Philip son of Jacimus
(0145) Text: l s¹ny bn ṣyd bn ’ṣr bn grm’l w wgm ‘l- bny rġm mny w ts²wq ’l- ’hl -h f h lt qbll w r‘y h- ḍ’n s¹nt qbl ’l- ḥrn qṣr ‘l- flf(ṣ)
Translation: By Sny son of Syd son of ’sr son of Grm’l and he grieved for Bny humbled by Fate and he longed for his family and so, O Lt, grant a reunion of loved ones. He pastured the sheep the year the people of the Hauran complained to Caesar about Philip.
Commentary: Macdonald makes a persuasive argument that the complaint about Philip by which the epitaph is dated is in fact Philip the grandson of Zamaris, leader of the Jewish cavalry colony at Bathyra. Philip served as a general under Agrippa II and was a major participant in the Judaean War. On the complaint against Philip to Vespasian (at that point not yet emperor and only a general under Nero), see Josephus Life 407-409 (cf. J.W. 3.28). The inscription is in Safaitic and so the text is rendered here in transliteration instead of transcription, given difficulties in reproducing the latter (e.g., use of boustrephedon, non-standard characters).
Provenience: stateless desert region (Basalt Desert, Jordan – Ruwaishid Distict of Mufraq Governorate) 67 CE
Bibliography: OCIANA OCI019796 (old); OCIANA #0022620*; Michael C. A. Macdonald, “Herodian Echoes in the Syrian Desert,” in Trade, Contact, and the Movement of Peoples in the Eastern Mediterranean: Studies in Honour of J. Basil Hennessy, ed. Stephen Bourke and Jean-Paul Descœudres, Mediterranean Archaeology Supplements 3 (Sydney: MeditArch, 1995), 288-289.