Arab. arch. epig.

2001: 12: 223235

Printed in Denmark. All rights reserved

Copyright C Munksgaard 2001

ISSN 0905-7196

Origin and evolution of South Arabian

minuscule writing on wood (1)
J. RYCKMANS
Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Introduction
In several unpublished lectures delivered
in the early 1970s the late Mahmoud Ghul
(Univ. of Yarmouk, Irbid, Jordan) described
two cylindrical wooden sticks from Yemen,
finely incised with a then unknown type of
writing. On the basis of a partial decipherment Ghul identified this as a form
of handwriting derived from the monumental inscriptions of pre-Islamic South
Arabia (2). It was not until late 1977, nearly
140 years after the decipherment of monumental South Arabian writing, that Ghul
successfully concluded his decipherment
of the minuscule script and that the scholarly world became fully aware of the nature of this writing as the device which was
substituted in daily life during the pre-Islamic era (and even in the Islamic era) (3)
for monumental writing on stone. The
writing style of the two sticks studied by
Ghul is clearly that of a minuscule form of
writing, i.e. writing in which the body of
the letter is extended to different heights
by a stem or a loop, as in a musical stave,
and which is to monumental writing what
script or running writing is to printed
text. One should not, however, speak of the
writing as cursive. Certainly the writing
of the texts on wood is cursive, to the extent that this signifies all writing representing a rapid form of a slower form of
writing (4). Nevertheless, the word cur-

sive is already used to describe various

epigraphic scripts written on rock faces in
pre-Islamic Arabia which have no relation
to the writing in question here. Moreover,
the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current
English specifies that, in speaking of
writing, the word cursive indicates that it
is done with joined characters (5). In fact,
in none of the known examples are the letters, however closely written together, ever
joined. The English definition of cursive
seems to have European minuscule handwriting in mind even though, not without
some ambiguity, certain Anglophone
scholars use the term cursive in the sense
of informal to designate Semitic writings
such as early Hebrew or Phoenician in
which all of the letters are separate.
In 1983 additional texts on wood, originating from clandestine excavations,
began appearing in the suqs of Sw anca.
These included both segments of wooden
branches like the Ghul texts as well as, for
the first time, palm-leaf stalks or ribs. The
discovery of such texts, which we now
know are generally earlier than the cylindrical wooden sticks of the type studied by
Ghul, confirmed the Arabic tradition according to which palm-leaf stalks (Ar. pl.
c
usub al-nah8 l) were used in pre-Islamic
Yemen for a type of writing called zabur, as
distinct from the monumental epigraphic
South Arabian script which was called

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J. RYCKMANS
musnad (6). In 1985 a dozen inscribed sticks
and palm-stalks (some of which belonged
to the Museum of Antiquities of the University of Sw anca), were entrusted to Walter
W. Mller of the Seminar fr Semitistik,
Marburg University. These were studied
jointly by W.W. Mller, Yusuf M. Abdallah
of the University of Sw anca and the present
writer (7).
The same team was invited in 1991 to
Sw anca to study an additional forty palmstalk texts which had been acquired by the
National Museum of Yemen thanks to a
grant from Total-Yemen and the Indo-Suez
Bank. This study led to a publication in
1994 which concentrated on sixteen of the
best preserved pieces in the collection (8).
Already in 1990 a palm-stalk excavated by
the Soviet-Yemeni expedition at Raybun
had been published, which bore a text incised in a variant of the monumental script
which could be considered transitional between the monumental and the written
minuscule variety (9). In 1992 a further
dozen inscribed palm-stalks were entrusted for study to the author by several
anonymous collectors. Two of these texts,
displaying transitional letter forms, were
subsequently published (10).
With the exception of those texts considered transitional between the monumental and the minuscule forms of writing
which might provisionally be dated to the
fourth-second centuries BC, the texts mentioned, studied and in part published then
would seem, judging by several criteria, to
date to between the first century BC and
the third century AD (11).
In September, 1994, the Board of the Oosters Instituut (Oriental Institute), a private
foundation in Leiden, decided to put to
good use its important collection of texts
on wood by commissioning A.J. Drewes
(Univ. of Leiden) and the present writer to
study and publish them. The c.300 texts,
along with those texts already published or

224

known, were copied in facsimile (J. Ryckmans), transliterated and registered (A. J.
Drewes), word for word with context in a
computer database. The simple act of
making an inventory of the collection revealed the presence, in a significant
number of cases, of texts written in what is
considered the most ancient style of monumental epigraphic South Arabian, thus
confirming what had been, until our work
was undertaken, merely a rumour that
such was the case. Another surprise was
the rich diversity of letter forms which reflects the progressive disintegration of the
monumental writing style, the birth of the
minuscule mode of writing and its subsequent evolution, as successive stages
emerged in a manner which, although irreversible, was nevertheless characterised by
the variable pace of evolution for each
letter. The totality of texts to which we
have had access thus allows us to establish
a fairly secure relative chronology from the
earliest documents dating roughly to the
seventh century BC (12) down to, at the
very least, the year 380 AD which corresponds more or less to the year 495 in the
local era used in text Leiden 25 (13), although certain letter forms in similar texts
appear to be even later.
The present article aims to examine the
evolution and development of the South
Arabian minuscule writing system. Attested for more than a millennium and derived originally from the monumental epigraphic script, minuscule writing evolved
after its emergence as an autonomous
graphic system. The South Arabian minuscule tradition is of exceptional interest in
relation to the broader history of the evolution of the Semitic alphabets. So far as we
know, South Arabian minuscule writing
was used almost exclusively on wood. It is
only rarely used on any other medium,
such as stone, bronze or terracotta (14),
even if one might have expected to see it

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

used for graffiti on rock faces. The reason
for this almost exclusive use lies perhaps in
the fact that it was a form of rapid
writing.
The documentation used for the present
article consists of over 150 texts from the
collections mentioned above which the
author has copied from the original sources
and deciphered in collaboration with W.W.
Mller, Y.M. Abdallah, A.G. Lundin and,
for more than 100 of those texts, A.J.
Drewes. More than seventy graphically
variant texts have been chosen. In each
case the same twenty letters have been
used, selected among others because they
show a greater variation in the course of
their evolution. The elimination of duplicates and of examples which are deficient

in one respect or another has resulted in

some fifty variant forms, illustrated in Figs.
14. The individual letters have been
drawn from tracings made of photographs,
adjusted in the case of the Leiden and
X.JRy texts, after a further scrutiny of the
original documents and the corresponding
photographs. The letter forms in the figures accompanied by a simple number are
those drawn from copies made from original documents in 1985 which could not
later be re-examined, with the exception of
texts No. 7 and No. 8, in which several letters could be collated on the basis of subsequently published, fragmentary photographs (15).
The classification of the graphic variants
has made it possible to distinguish a series

Fig. 1.
Stage I: Musnad; Stage II, Transition: Phases IIa-IId.

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J. RYCKMANS
of stages and phases in the evolution of this
writing system. In the absence of absolute
chronological fixed points and with regard
to the independent evolution of the minuscule vs. the monumental script, it is impossible to determine the duration of each
of the graphic phases described below. Unfortunately, none of the reigns mentioned
in the minuscule texts can be dated with
precision and the rare cases of eponyms
mentioned in them are either unattested
elsewhere or else not yet dated with certainty.

Stages in the development of the South

Arabian minuscule script
Stage I
Stage I (Fig. 1) is characterised by musnad
writing, i.e. the style of monumental script
in a very early form which could be called
pre-classical because of its lack of regularity, verticality, rigorous symmetry and
definition of forms as known in classical,
monumental script. Among the most
characteristic forms are the double-angled
lam, attested also in certain stages of Lihyanite writing (16) and in South Arabian
graffiti 6 and 9 from al-Durayb Yala. The
eyelets of the letters cayn, sw ad and waw are
often made of a poorly formed, horizontally elongated oval. The two ovals of d ta
are placed one above the other without a
vertical bar between them. The oval in sw ad
rests on three steep legs which fan out (cf.
al-Durayb-Yala 18). The lower legs of the
letters alif, kaf and sn angle inwards, as in
Lihyanite.
Leiden 37 (17), a complete alphabet
primer (the reverse bears the beginning of
a second alphabet primer which was left
incomplete), is one of the very ancient texts
which belong to Stage I. The letters are arranged in the now well-known South Arabian letter order, with one previously unattested inversion: final d-z-y-t-zw in place of

226

z-d etc. One characteristic of this writing

stage, which one finds in other examples as
well, is that the V-form of the upper
branches of ha and of the trident of hw a is
not extended by a vertical stem. This can
be seen in al-Durayb Yala 18 and 21, as
well as on the incised palm-leaf stem from
Raybun (see n. 9). On the other hand, the
dal and the qaf in this stage appear in the
normal form found in the monumental inscriptions.
One unique text (Leiden 76, stage I), in
which only twelve letters of the alphabet
are attested, shows that when employed on
wood the monumental South Arabian
script was more highly evolved and
classical than that seen in the previously
mentioned alphabet primer. But this later
form does not seem to have influenced the
subsequent development of writing on
wood. The form of the ha in Leiden 76
a small, rounded half-oval atop a vertical
stroke does not appear in later minuscule
versions of this letter, the shape of which
derives from the V-topped version mentioned above.

Stage II
Stage II (Fig. 1) is still characterised by a
monumental style of script. This is a transitional stage rich in variants which precedes the birth of true minuscule writing.
Four phases illustrate the progressive disintegration and dismemberment of the
monumental script, as certain forms are replaced by others, some of which appear for
the first time. The double-angled lam remains well represented during the entire
stage.
A phase IIa may be distinguished from
Stage I by the final disappearance of the
monumental style mm which was replaced
by various forms, some of which recall the
Lihyanite mm. The former vertical back of
the letter becomes rounded or angular, al-

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

most boomerang-shaped. This recalls the
mm found in rock inscriptions in North
Arabia as well as the graffiti at al-Durayb
Yala (e.g. 4, 12, 14 and 18). The fa assumes
a plano-convex form (the flat side on the
left), also attested in al-Durayb Yala 12. In
this phase the eyelets in some letters are
written in ill-adjusted strokes. The ha retains its V without a stem and the alif remains topped by a double angle as in the
monumental script (an alif topped by two
small vertical stems, common in Lihyanite
and many North Arabian rock inscriptions,
is never attested in the texts on wood).
A phase IIb is represented by a single inscription (Leiden 14) (18) which may be
considered Minaean in view of its very
clear links to the Lihyanite writing style
with its angular, bent and dismembered
letters, such as the tw a. In this phase the alif
loses its right angles and has a simplified
antenna. The bars of the dal become dismantled (as in phase IIc). The loop of the
ya becomes extended into a triangle shape
on the right side of the stem, as seen in alDurayb Yala 1, 2 and 12. The hw a has still
the early, angular shape as well as a variant
with a stem, perhaps influenced by the
monumental style as seen in Leiden 76
(phase I). The ha has a particular shape (cf.
al-Durayb Yala 11) which is otherwise attested only in phase IVa and which can be
compared with a capital Y but with a lower
slanted stroke as in the small letter y. The
qaf of Leiden 14 still reflects the monumental form of the letter but its appendages, instead of being vertical, are both
slanted towards the right. Interestingly a
variant of the same letter, in which the
upper appendage is slanted towards the
right while the lower one remains vertical,
is well attested in both early and late
monumental Lihyanite.
Phase IIc shares a number of characteristics with IIb, particularly the form of the
letters dal, waw and ya. Two texts may be

assigned to this phase. The first one is a

special case (see n. 14); it is a short inscription incised on a terracotta incense burner
in the Yemen Museum which comes from
the temple of Wadd duMasmaim, at the
foot of Jabal Balaq al-Qibl in the Marib region (unlike all of the texts on wood examined here which are thought to come from
al-Sawda in the Jawf of northern Yemen).
The second text is published: X.JRy b-2 (see
n. 10). Both texts still use the monumental
type of dal, but a new type of ha appears
which becomes common during phase IId
and is characterised by a vertical stem in
the middle of which a slightly curved
branch runs off to the right at a 45 angle.
The nun shows a very stylised form in
which the angle in this letter almost disappears.
Phase IId is the most significant in the
entire evolution of this stage. It is characterised by a new form of dal and a previously unattested form of qaf which is virtually exclusive to this phase. The qaf,
which we have called ephemeral, has no
parallel in any other writing system in Arabia. It shows a vertical stem, from the
middle of which a sort of oblique zig-zag
runs off upwards to the right. It is possible
to trace this form, by a process of lateral
displacement, to the qaf of phase IIb but to
date no intermediate forms are attested
and, furthermore, this would not explain
the later exclusive appearance of a form of
qaf related to the earlier style, nor the disappearance of the form by which it was
superseded in phase IId.
The dal of monumental type disappears
for good after a final appearance in Leiden
140, where both the old and the new forms
co-exist. The new form seems to be the result of the breaking down of the old form
into two separate parts: the stem and the
triangle, a phenomenon comparable to that
which has affected virtually all forms of dal
in Lihyanite inscriptions. If the chrono-

227

J. RYCKMANS
logical sequence suggested here is correct,
the detached triangle seems to have been
first placed on the writing line (19), to the
left of the stem (e.g. in Leiden 153), but it
later assumed a different position on a
second stem. There it appears at the top
and on the right side of the stem like a
small loop. Together the two segments of
the dal resemble the letter combination PI
written in capitals. As will be seen below,
the subsequent forms of dal are important
markers in defining the later stages in the
evolution of minuscule writing.
The monumental type of dal also makes
a last appearance (Leiden 153) in phase IId
and is replaced in subsequent phases by a
series of very degraded variants. The bars
of this letter (still visible in phases IIc and
IId) give way to a loop or triangle attached
to the bottom right of the left-hand of two
vertical stems. Taken together the elements
of this letter resemble the Russian letter ery,
which one can represent in Latin script by
the letter combination bI (small b capital
I). The loop is sometimes replaced by a
small vertical stem running upwards from
a horizontal line joining the two larger, vertical ones (which may deviate obliquely towards the top).
The double-angled lam makes its last appearances, after which it is replaced by a
triangular form resting on the writing line
which risks confusion with a ba, tipped obliquely. The hw a shows the form first seen in
phase IIc. The hw a with central stem becomes the norm. Three texts show a
curious form of the zay (which occurs once
in phase IIIa as well) combining two chevrons sideways, one written over the other.
The last examples of the letter zw a also
occur in this phase. We know that the etymological /zw /, represented by a distinct sign
in the monumental inscriptions, is
rendered by dw ad in the minuscule texts
known to date. The alif of this phase has
finally lost all of the angularity of the

228

earlier, monumental style alif. Finally, the

top of the stem of the ya is bent, a trait
which will eventually distinguish this
letter from similar minuscule letters of the
series c/b/l/y.
The provisional, chronological assignment of the texts of phase IId is based on
the persistence of several of the earlier
angular forms (e.g. a sw ad very similar to the
sw ad of the Lihyanite inscriptions and al-Durayb Yala 18). At the same time the attribution of three texts to the end of this
phase is based on the presence of elements
which characterise minuscule writing, such
as the horizontal appendage on the writing
line at the end of a letter e.g. in the case of
the waw, which is very similar to its true
minuscule counterpart, and the generally
relaxed, supple nature of the letters. The
latest text assigned to this phase (Leiden
11, unpubl.) is inscribed in very small letters, even though they cannot yet be called
minuscule. It seems that it was specifically
this diminution in the size of written letters, suitable for rapid forms of writing
which led to the emergence of the minuscule script (20), the stems and tails of which
served to maintain legibility, which might
otherwise have been lost in the process.

Stage III
Stage III (Fig. 2) represents true minuscule
writing, the evolution of which is marked
by a succession of variants in the form of
dal (see upper left hand corner of Figs. 2
4). In general the letters of this stage are
smaller and more angled than their predecessors. The stems are elongated or new
stems appear (fa, tw a), many of the ends of
letters extend like a horizontal appendage,
and most of the forms have rounded or
softened shapes.
An initial phase IIIa is characterised
firstly by a new form of dal, consisting of
an elongated and angled stem ending in a

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

Fig. 2.
Stage III: Minuscule; Phases IIIa-IIIb Problems.

short, horizontal stroke separated from a

small triangle with a slight extension to the
left along the writing line, and a qaf which
regains for good a form derived directly
from the monumental type of qaf. The qaf
is made up of two strokes, a right-hand one
ending in a semi-circle open on the left,
and another one shaped like a reverse
comma, to the left, which extends downward. A stylised variant of this letter, reminiscent of a double vertical zig-zag, appears in phase IIIa and later on as well. The
dal occurs in several forms (some of which
were attested earlier) which appear indiscriminately and are distinguished from one
another by the way in which the open loop
of the earlier forms is rendered. This is
either a small stroke or a curve open to the
left, between two vertical lines. Most often
the loop is formed by a rounded stroke
which opens at the bottom towards the left.
The hollow thereby formed may be closed
by another small stroke, or the bottom of
the second vertical stroke may end in a
curve opening towards the left.

A new, V-shaped ha appears, the base of

which resembles either a knot or a small,
horizontal stroke curving upward towards
the left. In some cases the left side of the V
extends below the right side, and may turn
back towards the left (e.g. X.JRy b-6)
making the letter resemble a square
Hebrew sw adeh. The tines of the fork of hw a
exhibit a number of variants. At first they
appear detached like apostrophes on either
side of the vertical stroke (cf. l), though
not necessarily at precisely the same
height. Later they appear like two small
circles flanking the top of the vertical stem
|. These circles may be open at the bottom,
giving the entire letter the appearance of
an open umbrella in profile. Often this
latter form can only be differentiated from
a waw by the length of its central stem.
The letters cayn, ba, lam and ya all have
similar shapes: a rounded or triangular
loop ending with a slight extension towards the left. Generally the cayn is small
and angular, and after a divider, it can
often be confused with the second half of a

229

J. RYCKMANS
dal; the ba is large, rounded and a bit taller;
the lam shows a small, rounded loop with
a long stem; and the ya has an angular
loop and vertical stem which bends near
the top. Having said this, all of these traits
are susceptible to alteration by individual
scribes, and discriminating between these
four letters is a recurrent problem in
dealing with the texts. The same applies,
although somewhat less so, to the alif, kaf
and sn. To the letter forms for this phase
illustrated in the figures should be added
those of text X.JRy-c (21).
Without suggesting that it has any
chronological significance, we have given
the name phase IIIb to a hybrid writing
style which shows characteristics of both
IIb and IIIa, but which appears to be later.
This seems to be derived from that of
Leiden 33 (Minaean, phase IId) and is
characterised by an alif with a horizontal
antenna and a very stylised nun. Apart
from the minuscule dal, the writing of
phase IIIb is still done in capital letters.
Given their rounded forms the letters of
this phase could be termed uncial. Most
letters are extended by a horizontal appendage typical of minuscule writing.
There are two main varieties of this
writing style, both represented in stage IIIb
Problems. The earlier one, rarely attested,
is exemplified by the damaged text Leiden
107. The other, very similar to the older
one, is represented by Leiden 9, 12 and 149
(the last one not illustrated). Both varieties
exhibit a dal with two parallel stems (cf.
one of the forms of dal of phase IVb), a fa
with a short stem, a lam formed by an isolated stem followed by an oblique line; a
mm composed of a curved, angled stem to
which a semi-circle is attached on the right
(cf. the fa of stages III and IV). The ta is
very angled and angular, its upper loop
transformed into a fork as in stage IVa-b.
The lower loop of this letter is also open, so
that the whole form resembles an italicised

230

capital H with an appendix at the bottom

left. Apart from having a qaf of a type already seen in IId, Leiden 107 is notable for
its rare type of waw: a vertical ovoid, from
the centre of which, on the left side, a short
line runs obliquely down to the left. The
three other texts belonging to this phase
share a gayn which is exclusive to this
phase and which recalls a waw, though
more angular and topped by a small vertical stem (22). In addition, they have a hw a
showing the usual trident form, sometimes
with the tines separated from the vertical
stem. The lam of this phase is easily confused with the sn of the same phase, while
the qaf consists of a double zig-zag already
attested in phase IIIa.
Leiden 9 is unusually large, 40.4 cm long,
with eleven lines of writing. The writing
on this text and on Leiden 12 and 149 is
characterised by large, supple capitals
which are compact, but not linked, and difficult to read, suggestive of ceremonial
writing, as for example chancellery writing
(23). Alongside certain archaic traits the
writing of this phase contains letter forms
which occur nowhere else, or if so, with a
completely different value (!) in the later
stages of minuscule writing. The survival
of this kind of writing, somewhat apart
from the main trends seen in the evolution
of minuscule script, might be explained by
the closed nature of the particular scribal
school which used it. This is another reason
why texts 9, 12 and 149 appear to be older
than they actually are. In fact, along with
the texts on wood Leiden 25 and 138 (the
latter not illustrated) and the palm texts
Leiden 302 and 312, both of which belong
to phase IVb, Leiden 9, 12 and 149 are the
only texts on wood known to date (1998)
which contain a word for the root three in
the late orthography tlt. The latest text
which contains the earlier forms slt (the
contract concerning Three sheep (24)),
with the dal formed by two stems with an

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

isolated element still well drawn, belongs
to phase IVa. The texts described above
would thus belong to phase IVb, whatever
the exact point of the change in the root
for three in the minuscule texts may have
been.
Another problem concerns the texts
which belong to phases IId through IIIb.
What is the significance of the appearance
in phase IId of the qaf derived from the
monumental form which is replaced before
the end of the phase by a previously unattested form which subsequently disappears
completely? It doesnt seem likely that the
form really went out of favour, but perhaps
the appearance of a new form resulted
from an external influence coinciding with
the appearance of the new type of dal. As
we have seen, this new form of dal shows
similarities with the Lihyanite dal. Could

the influence have come from that direction? An indication of the source of the influence is provided by the fact that, of the
eight texts known at this time and assigned
to phases IId and IIIb which show the later
type of qaf and the new type of dal, five are
certainly Minaean (marked M) while one is
Sabaean (Leiden 107). The language of the
other two texts assigned to this group
cannot be determined since they are simple
alphabet primers (marked by an asterisk *),
but one might suggest, given the large
number of Minaean alphabet primers, that
they might well be Minaean as well. Thus,
bearing in mind the limited evidence before us, one might suggest that the new
types of qaf and dal were introduced from
the north (?) into or from a Minaean cultural milieu, particularly in view of the extensive
north-south
distribution
of

Fig. 3.
Stage IVa: Minuscule; Phase IVa.

231

J. RYCKMANS

Fig. 4.
Stage IVb: Minuscule; Phase IVb.

Minaean culture in the western Arabian

peninsula. Of the two letters in question,
only the new dal later enjoyed a place in
the minuscule tradition. The ephemeral qaf
does not seem to have survived the end of
Minaean hegemony.

Stage IV
Stage IV (Figs. 3 & 4) is the best attested
of all in the corpus. An initial phase IVa is
characterised by a new type of dal consisting of two strokes, one long and generally vertical, and another one shorter and
more oblique, with the separate element
marked by an appendage. This separate
item may appear as one or two short, vertical strokes, or one or two dots. This phase
is also characterised by the appearance of
cylindrical segments of wood of various
types alongside the palm leaf stalks. They
include examples of both dense wood,

232

such as the two pieces deciphered by Ghul,

as well as light wood characterised by a
large central medullary canal, the marrow
of which has generally disappeared, creating a tube-like effect. The wooden sticks
are marked in the figures by a bold dot ( . ).
A particular form of ha (already attested
in phase IId) is well established during this
period. It is marked by a long, oblique
curving stem running from the top right towards the bottom left, in the middle of
which is a vertical or oblique line. The
letter thus resembles our printed small y
written as a capital. We also see the use of
forms previously attested for the letters dal,
ha, ta, tw a and mm. For the last time the
mm shows the trace of the typical reflex
angle of its monumental ancestor but two
new versions of this letter (seen together in
texts TYA 12 and No. 8) appear as well.
One is crescent-shaped like our capital D,
while the other one, which became stan-

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

dard, is formed of a small acute angle,
opened towards the left, and closed on the
left by a curve descending towards the
right. Thus this letter resembles our printed
small e.
Some examples of the series alif/kaf/sn
and occasionally sw ad appear to be stretched
out vertically as a result of the elongation
of their final stroke. The kaf (Leiden 26) and
later the alif (No. 11) are distinguished by
the new way in which their antenna
branches off the middle of the diagonal
stroke in the middle of the letter. The
curved pocket of the sn may be opened
on the left, resembling the form of the qaf.
The nun is attested in various forms but
there is now a tendency for the join between the upper antenna of the letter and
the lower curve to meet at an acute angle,
forming a fork with the body of the letter
(see e.g. text No. 11). The g ayn looks like
our small k (e.g. in TYA 8 and the two Ghul
texts) and this becomes the norm in the following phase.
In phase IVb (Fig. 4) the dal is written
with two parallel strokes, either curved towards the left at the bottom or joined at the
base. In one variant (TYA 1) the bottom of
the left-hand stroke bends out horizontally
towards the left. The remarks made above
concerning the series alif, kaf and sn apply
in this phase as well, although many
examples of alif, and later kaf, take on a
new form resembling both our capital N
and an aleph in square Hebrew writing.
The dal is larger and in its most common
form what was formerly a loop appears
now as a bulge at the lower left of the
second (left-hand) vertical stroke. In three
examples (TYA 1 and 16; X.JRy b-4) the two
parts of the letter qaf are noticeably far
apart. The e-shaped mm shows a tendency
to be made smaller, and in the texts Leiden
72, 4, 101 and 77 this form alternates with
another in which the upper angle of the
letter is open towards the left, giving the

letter a strong resemblance to the Arabic

letter hw a in its isolated position. Similarly
in Leiden 4 and 101 the letter ya resembles
an angular headed number 3.
Five of the texts belonging to this phase
are engraved on wooden sticks to which
may be added a sixth, Leiden 138, not illustrated here. The text Leiden 25 gives us the
only firm chronological indicator among
all of the texts known thus far. It is dated
as follows in lines 910: its date (or: its
month): du Niswa[r] of the year 495 [...].
This local date corresponds approximately
to the year 380 AD. Among the texts assigned to this phase (for the most part according to the evolution of the alif) it is too
difficult to say whether there are any which
ought to post-date Leiden 25. An unpublished text X.JRy b-9, still only imperfectly
deciphered (the writing is terribly ambiguous), seems to be just slightly later. It
is marked by the almost complete absence
of a terminal appendage on most letters, by
a nun formed out of a long vertical stroke,
from the middle of which a short stroke
runs off to the left creating an acute angle,
and by a dal formed by two high parentheses enclosing a short vertical stroke.

Conclusion
The present study has attempted to outline
a chronological and graphic catalogue of
letters on wooden and palm texts, each
within its respective alphabetical environment. It reflects the relative paucity of
available texts, only a small portion of
which are illustrated here, as well as the
restricted number of photographs available
from which reliable tracings of letter forms
could be made. Within the aim of giving a
broad introduction to the reading and decipherment of the texts on wood, particular
attention has been paid in the notes to texts
cited in previously published works with
accompanying photographs and drawings.

233

J. RYCKMANS
The evolutionary stages in the development of this written genre have been established in what is believed to be a chronological order. It is clear that with the appearance of additional texts it will be possible to refine the schema outlined here and
possibly also to bring to light new chronological fixed points with which to anchor
the proposed evolutionary sequence of
writing on wood and palm as it developed
in Southern Arabia.
References
1. Revised text of an unpublished lecture presented
at the Atelier Europeen Civilisations de lArabie
pre-islamique, Aix-en-Provence, 13 March 1996
and at the Institut dEtudes Semitiques at the Colle`ge de France, 22 February 1999.
2. Tracing and transliteration of the characters of the
two texts: Beeston AFL. Mahmoud Ali Ghul and
the Sabaean cursive script. In: Ibrahim MM, ed.
Arabian studies in honour of Mahmoud Ghul: Symposium at Yarmouk University, December 811, 1984.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1989: 17 and Tables I
II. Tables of characters of the two texts and of four
others: Ryckmans J. Petioles de palmes et
batonnets inscrits: un type nouveau de documents
du Yemen antique. Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres
et des Sciences morales et politiques de lAcademie
Royale de Belgique 4: 1993: 32; Fig. 25; Ryckmans J.
Les deux batonnets sud-arabes dechiffres par
Mahmoud Ghul. In: Gingrich A, Haas S, Paleczek
G & Fillitz T, eds. Studies in Oriental culture and
history: Festschrift for Walter Dostal. Frankfurt:
Peter Lang, 1993: 4148, Figs. I-II: tracing and
transliteration of Ghul A and B; Pls. I and II:
photographs of both texts; Robin CJ. LArabie antique de Karibl a` Mahomet. Revue du monde
musulman et de la Mediterranee 61: 1992: 1324,
Figs. 301, photographs, tracing and transliteration of text Ghul B.
3. Schneider M. Un rapport en arabe sur un petiole
de palme originaire du Yemen. Aula Orientalis 12:
1994: 193210; Un second rapport en arabe sur un
petiole de palme originaire du Yemen. Aula Orientalis 14: 1996: 5578.
4. Rey A, ed. Le Petit Robert: Dictionnaire alphabetique
et analogique de la langue francaise, I. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert. 1979: 438, citing (without
ref.) Marcel Cohen.
5. Sykes JB, ed. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English 1976: col. 2516.

234

6. Mller WW. Lecriture zabur du Yemen pre-islamique dans la tradition arabe. In: Ryckmans J,
Mller WW & Abdallah YM. Textes du Yemen antique inscrits sur bois. Louvain-la-Neuve: Publications de lInstitut Orientaliste de Louvain, 43:
1994: 359 (hereafter TYA); Abdallah YM. H8 atw tw alzabur al-yaman walnuqus al-H8 asabiyya. TYA
(Arabic section): 515.
7. The letter forms of a series of these texts have
been studied and illustrated in tables: Ryckmans
J. Une ecriture minuscule sud-arabe antique recemment decouverte. In: Vanstiphout HLJ, Jongeling K, Leemhuis F & Reinink GJ, eds. Scripta
Signa Vocis: Studies about scripts, scriptures, scribes
and languages in the Near East presented to J.H. Hospers. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1986: 185199,
Figs. 1989.
8. Ryckmans, Mller & Abdallah, TYA. Each text is
published with photograph, tracing, transliteration and French and Arabic translation.
9. Bauer GM, Akopjan AM & Lundin AG. Novye
epigraficeskie pamjatniki iz Hadramauta. VDI 2:
1990: 16873, text and tracing. Re-edited under the
siglum X.RB-89, No. 7 in Frantsouzoff SA. Hadramitic documents written on palm-leaf stalks.
PSAS 29: 1999: 5565, with photographs and tracings.
10. The texts X.JRy b-1 (phase IIc) and 2 (phase IId).
Edited by Ryckmans J. Petioles de palmes et
batonnets sud-arabes inscrits: notes de paleographie. In: Nebes N, ed. Arabia Felix: Beitrge zur
Sprache und Kultur des vorislamischen Arabien,
Festschrift Walter W. Mller zum 60. Geburtstag.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994: 250259. Table
259 gives for the text X.JRy b-2, col. gayn, a sign
later correctly identified as qaf by Ryckmans J &
Loundine AG. Un petiole de palme inscrit en
mineen. In: Stiegner R, ed. Aktualisierte Beitrge
zum 1. Internationalen Symposion Sdarabien interdisziplinr an der Universitt Graz, mit kurzen
Einfhrungen zu Sprache- und Kulturgeschichte in
Memoriam Maria Hfner. Graz: Leikam, 1997: 171
180. Transliteration, translation, photographs and
tracing: 173175 errata.
11. Ryckmans, Petioles de palmes: un type nouveau
de documents: 2526.
12. Ryckmans J. Un abecedaire sud-arabe archaque
complet, grave sur un petiole de palme. In: I primi
sessanta anni di scuola: Studi dedicati a Sergio Noja
Noseda nel suo 65 anno compleanno, 7 luglio 1996.
Lesa: Fondazione Ferni Noja Noseda, 1997: 1136.
The text published from a tracing (15, after a
photograph) bears the siglum Oost. Inst. Leiden
37, abbreviated here as Leiden 37.
13. Unpublished text, the late writing style of which
is shown here in Fig. 4, phase IVb.

SOUTH ARABIAN MINUSCULE WRITING ON WOOD

14. To the rare occurrences cited in Ryckmans, Une
ecriture minuscule sud-arabe antique: 198199,
and Ryckmans, Petioles de palmes: notes de
paleographie 2567, can be added, firstly: a terracotta incense burner in the Yemen Museum, inv.
YM 2536, the writing style illustrated here in Fig.
1, phase IIc; photograph, transliteration and translation of the inscription in Seipel W, ed. Jemen,
Kunst und Archologie im Land der Knigin von
Saba, Eine Ausstellung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien in Zusammenarbeit mit der Generalinstitution fr Altertmer, Museen und Handschriften,
Ministerium fr Kultur und Tourismus der Republik
Jemen. Wien: Kunstlerhaus, 9. November 1998 bis
21. Februar 1999: 9091. Secondly, isolated letters
on the inscribed pottery from al-Durayb Yala,
published in Garbini G. Le iscrizioni su ceramica
da ad-Durayb-Yala. Yemen 1: 1992: 7991, photographs and tracings.
15. Text no. 7 illustrated in Fig. 3, phase IVa, is published as No. 1 of the collection of texts on wood
in the Dept. of Antiquities of the University of
8 atw tw al-musnad wal-nuqus
Sw anca by Abdallah Y. H
al-yamaniyya al-qadma. Al-yaman al-gadd 15:
1986: 6, 1028, with two poor photographs: 16
(one repeated needlessly: 28). The photo at the
bottom of p. 28 gives the beginning of lines 911
of the text presented here as Fig. 3, IVa, with the
siglum No. 8 already illustrated in Ryckmans,
Une ecriture minuscule: 198199.
16. The references to Lihyanite palaeography refer to
Caskel W. Lihyan und Lihyanisch. Kln/Opladen:
Arbeitsgemeinschaft fr Forschung des Landes
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Geisteswissenschaften, 4:
1954: Schriftentafel 3334.
17. See the publication mentioned in n. 12 which establishes correspondences between minuscule
forms and signs deemed aberrant in early monumental inscriptions.

18. Drewes AJ & Ryckmans J. Un petiole de palme

inscrit en sabeen, no 14 de la collection de lOosters Instituut a` Leiden. PSAS 27: 1997: 225233,
photograph and tracing: 225226.
19. That is to say the real or imaginary line on which
the body of the letters are aligned.
20. See Cohen M. La grande invention de lecriture et
son evolution. Paris: Klincksieck, 958: 339430, who
wrote, on the birth of Greek minuscule writing,
La caracteristique du trace rapide est le rapetissement du corps des lettres, qui a pour contrepartie
des depassements au-dessus et au-dessous. A
similar opinion in Jensen H. Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, 3rd ed. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1969: 535.
21. Ryckmans, Petioles de palmes: notes de paleographie 259. It is the fifth example in the table of
writing styles illustrating the development of
minuscule writing. The order of the last two
examples should now be reversed so as to conform to their chronological order.
22. This form of gayn is perhaps represented by a sign
in text TYA No. 9, line 3, where the editors have
read with hesitation a sw ad in the expression b-s(sw )y.
23. Ryckmans, Petioles de palmes: un type nouveau
de documents: 32.
24. Abdallah YM. Ein altsdarabischer Vertragstext
von den neuentdeckten Inschriften auf Holz. In:
Nebes, Arabia Felix: 17 (transliteration, translation, commentary), 812 (photographs).

Address:
J. Ryckmans
38 Bieststr.
B 3360 Lovenjoel-Bierbeek
Belgium

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