Abstract Recent advances in the study of Dhofari/South-East Arabian writing systems have been marked by the decipherment of Script 1a, which has made it possible to interpret numerous inscriptions (Al-Jallad, 2025a). Whilst a selection of these are available on the Ociana website, this paper offers an interpretation of the inscription Kme 48 (Al-Shahri and King, 1993, 539). The proposed reading suggests a connection between the linguistic tradition displayed in the Dhofari/South-east Arabian corpus and a pre-documentary phase of the local Modern South Arabian languages (Msal), thereby pointing to the involvement of proto Msal speakers in the use of local writing practices and to the importance of the Msal linguistic facies in interpreting Dhofari/South-East Arabian epigraphy. In this short note, we detect an anthroponym (personal name) exclusively attested in the Dhofari tradition expressed by the Jibbali/Shehret language and offer an etymological analysis of this term.
Castagna et al. (Wed,) studied this question.