Aramaic in the Gulf: Towards a Corpus

Whereas twenty-five years ago hardly any Aramaic was known from the pre-Islamic Gulf, we now have over twenty inscriptions in Aramaic of varying length and from different Gulf states, plus many coins. The article begins with a brief discussion of preliminary topics (the use of Aramaic, Aramaic in southern Iraq and the Gulf, Aramaic and Syriac as spoken languages in the Gulf) and then presents an annotated list of the Aramaic inscriptions presently known from the Gulf region. Given the intensification of archaeological exploration of some parts of the Gulf, especially Bahrain and the U.A.E., there can be little doubt that the corpus will increase dramatically in the future.