Historians of Ancient South Arabia have long questioned when the Minaean Kingdom collapsed and when the Minaean people disappeared thereafter. Scholarship presently leans towards dating the fall to sometime in the first century AD with the Minaeans dissipating shortly thereafter. Relevant for the question of the Minaeans’ disappearance is the Minaic RyIIIb stick inscription called L 53, which I decipher here. Based on a new paleographical dating system for RyIIIb inscriptions that I have developed, L 53 appears to date between the first to third centuries AD. This would make it the latest dateable Minaic text and quite possibly place its origins to after the fall of the Kingdom of Maʿīn. The text also contains the first attestations of the first person plural independent pronoun “we” nḥn in Ancient South Arabian in addition to a new divine moniker “the God of Maʿīn” (ʾlh mʿn). L 53 therefore might attest to a continuing Minaean linguistic and religious identity after the fall of their kingdom, which may be corroborated by Ptolemy’s statement that the Minaeans were a “great people” in the second century AD.

中文翻译：

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Maʿīn 之后的米那亚人？目前最新的米奈克文字和马恩之神

古代南阿拉伯的历史学家长期以来一直质疑米奈王国何时崩溃，以及此后米奈人何时消失。学术目前倾向于将秋天追溯到公元一世纪的某个时候，米那人在此后不久就消散了。与 Minaeans 失踪问题相关的是名为 L 53 的 Minaic RyIIIb 棍子铭文，我在这里破译。基于我为 RyIIIb 铭文开发的新的古地理测年系统，L 53 似乎可以追溯到公元一到三世纪之间。这将使它成为最新的可确定日期的米奈语文本，并且很可能将其起源于 Maʿīn 王国陷落之后。文本还包含第一人称复数独立代词“我们” nḥn的第一次证明在古代南阿拉伯语中，除了一个新的神圣绰号“Maʿīn”（ʾlh mʿn）。因此，L 53 可能证明在他们的王国灭亡后，米奈人的语言和宗教身份仍然存在，托勒密关于米奈人在公元二世纪是“伟大的民族”的说法可能证实了这一点。