ROCK ART AT JUBBA, NORTHERN SAUDI ARABIA (a summary of the paper given)Author(s): Christopher ClarkeSource: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 9, Proceedings of the TwelfthSEMINAR FOR ARABIAN STUDIES held at the School of Oriental & African Studies andInstitute of Archaeology, London on 10th - 12th July, 1978 (1979), p. 80Published by: ArchaeopressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41223220 .

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80

statues might have taken place some time before that; year, at a time when Tha'ran Yuhan im was co-regent of his father Dhamar аЛ iy Yuhabirr. The terminus ante quern non is the year 29;l A.D; a hitherto unpublished building inscription from Wa Ian dated in the year ^09 of the Himyariťic era was set up under king Shainmar Yuhar ish as sole ruler.

There are not only official inscriptions on the statues. When the single pieces of the statues were cleaned a number of scratchings appeared on the backside of the statue which is the best preserved. The scratchings in question are drawings of animals and human beings and some words and single letters here and there, partly in a late- Sabaean ductus, partly in ¿i cursive writing.

(A German version of the completo text of the paper read at tho Seminar for Arabian Studies in London on 12th July. lf)7^, will be published in the Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz ) .

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ROCK ART AT JUBBA, NORTHERN SAUDI ARABIA

(a summary of the paper given)

Christopher Clarke

The Archaeological Survey of the Northern Province of Saudi Arabia has discovered for the Dept . of Antiquities an important rock art site at Jubba in the Great Nefud Desert. Jubba is an oasis with a low sand-stone jebel range overlooking an ancient lakebed. The art is of Recent, Thamudic and Early Phases. The earliest phase, probably several millennia B.C., is of considerable interest in terms of style, human dress and equipment, and associated animal representation. Human figures are formally stylised in a distinctive elongated manner. Composition incorporates superpositioning and symmetry for formal effect. Human figures are closely associated with equids and bovids , and less closely with a variety of caprids. There are a few hunting scenes, but evidence for domestication is ambiguous. Reports are to be published in the first numbers of 'Atlal', the Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology .

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