QMI-INS-014c · 65–86 AH
Milestone of ʿAbd al-Malik: the seventh mile from Jerusalem, Abū Ghosh
ميل عبد الملك: الميل السابع من إيلياء، أبو غوش
Found in 1902 during building works east of the Crusader church at Abū Ghosh, on the road from Jerusalem to the coast; reported in 2007 as kept in the shop of the church
- [أمر بعمارة هذا] الطريق وصنعة [الأميال]
- عبد الله عبد [الملك]
- أمير المؤمنين [رحمت الله عليه]
- من إيلياء إلى هذا الميل
- سبعة [أميال]
[Has ordered the building of this] road and the making of [the milestones] the servant of God ʿAbd [al-Malik], Commander of the Faithful, [may God’s mercy be upon him]. From Īliyāʾ to this milestone (there are) seven [miles].
A limestone milestone found in 1902 during building works east of the Crusader church at Abū Ghosh, west of Jerusalem, on the road to the coast. The upper part is lost, and with it probably three or four lines; what remains gives the order for the road and the milestones, the name and title of the caliph, and the distance of seven miles from Īliyāʾ. A bunch of tendrils is carved to the right of the text, one of the decorations peculiar to the milestones of this road. It stands between the fifth mile at Khirbat Iqbālā and the eighth at Bāb al-Wād (QMI-INS-014b, QMI-INS-014d).
Source: van Berchem, Max. Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, II/3 (Cairo, 1920), pl. II:4; II/1, Jérusalem “Ville” (Cairo, 1922), no. 4, pp. 19–21. Sharon, Moshe. Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, vol. I (Leiden: Brill, 1997), “Abū Ghūsh”, pp. 3–5. Reproduced in Grohmann, Adolf. Arabische Paläographie II (Vienna, 1971), p. 83. On its findspot and decoration: Cytryn-Silverman, Katia. “The Fifth Mīl from Jerusalem: Another Umayyad Milestone from Southern Bilād al-Shām.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 70, no. 3 (2007): 603–610, at pp. 607, 609.