During a survey of the Djebel Khaled area, in conjunction with the excavation of the nearby Bronze Age site of El Qitar, Professor Graeme Clarke discovered two Syriac inscriptions on the wall of a small, vaulted tomb- chamber. Tracings were made and these, together with photographs of both the inscriptions and the sepulchre, were sent to me so that I might translate their contents and offer accompanying comments. In the meantime, Professor Clarke has published his valuable description of the Djebel Khaled area and its necropolis, including the tomb-chamber.1 Furthermore, Professor Takamitsu Muraoka has offered a tentative reading of the two Syriac inscriptions.2

In the Northern Church of the Negev town whose name has been preserved by the local Arabs as Ruḥeibe, on a flagstone still in situ in the south-westernpart of the atrium, Loc. 523, the following inscription was carefully and clearly inscribed:

The inscription recently found in the Negev (see Y. D. Nevo, ‘A new Negev Arabic inscription’, p. 18 above) mentions one Hakim b. Abī Asmā', a mawlā of ‘Abdallāh b. 'Amr b. al-‘Āṣ. No reference to a person called Ḣakīm b. Abī Asmā could be found in any other source, literary or archaeological, for the early Islamic period. His master, ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ, is presumably the famous scholar, son of the conqueror of Palestine and Egypt, who was from the Quraysh clan of Banū Sahm. There is a considerable amount of evidence linking both father and son to Palestine

Of the many astronomical observations which are recorded in ancient and medieval history, perhaps the most interesting and useful relate to solar eclipses. Obscurations of the Sun are often noticed by the casual observer and may indeed leave a profound impression on him if the degree of obscuration of the Sun is very large. In particular, total solar eclipses are responsible for the onset of sudden and intense darkness, during which the brighter planets and stars may become visible. Hence ancient and medieval accounts of solar eclipses (and to a lesser extent lunar obscurations) are not confined to treatises on astronomy. They also tend to be reported fairly frequently in chronicles and other writings of a historical nature. The only other celestial phenomena regularly to attract widespread attention in ancient and medieval times were comets. However, in chronological studies, eclipses have a distinct advantage over comets. Both solar and lunar obscurations last for only a few hours and their exact date of occurrence can be computed, as well as the time of day (or night) when the event took place. Comets, on the other hand, often remain visible for several weeks and only for Halley's Comet can useful computations of visibility be made.

The Arab literary establishment of the period immediately preceding the nineteenth century had reached such stability in social status, such homogeneity in education, and such unanimity in cultural values that it was no longer searching for innovative ideas, and of its men of letters—poets and prose writers alike—it expected not originality but consummate skill in the use of words. The prose that it favoured was not only rhymed, but laden with tropes, especially those developed in the branch of Rhetoric known as badī, which concerns itself not so much with imagery as with verbal artifices2 (such as the paronomasia, the double entendre, the palindrome) of which by then over 150 varieties had been devised.

It was a common idea in the last century, and one which can be found even today,2 that Soma/Haoma was a drink which led to ecstasy, and drugs which produce such an extraordinary state of mind have always been objects of curiosity. Therefore, the search for the plant which was used by the Indo-Iranian peoples in their solemn rituals was never abandoned, although the variety of candidates brought forward made the question look unsolvable.Some of the strong drugs suggested for the original Soma had to meet with statements from the Rgveda or Avesta which ran contrary to their shapeor properties. The effects of others on the human mind are so unspectacular that it was difficult to accept them as the plant so highly praised in antiquity.

‘The meaning of texts is dealt with by a dispersal of analysis at mutually congruent series of levels, beginning with contexts of situation and proceeding through collocation, syntax (including colligation) to phonology and phonetics⃜ Stylistics with some notice of phonaesthetic features, lexicography and the place and use of translation are to be included to complete the spectrum’ (Firth, 1957: 30).