Since Halévy first published the Jār al‐Labbā texts (CIH 460–466), their difficult terminology combined with the poor quality of the text copies has inhibited scholarly consensus and no systematic study of them has been undertaken since Beeston’s 1949 treatment. Here, I provide an up‐to‐date study of these inscriptions, including CIH 970 and the recently published FB‐Jawf 1, which also come from the same site. I propose that Jār al‐Labbā was an oracular sanctuary known as “the domain of ʿAṯtar” from where several oracular stick inscriptions claim to originate. I further connect the enigmatic √ḎQṬ‐ritual in the Jār al‐Labbā texts with Syriac zqt “to goad, direct”, the etymology which denotes an ongoing oracular relationship with the god ʿAṯtar from whom the individuals “receive direction.” This ritual seems to have involved sacrifice and the manipulation of liquids (probably blood) to produce oracles, a practice attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

RAMRY/94-az-Zālif 1 no. 1 (first century BCE to second century CE) is a Hadramitic inscription from ancient az-Zālif that has eluded a full interpretation because of scribal errors and lacunae. I survey and critique Frantsouzoff's and the Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions' previous treatments of the text. After proposing an emendation of an incompletely engraved letter and noting the presence of construction text formulary phrases, I reconstruct the lacunae and suggest that the inscription records the erection of a sanctuary for S 1 yn Bql, a previously unknown epithet for the god S 1 yn. This new reading will show that the text contains more errors than previously known and implies that Bql is the hitherto unknown name of the temple in which the inscription was found. K E Y W O R D SAncient South Arabian, az-Zālif, epigraphy, Hadramitic, scribal errors, Yemen

Historians of Ancient South Arabia have long questioned when the Minaean Kingdom collapsed and when the Minaean people disappeared thereafter. Scholarship presently leans towards dating the fall to sometime in the first century AD with the Minaeans dissipating shortly thereafter. Relevant for the question of the Minaeans’ disappearance is the Minaic RyIIIb stick inscription called L 53, which I decipher here. Based on a new paleographical dating system for RyIIIb inscriptions that I have developed, L 53 appears to date between the first to third centuries AD. This would make it the latest dateable Minaic text and quite possibly place its origins to after the fall of the Kingdom of Maʿīn. The text also contains the first attestations of the first person plural independent pronoun “we” nḥn in Ancient South Arabian in addition to a new divine moniker “the God of Maʿīn” (ʾlh mʿn). L 53 therefore might attest to a continuing Minaean linguistic and religious identity after the fall of their kingdom, which may be corroborated by Ptolemy’s statement that the Minaeans were a “great people” in the second century AD.