Volume 14, No.1, 2020 - 91 - © 2020 DSR Publishers/The University of Jordan. All Rights Reserved. A Study of the Monetary Word 'BLṬT' in Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions in the Light of Old Mesopotamian Texts Hussein M Al Qudrah 1 * , Fardous K. Ajlouni 1 , Ibrahim S. Sadaqah 2 Abstract The monetary term "blṭt" is frequently found in Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions (ASAI), both monumental and minuscule. However, the epigraphic data does not provide us with sufficient information to attribute the term to its possible origins. Therefore, it is not an easy task to deal only with Ancient South Arabian, especially because the Old Mesopotamian cuneiform archives are paradigmatic for analyzing the meaning and determining the origin of the term in question. This paper discusses the word "blṭt" as one of the monetary terms in Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions in the light of Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) texts. It deals also with the different views of scholars on the origin, signs, and derivations of the word, because linguistic clues to the word are still odd. Another mysterious issue related to the word is the way in which it was transferred to Ancient South Arabian languages and its different derivations. Keywords: Blṭt, Coins, Inscriptions, Ancient South Arabian, Akkadian, Assyrian Introduction The term "blṭt" has been previously investigated by a number of authors. The first reference to the word as a monetary term was by Irvine (1964). The term was recorded next by Beeston (1994) among other foreign words. The third mention was by Bron and Lemaire (1995). After that, it was studied by Stein (2010a) and by Frantsouzoff (2016). These previous studies were brief and ignored its Semitic origin. It may be suggested that the term in question was a loanword either from Akkadian, or perhaps from Aramaic. It was used in commercial texts as "credit item" and legal texts as "coming to life", and was subsequently transmitted to Ancient South Arabian as "blṭm". The earliest record of the word "blṭt" in Ancient South Arabian inscriptions can be dated back to the Middle Sabaean period (third century B.C. – third century A.D.). The documents that record the emphatic letter (ṭ) is linked to the coin known as "blṭt", that is attested in some wooden Ancient South Arabian inscriptions. The Sabaean coins known as "blṭt" were found in the al-Jawf area in the north of Yemen. They were dated to the period between 380 and 350 B.C. (Huth 2010: 89). 1 Queen Rania Faculty of Tourism and Heritage, Hashemite University, Jordan. 2 Independent Researcher, Jordan. Received on 16/10/2019 and accepted for publication on 28/2/2020.