Collection of the objects from the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale in Rome

The "Collection of the objects from the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale in Rome" in "DASI-Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions" is the digital critical edition of the nearly 40 epigraphic and 60 anepigraphic objects which form the most important Italian South Arabian collection. Most of the epigraphic pieces are Sabaic and date back to the first centuries AD, attesting the construction works and the cultic activities of the tribes living in the northern highlands of Yemen. From the al-Jawf area come some Minaic inscriptions. Although mainly fragmentary, the texts are beautifully carved and sometimes finely decorated. The collection includes also stone, alabaster and bronze anepigraphic artifacts, among which plaques, incense burners, offering tables, stelae with human figures in relief, seals and sculptures in the round. The majority of these are funerary objects, as the MNAO hosts an important group of statuettes representing the deceased, mostly in a stylized way but sometimes with peculiar traits. Reliefs of animals, plants and geometric motifs adorn the fragments of plaques. The MNAO collection was inventoried in September 2013 by Irene Rossi, epigraphist of the project DASI, with the support of Paola D'Amore, museum curator of the Department of Ancient Near and Middle East of the MNAO. The inscriptions and objects were catalogued in DASI by Irene Rossi and Alexia Pavan. Photos are courtesy of the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale.