Milestone Of Bāb Al-Wād From The Time Of Abd al-Malik, 65-86 AH / 685-705 CE

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First Composed: 10th September 2000

Last Modified: 6th December 2005

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Assalamu ʿalaykum wa rahamatullahi wa barakatuhu:

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure (a) original inscription, (b) its trace and (c) its contents.

[] encloses letters supplied to fill a lacuna

Date

65-86 AH / 685-705 CE.

This milestone was found in a ruin north of the watchtower at Bāb al-Wād on the road from Jerusalem to al-Ramla. It has diacritical strokes for ث، ن and ي, as seen in the last line.

Size Of The Slab

57 cm. x 39 cm.

Script

Written in kufic script. Notice also the ornamentation in the bottom of the slab that is unlike the simplicity shown in the earlier inscriptions.

Contents

The translation of the inscription is:

  1. The highway []
  2. Servant of God ʿAbd al-Malik,
  3. Commander of the Faithful, God's mercy be upon him.
  4. From Iliya [i.e., Jerusalem] to this milestone
  5. there are 8 miles.

Location

Département des Antiquités Orientales, Musée du Louvre.

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References

[1] M. van Berchem, Matériaux Pour Un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, 1920, Tome 2 / 3, Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut Français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale: Le Caire, Plate I.

[2] M. van Berchem, Matériaux Pour Un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, 1922, Tome 2 / 1, Jérusalem "Ville", Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut Français d'archéologie orientale du Caire, Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale: Le Caire, No. 2, pp. 18-19 and p. 21. The inscription was also reproduced by Adolf Grohmann in Arabische Paläographie II: Das Schriftwesen. Die Lapidarschrift, 1971, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch - Historische Klasse: Denkschriften 94/2. Hermann Böhlaus Nachf.: Wein, p. 83.

[3] M. Sharon, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, 1999, Volume II, Brill: Leiden, pp. 4-7.

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