Delicately carved into this basalt rock from the ancient lava fields of eastern Jordan is a seemingly whimsical depiction of music and revelry dating to about 2,000 years ago. A nude female figure with spindly legs and wild flowing hair plays a long flute-like instrument, while a male figure is shown dancing, the position of his hands and feet evoking the playful tunes of the flute’s melody. Below the fanciful scene, an inscription written in the so-called Safaitic script of the ancient Arabian tribes of the region records the name of the artist, the name of his father and grandfather, and an all-too-brief description of the subject of the drawing itself: “By Aqrab son of Kaset son of Sa‘ed is this songstress.”
This intriguing scene, however, is only one of thousands of such drawings and inscriptions that can be found decorating the myriad stones of Jordan’s deserts. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods (fourth century B.C. to fourth century A.D.), numerous Arab tribes moved through and occupied the vast stretches of rocky desert that bordered the more-settled, urban regions of Syria and Palestine. These Arab tribesmen, many of whom were literate in the languages and scripts of ancient Arabia, carved their names and simple messages into the desert rocks, as well as intimate artistic portraits of their daily lives, from scenes of dancing and revelry to realistic depictions of the wild and domestic animals that were so essential to their desert existence. Unfortunately, the artists rarely inform us of the meaning or significance of their drawings, thereby leading most scholars to see such depictions as simple graffiti.
Delicately carved into this basalt rock from the ancient lava fields of eastern Jordan is a seemingly whimsical depiction of music and revelry dating to about 2,000 years ago. A nude female figure with spindly legs and wild flowing hair plays a long flute-like instrument, while a male figure is shown dancing, the position of his hands and feet evoking the playful tunes of the flute’s melody. Below the fanciful scene, an inscription written in the so-called Safaitic script of the ancient Arabian tribes of the region records the name of the artist, the name of his father and […]
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