Kinship terms in the Nabataean inscriptions Introduction Distributed over a vast area, Nabataean inscriptions provide a good deal of information on the economic, religious, social and daily activities of the Nabata- eans 1 . The importance of these inscriptions often goes beyond their main subject. For example, funer- ary inscriptions, in addition to proclaiming tomb ownership, contain significant religious, historical and social information (Lidzbarski 1898: 130–140). Information on Nabataean kinship may be found in many different types of inscriptions. Nabataean inscriptions contain many kinship terms. The terms ‘b ‘father’, ‘y ¨ ‘brother’, ‘y ¨t ‘sister’, br, bn, yld ‘son’, brt, bnt ‘daughter’, b c l ‘husband’, ‘ntt ‘wife’, y ¨tn ‘son-in-law’, y ¨lt ‘maternal aunt’, ns ˇyb ‘father-in-law’ and dd ‘paternal uncle’, are all attested in Nabataean inscriptions, especially those of funerary type from Hegra. The context in which such terms were found may help in reconstructing Nabataean social structure, particularly with respect to family structure. Notes on Nabataean family structure Our direct knowledge of Nabataean family and social structure comes from the Nabataean texts, especially the funerary ones. In addition, ancient writers such as Diodorus Siculus (80–20 BC), Strabo (64 BC–AD 25) and Josephus (AD 37–97) provide us with a good deal of information, albeit sometimes exaggerated, about Nabataean social structure (Hea- ley 1993: 40). The family, principally made up of parents and children, was the basic unit of Nabataean society. According to a number of funerary inscriptions, inheritors of a tomb are members of the family (e.g. father, mother, children and their wives, uncle, aunt, son-in-law, father-in-law), reflecting the Nabataean tradition which insists on the transmission of prop- erty via the familial lineage. Moreover, the Nabata- ean contracts of sale of palm-tree farms from Nahal Hever also reflect the importance of familial lineage property, particularly in the approbation clause and the litigation exclusion (Yardeni 2000). Nabataean inscriptions insist on the concept of the family unit, a concept that may reflect their Bedouin background where the family ties were strong. Hammond hints that sons followed in the vocations of their fathers and took pride in their ancestry. This may be seen in dedicatory inscriptions, and the habit This paper examines one of the most important aspects of Nabataean social structure, namely kinship terminology. It examines the linguistic derivations, meanings and social significance of kinship terms, and compares them with those found in other Semitic languages. Keywords: Nabataeans, epigraphy, inscriptions, kinship, Semitic lan- guages Hussein Al-Qudrah and Mahdi Abdelaziz Queen Rania Institute of Tourism and Cultural Heri- tage, Hashemite University, P.O. Box 150459, Zarqa 13115, Jordan e-mail: hqudrah@hu.edu.jo mahdi@hu.edu.jo 1 Abbreviations: abst.: absolute; Ay ¨ig: ‘The story and wis- dom of Ay ¨ igar’ after Cowley 1923: 204–248; CIS: Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum; cstr.: construct; emph.: emphatic; JAr : Jewish Aramaic; Hatr: Hatran; Hebr: Hebrew; m.: masculine; Moab: Moabite; Nab: Nabataean; OldAr: Old Aramaic; OffAr: Official Aramaic; Palm: Palmyrene; Ph: Phoenician; Pun: Punic; RE ´ S: Re ´pertoire d’E ´ pigraphie se ´mi- tique; sing.: singular; suff.: suffix; 1p.s.: first person singular; 2p.s.m.: second person singular masculine; 3p.s.f.: third person singular feminine; 3p.s.m.: third person singular masculine; 3p.pl.m.: third person plural masculine. Arab. arch. epig. 2008: 19: 193–197 (2008) Printed in Singapore. All rights reserved 193