Zabad inscription

The Zabad inscription (or  trilingual Zabad inscription, Zebed inscription) is a trilingual Christian inscription containing text in the Greek, Syriac, and Paleo-Arabic scripts. Composed in the village of Zabad in northern Syria in 512, the inscription dedicates the construction of the martyrium, named the Church of St. Sergius, to Saint Sergius. The inscription itself is positioned at the lintel of the entrance portal.

The Zabad inscription records the benefaction carried out by Arabic-speaking Christians in the Roman Empire. Despite the inscription being called a "trilingual", the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic components are not merely translations of one another but instead reflect the varying interests by different linguistic communities involved in the composition of the inscription. Only the Greek portion of the inscription explicitly mentions the martyrium and the saint. The individuals mentioned in the inscription are not otherwise known, but were the ones who played a role in the sponsoring and construction of the structure. While it was once thought that the three inscriptions were created in different times, more recent scholarship considers them to have all been incised together.

The decision to include an Arabic portion of the inscription can be seen as a reflection of the desire to express the cultural identity of the author as, otherwise, Greek was the imperial language and Syriac was the ecclesiastical of the Miaphysite Church supported by the Ghassanids who, in turn, were closely linked to the cult of St. Sergius.

Today, the inscription can be found at the Art & History Museum in Brussels.

Name
Though it is called the Zabad inscription today, earlier publications referred to it as the "Zebed" inscription which more closely resembles local pronunciation.

Date
The Greek and Syriac portions of the inscription indicate that construction began in the year 823 of the Seleucid era (in accordance with the calendar being used in Syria at the time), or 512 AD.

Text
The following translations are that of George Bevan.

Greek
"In the year 823 on the 24th day of month Gorpiaios the martyrion of Saint Sergius was built from the foundations in the time of the periodeutes [itinerant clergy] John and of Anneos, son of Bo{r}keos, and Sergius son of Sergius son of Sergius. Symeon, son of Amraas, son of Elias, and Leontius were the architects who built it. Amen. Saturninus Azizos. Azizos son of Sergius and Azizos Mara Barka gave (gifts)."

Syriac
"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the year 823 of the month Illul the foundations were laid and John the periodeutes, may his memory be blessed, laid the first stone, and it was Mara who wrote (the inscription), and it was Annas and Antiochus who were the founders. (in the margin) Abu Sergius."

Arabic
May God be mindful of Sirgu son of Abd- Manafu and Ha{l/n}i son of Mara al-Qays and Sirgu son of Sadu and Syrw and S{.}ygw

(Syriac, after the Arabic text)

Abu Sergius and Antiochus and Muqim bar Timay and Mari rebuilt it.

Discovery and history
The Zabad inscription was originally discovered in the second half of the 19th century in Zabad, Syria by Johann Gottfried Wetzstein. Eduard Sachau would actually record it for the first time in 1879, and finally publish it in 1881. The inscription was still known to be in its original location in 1894 according to the documentation of Adolphe Barthélemy, but by 1898, was reported by Mark Lidzbarski to have entered the hands of a dealer located in Aleppo. However, due to the petitioning of Henri Lammens, it was acquired by the Art & History Museum, a public museum in Brussels, by 1904.

Interpretation
Each inscription lists patronymics. Both the Greek and Syrian texts list the month of composition, but the Greek section describes it using the name of the Macedonian month whereas the Syriac section lists it using the name of the Syrian month. The Greek text is more concerned with the administrative element of the project, listing the name of the structure, the names of the two primary architects (Symeon and Leontius), and the three donors. The Syriac text lists the name of the individual who wrote the inscription, Mārā.

Both Zabad and DaJ144PAr 1 (548–549), another Paleo-Arabic inscription, have a cross. The use of the formula 'may God remember' in Zabad is also found in DaJ144PAr 1 (548–549) and the Islamic-era inscription of Yazīd.

Linguistics
This inscription is similar to two other sixth-century Paleo-Arabic inscriptions, those being the Harran inscription located in modern-day Turkey and is also found at a martyrium, and the Umm al-Jamal inscription. However, the Zabad inscription is the earliest of the three and is also the earliest attested inscription written in Paleo-Arabic. These three inscriptions help highlight the evolution of the Nabataean Arabic script into the Paleo-Arabic script, as well as the geographical spread of the more recent Paleo-Arabic.

Compared with other Paleo-Arabic inscriptions, the shape of the letter dāl is different only in the Zabad inscription. Likewise, it is only in the Zabad inscription that the hā is found at the beginning of a word, and the shape of the hā in Zabad is not found in Islamic-era inscriptions.