Mapping the Socotran caves again... after a small pause...

 After (a small pause of) 20 years, some of the cave maps are finally getting finished! All SKP-members have been active elsewhere, but thanks to Jos Beyens (final topo editor) and his discussions with Michael Laumanns (series editor of the Berliner Hohlenkundliche Berichte - BHB) all will be updated and published in 2026. As a reminder, our previous results can be found in Band 20 (2006).

Thanks to Jos Beyens, Rudi Debbaut, Karl Willems and all other SKP-members for these efforts and final wrap of exploration fun...

Meanwhile a Czech caving team is actively exploring on the island, with which we will start collaborating closely. Previous cave photographers are sharping their... images and the GPS-expert is uploading all exploration tracks.

In summary, all ingredients for a final book describing 20-30 years of exploration and research are piling up, the challenge in mine, Inshallah...

Peter   

The Decipherment of the Dhofari Script – Three halḥam abecedaries and the first glimpses into the corpus

Once in a while, here after a century of research, Prof. Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad, a Jordanian-American philologist, epigraphist, and a historian of language might be on a break to decipher some enigmatic ancient South-Arabic scripts. 

Exciting stuff, as this ancient pre-Islamic language indigenous to South Arabia, also occurs on Socotra Island. While the experts are working on it right now, it might soon open the door towards a new fascinating chapter in the cultural history of Arabia.

Al-Jallad concluded the script most likely descended from a script called Thamudic B. That script was widely used on the northern side of the Arabian Peninsula, in what is today the Saudi Arabian province of Najd.

A nice summary can be found here: https://www.science.org/content/article/mysterious-pre-islamic-script-oman-finally-deciphered

The article itself is available here: https://www.academia.edu/129778573/Al_Jallad_2025_The_Decipherment_of_the_Dhofari_Script_Three_hal%E1%B8%A5am_abecedaries_and_the_first_glimpses_into_the_corpus

Picture website IASA

Thanks!