A study of the monetary word "BLTT" in ancient south Arabian inscriptions in the light of old Mesopotamian texts

Abstract EN

The monetary term "blṭt" is frequently found in Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions (ASAI), both monumental and minuscule.

However, the epigraphic data does not provide us with sufficient information to attribute the term to its possible origins.

Therefore, it is not an easy task to deal only with Ancient South Arabian, especially because the Old Mesopotamian cuneiform archives are paradigmatic for analyzing the meaning and determining the origin of the term in question.

This paper discusses the word "blṭt" as one of the monetary terms in Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions in the light of Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) texts.

It deals also with the different views of scholars on the origin, signs, and derivations of the word, because linguistic clues to the word are still odd.

Another mysterious issue related to the word is the way in which it was transferred to Ancient South Arabian languages and its different derivations.