Arabic without providing any supporting argument, except to say that Milik’s CPA reading was not convincing.

We also had @StarostinDmitri suggest the Mandaic Ha-ba-kad. In our unauthoritative opinion, Mandaic accounts for the script better than Aramaic or Arabic.

Hoyland presses Aramaic because it's the most common non-Greek script in use for the time/region. But is this justifiable?

The Mandeanism (Aramaic מַנְדַּע mandaʻ "knowledge") is an Eastern Aramaic Gnostic Christian sect, originating in around the 3rd c CE.

Scholars disagree on a SW Mesopotamian or Syrian origin for their earliest adherents, but most Mandeans reside in Iraq today.

Mandeans are also known as the Ṣubba or Sabians. The term Ṣubba is derived from the Aramaic root related to baptism.

In Islam, the "Sabians" (Arabic: الصَّابِئُون, aṣ-Ṣābiʾūn) are described several times in the Quran as People of the Book, alongside Jews and Christians.

According to the Mandaean text the Haran Gawaita, the recorded history of the Mandaeans began when a group called the Nazoreans (the Mandaean priestly caste), left Judea/Palestine for heterodox Christian beliefs, and migrated to Mesopotamia in the 1st century AD.

Mandaeanism acknowledges a select group of Hebrew prophets, including Adam, Seth, and Noah - as well as John the Baptist. They do not follow teachings of Jesus.

They demonstrate the significant theological complexity that was active in communities across Late Antique Arabia.

But let's return to the Saōla mosaic - a mosaic laid within a Greco-Aramaic Church, in a town under orthodox direction from Syria and later Jerusalem.

Can we suppose Mandean influence in this church? Probably not on the basis of one Ha-ba-kad (a name? a convert from Iraq?).

So from our reading of the literature, the jury is still out on this mosaic.

There is an intense interest in tracing the development of Arabic out of Nabatean Aramaic, but, until more is discovered about novel 6th c scripts, this mosaic may more properly defined as 'unknown.'

For further reading, see Hoyland (2010):
academia.edu/3658961/Mount_…