Dhofari script

The Dhofari script is a group of related pre-Islamic Arabian writing systems from the South Semitic linguistic family, used across southern and southeastern Arabia, from Dhofar in Oman to Al Mahrah in Yemen and as far as Socotra. Dhofari was usually painted in caves and rock shelters, but occasionally carved on wadi beds and movable stones.

The script was discovered by Western travelers at the end of the 19th century but remained undeciphered for the next century and more. The first comprehensive documentation and study of the inscriptions was carried out by Al-Shahri and King in 1991-1992. Although they were not able to decipher the scripts, they were able to sub-divide the collection of writings into two major categories, Scripts 1 and 2. In 2025, Ahmad Al-Jallad deciphered the scripts and outlined the values of the letter inventories of Script 1a and Script 2.

Dhofari represents a previously unknown branch of the South Semitic script family, derived from an Ancient North Arabian rather than South Arabian archetype, and records a now-extinct Semitic language related to the Modern South Arabian group (e.g. Mehri, Shehri). Script 1a and 2 are fully readable, although the phonemic values of some letter shapes in Script 1b remains unclear. The interpretation of many texts, especially those belonging to Script 2, remains challenging due to their brevity, the lack of comparative material, and the limited amount of text.