Nabataean inscription of the strategist Artobel

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Nabataean inscription of the strategist Artobel
Nabataean inscription of the strategist Artobel
Abercius

The inscription is engraved on basalt in the characters and the language of the Nabateans, a people native to north western Arabia; it was discovered in Madaba, in Jordan, and donated to Pope Leo XIII in 1889 by the priests of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The stone, broken and reduced in volume to facilitate transport, was part of the funerary monument of a military commander named Artobel; its interest in relation to Christian antiquity lies in the fact that in the formula by which it is dated it mentions the 46th year of the reign of King Aretas IV, which corresponds to the year 37 AD. In that same year it would appear that the Nabataean kingdom extended its authority over the city of Damascus where St. Paul, following his famous conversion between 37 and 39 AD, was persecuted just by the guards placed by "the governor King Aretas... in the city of Damasceni" (2 Cor 11: 32-33).