![]() ![]() ![]() The Safaitic graffiti are not alone they are tucked among the crush of inscriptions that adorn the theater wall. The reason for the association is partly contextual. It's clear that the graffiti were written by nomads from Ḥarrah, the real question then is, why were they in Pompeii? Helms argues that these nomads had been incorporated into the Roman military and had come to Italy with the Legio III Gallica-the Third Gallic Legion-during the civil war of 69 A.D. But the “trade” explanation didn’t really give us much to go on especially, as Helms notes, when there is no evidence “for nomad involvement with trade in Puteoli – or, in fact, with trade of any kind.” But it is as easy as it is logical: If you find something out of place in the ancient world it was surely brought there from somewhere else. The explanation has a ring of truth to it and is certainly credible. Up until now the working hypothesis for their existence has been long-distance trade. Olaf College classics professor Kyle Helms, offers a brilliant solution. (Her edition identified nine texts, but subsequent analysis has redivided the archeological evidence into eleven distinct examples.) Since then and apart from their inclusion in the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Africa, they have barely been studied.Ī new article, published in the latest issue of the prestigious Journal of Roman Studies by St. They were first noted in the 19th century, but they remained undeciphered until Jacqueline Calzini Gysens published an edition of them in 1987. The inscriptions-11 in total-were found scratched onto the north wall of the passageway (known as the theater tunnel) that connects the ancient theater complex with the Via Stabiana, one of the main roads that led in and out of the city. Other than “volcanic stuff” (the black desert is so called because it is made of basalt) it’s difficult to see what Pompeii and the Ḥarrah have in common. Prior to the Pompeiian discovery Safaitic had never been seen in the Western Mediterranean much less the Italian Peninsula. The script was used by the nomads who populated the region and bred camels, sheep, and goats. and the fourth century A.D.-but they are found in Ḥarrah, the black desert that stretches from southern Syria, down through northeast Jordan, and into northern Saudi Arabia. Scholars have plenty of Safaitic inscriptions-over 34,000 were written between the first century B.C. They are written in Safaitic, a south Semitic script that records a dialect of Old Arabic. Part of the reason for the neglect of these unique inscriptions is the mystery surrounding their origins. For almost 35 years the inscriptions were a mystery: Who wrote them? And, frankly, what are they doing there? A new article published last month promises to unlock their secrets. These graffiti were written in an obscure form of Old Arabic otherwise completely unknown in the Western Mediterranean. But they might actually be Pompeii’s best-kept secret and one of its greatest mysteries. After all, next to the brightly colored and pornographic frescos of the tragic city’s brothels and the remains of people and animals frozen in time and volcanic ash, inscriptions seem almost boring. In 1987 some clusters of mysterious graffiti found on the walls of Pompeii’s theater tunnel were published in an academic journal. ![]()
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