The Nabataean Script

Nabataean inscriptions are written in a dialect of Aramaic, the international language of the Ancient Near East during Classical and Late Antiquity. The Nabataeans developed their own style of the Aramaic alphabet, written from right to left. Although the Nabataeans wrote Aramaic, the texts show many grammatical features and loanwords taken from Arabic, suggesting that this was a major spoken language in the Nabataean kingdom. Over time, the Nabataean script came to be used to write texts in the Arabic language as well. By way of an intermediary form known as Nabataeo-Arabic (fourth–fifth centuries CE), the script developed into what we now know as the Arabic script by the sixth century CE, spreading far and wide with the rise of Islam. In Latin transliteration, our text reads ʔLHT ḤYN BR NYBT. By comparing the letter shapes, you can see the Nabataean script still resembles the earlier Aramaic script used mostly unchanged for Hebrew, where this would be written אלהת חין בר ניבת. Some letter shapes, especially the ones that are connected to the following letter to the left, already show some resemblance to the later Arabic script, in which our text would be written as إلهت حين بر نيبت. But what does the text mean?