The Ethiopic Inscription from Egypt

In the JRAS. , 1954, pp. 119 ff., Professor Enno Littmann, the Nestor of Ethiopic epigraphists, published a Gə'əz inscription from Egypt together with two photographs, a vocalized version and a translation. His decipherment covers seven lines of widely varying legibility, but it appears from scratches visible in fig. 1 that the original inscription contained at least two further lines of which nothing can be recognized to-day. Littmann acknowledges (ibid., p. 121) that most of the restorations, especially those following upon line 3, are “mere conjectures”. This view is, indeed, borne out by study of the inscription and by its very bad state of preservation. In other words: of an inscription of probably nine lines barely a third is in a condition offering a reasonable basis for decipherment. When one remembers that most Ethiopic inscriptions (as, indeed, Oriental epigraphic documents in general) are provided with a generous portion of a preliminary and introductory character, one soon realizes that hopes of a substantial enrichment of Gə'əz epigraphy are bound to be disappointed. This does not mean that the remaining three lines are of no value; any contribution to the not over-abundant inscriptional material of early Ethiopic deserves attention. Professor Littmann and Mr. Meredith have placed Semitists in their debt by making this still unvocalized Gə'əz inscription available for general discussion.