David F. Graf | |
---|---|
Born | December 3, 1939 |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Historian, archaeologist, academic and author |
Academic background | |
Education | B.A. B.D. M.A. Ph.D. |
Alma mater | Harding College McCormick Theological Seminary The University of Michigan |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Miami |
David F. Graf (born 3 December 1939),is an American historian,archeologist,academic and author. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami. [1]
Graf is most known for his work on the Greco-Roman Near East. His studies on Greek Persian relations stem from his Ph.D. dissertation in 1979 (“Medism:Greek Collaboration with Achaemenid Persia”). He later authored the book Rome and the Arabian Frontier:From the Nabataeans to the Saracens. [2]
Graf graduated from Harding College in 1965 with a BA degree and then pursued a B.D. with honors in Hebrew Bible from McCormick Theological Seminary. Later,he earned an MA degree from the University of Michigan,followed by a Ph.D. from the same institution. [3]
Graf began his academic career as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan from 1982 to 1983 and served at Montana State University as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of History in 1984. In 1986,he joined the University of Miami's Department of History,where he held various positions,including assistant professor until 1990,Associate Professor from 1990 to 1995,and Professor from 1995 to 2003. Between 2004 and 2022,he served as a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. As of 2022,he is the Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami. [1]
Graf served as the Director of the Roman Road Project from 1986 to 1995,the Eastern Desert Epigraphical Survey from 1996 to 2000,the Hellenistic Petra Project from 2004 to 2007,the Joint Saudi-American Jurash Project from 2008 to 2009,and the Ba'aja Excavations in 2017. [4]
Graf's received the 2003 William Fulbright Scholar Award and the Seymour Gitin Distinguished Fellowship at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He has authored numerous publications spanning the areas of Greek-Persian Relations,Semitic Epigraphy,and Roman Arabia including books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. [1]
Throughout his research career,Graf has dedicated focus to the examination of Greek-Persian relations. In his early research he analyzed the historical context and significance of the terms Medism for the Greek collaborators (“quisilings”) with Achaemenid Persia during the early fifth century BCE. [5] In 1995,he provided an analysis of the Persian Royal Road System,beyond the Sardis-Susa segment recorded by Herodotus,utilizing Persiuan travel documents,documentary sources,and archeology to describe the intricate network that stretched across the vast empire. [6] His investigation into Aramaic's utilization as the lingua franca in the outlying regions of the Achaemenid Empire highlighted indigenous factors in administration. [7] His work The Satrapy of Arabia has received particular emphasis over the years. [8]
Graf's studies in Semitic epigraphy has contributed to the study of ancient Semitic-speaking civilizations,their languages,cultures,and interactions. Through his epigraphic surveys in Jordan,he published unrecorded inscriptions in South Arabian, [9] Nabataean Aramaic, [10] and Ancient North Arabian languages. [11] The discovery of lengthy Ancient North Arabian texts in pre-Islamic Arabic in Central Jordan prompted a survey of the neighboring region,leading to the discovery of around 140 previously unrecorded texts,most of which are in the so-called "Hismaic" script. [12] His most recent work in 2017 presented an account of the identification of a substantial basaltic stone situated in the region of Ma'ayan Barukh,located in Upper Galilee,inscribed with North Arabian graffiti and a fragmentary Aramaic text,that gained attention for its non-Arabian provenance. [13]
Graf's research examined the historical,archaeological,and epigraphical aspects of the Nabataean Arab realm centered around Petra,encompassing the examination of the kingdom's legal and religious customs, [14] as well as its interactions with the Roman Empire. Focusing on the earlier history of the Nabataeans,he presented substantive evidence supporting the existence of the Nabataeans dynasty as early as the third century [15] and revealed that the account provided by "Athenoduros of Tarsus" regarding the Nabataeans must date a generation earlier than what had been previously assumed. [16] In collaboration with G. Schmid,he directed excavations in the Civic Center at Petra which resulted in the unearthing of Greek pottery and the earliest Nabataean coins,indicating a prolonged period of established habitation,contrary to the previous understanding and that is supported by the later French excavations conducted in the neighboring site of Qasr al-Bint. [17] [18] Moreover,he investigated the geographical extent of the Nabateans from north of Petra to Damascus,spanning across various regions such as the Judaean Peraia in Transjordan,the Decapolis,and Southern Syria. [19] Additionally,his research also studied the Arab presence in Egypt,Palestine, [20] the Aegean [21] and Italy.
Graf has also published some New Greek and Latin inscriptions. This includes some new Latin milestone texts from the Via Nova Traiana and more recently the compilation of a complete epigraphic corpus of Greek and Latin inscriptions translated into English from Agrippa II's reign, [22] together with some newly discovered Safaitic inscriptions from southern Syria that mention the ruler. In subsequent research,he examined a distinctive new Greek funerary text originating from the northern region of Jordan,which revolved around the return of the mortal remains of a Roman dignitary during the early fourth century,hailing from Anatolia. [19]
Graf also made contributions to the study of the Syrian oasis of Palmyra,encompassing analysis of its governmental establishments during the period of Roman dominion, [23] its economic engagements,as well as its uprising against the Roman Empire led by Queen Zenobia. Furthermore,his investigation into the ancient trade route connecting China and Syria,known as the "Silk Road," has provided a review of historical records from the Han Dynasty,as well as Bactrian Documents and Palmyrene inscriptions,substantiating the occurrence of extensive overland trade and exchanges across vast distances. [24]
Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, southeastern Anatolia, Eastern Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula, where it has been continually written and spoken in different varieties for over three thousand years.
Petra, originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system, Petra is also called the "Rose City" because of the colour of the sandstone from which it is carved; it was called "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a poem of 1845 by John Burgon. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Access to the city is through a picturesque 1.2-kilometre-long gorge called the Siq, which leads directly to the Khazneh.
The Nabataeans or Nabateans were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu —gave the name Nabatene to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.
Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula, and the northwestern Arabian Peninsula. Its capital was Petra. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Judaea and Egypt, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix.
Dushara, also transliterated as Dusares, is a pre-Islamic Arabian god worshipped by the Nabataeans at Petra and Madain Saleh. Safaitic inscriptions imply he was the son of Al-Lat, and that he assembled in the heavens with other gods. He is called "Dushara from Petra" in one inscription. Dushara was expected to bring justice if called by the correct ritual.
Pre-Islamic Arabia, referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah, highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time.
Rabbel II Soter was the last ruler of the Nabataean Kingdom, ruling from 70 to 106.
Commagene was an ancient Greco-Iranian kingdom ruled by a Hellenized branch of the Iranian Orontid dynasty that had ruled over Armenia. The kingdom was located in and around the ancient city of Samosata, which served as its capital. The Iron Age name of Samosata, Kummuh, probably gives its name to Commagene.
Lihyan, also called Dadān or Dedan, was a powerful and highly organized ancient Arab kingdom that played a vital cultural and economic role in the north-western region of the Arabian Peninsula and used Dadanitic language. The Lihyanites ruled over a large domain from Yathrib in the south and parts of the Levant in the north.
Nabataean Aramaic is the extinct Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula. Compared with other varieties of Aramaic, it is notable for the occurrence of a number of loanwords and grammatical borrowings from Arabic or other North Arabian languages.
Aretas III was king of the Nabataean kingdom from 87 to 62 BCE. Aretas ascended to the throne upon the death of his brother, Obodas I, in 87 BCE. During his reign, he extended his kingdom to cover what now forms the northern area of Jordan, the south of Syria, and part of Saudi Arabia. Probably the greatest of Aretas' conquests was that of Damascus, which secured his country's place as a serious political power of its time. Nabataea reached its greatest territorial extent under Aretas' leadership.
Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern scholars in order to designate a specific historical variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (sociolinguistic) and narrower (dialectological). Since most surviving examples of the language have been found in Egypt, the language is also referred to as Egyptian Aramaic.
Old Aramaic refers to the earliest stage of the Aramaic language, known from the Aramaic inscriptions discovered since the 19th century.
The Nabataean Kingdom, also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
The Qedarites were an ancient tribal confederation of Arabia centred in their capital Dumat al-jandal in the Al-Jawf Province. Attested from the 9th century BC, the Qedarites formed a powerful polity which expanded its territory throughout the 9th to 7th centuries BC to cover a large area in northern Arabia stretching from Transjordan in the west to the western borders of Babylonia in the east, before later consolidating into a kingdom that stretched from the eastern limits of the Nile Delta in the west till Transjordan in the east and covered much of southern Judea, the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula.
Nabataean art is the art of the Nabataeans of North Arabia. They are known for finely-potted painted ceramics, which became dispersed among Greco-Roman world, as well as contributions to sculpture and Nabataean architecture. Nabataean art is most well known for the archaeological sites in Petra, specifically monuments such as Al Khazneh and Ad Deir.
Old Arabic is the name for any Arabic language or dialect continuum before Islam. Various forms of Old Arabic are attested in scripts like Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabatean, and even Greek.
Proto-Arabic is the name given to the hypothetical reconstructed ancestor of all the varieties of Arabic attested since the 9th century BC. There are two lines of evidence to reconstruct Proto-Arabic:
Laïla Nehmé is a Lebanese-French archaeologist. A specialist in the archaeology and epigraphy of the Ancient Near East, she is known for her research on Nabatean writings, the evolution of the Nabatean script into the Arabic, and archaeological excavations at Petra and Mada'in Saleh.
The Bostran era was a calendar era with an epoch corresponding to 22 March 106 AD. It was the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, introduced to replace dating by regnal years after the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. It is named after the city of Bostra, which became the headquarters of the Sixth Legion stationed in the province.
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