AMMAN — Scholars found many graffiti dated between the 1stcentury BC and the late 3rd century AD in Syro-Jordanian Desert, particularly within the rugged lava fields of the Black Desert.

 

“This activity occurred both before and after the region became part of the Roman province of Arabia in 106 AD,” said Professor Hani Hayajneh from Yarmouk University.

 

“Thousands of inscriptions, including drawings, personal names, records and prayers, were carved into the local basalt by nomadic pastoralists who primarily used Safaitic [an epichoric Ancient North Arabian script representing an Old Arabic dialect] as their primary means of written expression," Hayajneh added.

 

Contact with the Roman army enabled the local communities to learn the basics of Greek, as is now evidenced by a significant number of epigraphic finds. Conversely, Latin inscriptions are much rarer in the region and they appear exclusively within military contexts.

 

The epigraphy of Namara shows this clearly, said Julien Aliquot from French National Centre of Scientific Research, adding that Namara is a garrison in southern Syria with many Greek and Latin graffiti related to various legionary and auxiliary troops, including the third legion Cyrenaica, whose main camp was at Bostra, the capital of the Roman province of Arabia.

 

"On the Jordanian side of the border, the Latin graffito in cursive letters that has been recorded near the so-called Cairn of Hani is also certainly the work of Roman soldiers," Aliquot said.

 

Also, it is worth mentioning the small dossier of the military inscriptions at Bayir, which includes four 2nd century AD Latin graffiti. The Black Desert graffito presented here therefore belongs to a series of documents that have now been clearly identified.

 

"Its publication will provide further insight into the lives of the soldiers stationed by the provincial authorities in the same environment as the nomadic tribes to patrol and maintain the security of the limes Arabicus," Aliquot noted.

 

The inscription was recorded by Rafe Harahsheh during his 2011-2012 surveys, when he was employed by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, Hayajneh said.

 

He added that it was discovered between the Baghdad highway and the Syrian-Jordanian border, approximately 8 kilometres north of the road and 25 kilometres to the northeast of the city of Al Safawi, on one of the burial mounds located on the northern edge of MarabbAl Surufat.

 

Hundreds of ancient drawings and Safaitic inscriptions have been discovered in the same area of the Black Desert. Many of these were first documented by Frederick Victor Winnett and his team in the 1950s, Hayajneh said.

 

The OCIANA database also includes (in its current state, under the misnomer Marabb Al Sarafa) some 50 Safaitic graffiti that have been more recently recorded.

 

"In 2022, Rafe Harahsheh published twenty-five inscriptions from MarabbAl Surufat. We also know that Greek was not absent in the surroundings, as evidenced by two bilingual inscriptions. However, no Latin documents have yet been mentioned there," Hayajneh underscored.