Summary (tl;dr):
Basically, this writeup suggests that I was incorrect in suggesting that a specifically three-peaked character was D_ and not M. I revisit two key inscriptions in reference to that - those at Wadi el-Hol and Sinai 345. In the case of the latter, I find that this revision produces: M 'HB(B)cL[T] / Z NFK LBcLT : "From 'Beloved-of-the-Mistress'-/of-Turquoise, to The Mistress." And at Wadi el-Hol, the resulting revision produces MN cT_TR=H QS1T KPT_ 'L / RB [ilu] DN M NH. NPS2=H' W=S.H_R : "What are for Athtar? The bow and the scimitar. Ilu / is the Powerful Lord [god] who intoxicates her soul and depletes [it]." These still, then each reflect half the tone of the story of the return or renewal of Hathor or the Wandering Goddess, but essentially violence and then intoxicated pacification.
In some ways these revisions actually strengthen the posited grammar in both of these. Since Sinai 345 is bilingual, the Egyptian may simply record the name of the devotee. Though both inscriptions include a specific reference to a Mistress (or Hathor) of Turquoise, it is not clear if this is merely a clarification or part of the standard epithet to that aspect - or part of the name of the devotee. In any event, it would seem that the phrase found in Egyptian - Meri-Hathar-Mafka3t - is directly analogous to 'ahubba`ltu-za-nafki. The longer Semitic reflects a full dedication in the dialect of this person or their scribe, apparently.
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M 'HB-[B]`L[T]- "From Beloved-of-the-Mistress-
-Z-NFK L B`LT "-of-Turquoise* for The Mistress."
(* 'HB-B`LT or Meri-Hathar or Beloved-of-the-Mistress (B`LT/Hathor) are, presumably, the name of this devotee.)
I am unclear exactly on exactly why Sinai 345 was rejected as bilingual - or seems to generally have been. The first reason seems to have to do with the implied gemination - potentially indicated by the dot in the first B. I should point out that this is by no means an attempt at an academic paper. I'm more or less just thinking out loud.
So the "controversial revision" alluded to above refers to the first character being a D_ (I'm not doing special characters, sorry). This pertains to a hypothesis related to the Wadi el-Hol Inscriptions and some of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. There are valid reasons to consider this, even if they have no antecedent evidence. But regardless, let's assume that's wrong and these three-peaked characters are just M's.
Does that in any way actually tank the broader implications of my translations? I would argue basically no. The D_ I posited retains the role (solely) of a relative or demonstrative pronoun in the cases where I have found it - a detail that is highly significant. But having rejected this theoretically, the Semitic M is also a widespread pronoun - "who?". And its use is effectively versatile, sometimes similar to that of D_.
My original translation for above was D_ 'HB(B)cL[T]=/Z=NFK LBcLT - "This is 'The-Beloved-of-the-Mistress'/-of-Turquoise for the Mistress." The orthography 'hb also occurs in Sinai 350.** But it is worth noting that one of the probable reasons for the rejection of the bilinguality of the inscription is also that M'HB is not a known orthography for 'beloved,' and therefore this is probably coincidental. At least that's what I basically got from Sass's synthesis. The problem is that that's not the orthography we're supposed to be looking for, but rather 'hb.
So again, if we simply ignore my D_ hypothesis, what we get here is: M 'HB(B)cL[T]=/=Z=NFK LBcLT. "From the 'Beloved-of-the-Mistress'/-of-Turquoise, to the Mistress." In many ways this is actually a lot less ambiguous. The person offering is 'ahubbaclt[u] (probably the fusional inflection was lost - hence the gemination), and the goddess is is 'The Mistress,' but specifically 'of Turquoise' which is apparently the namesake of the devotee. None of this is probably surprising because of the widespread use of that name or title - Bclt - for the deity apparently juxtaposed with Hathor.
This is effectively confirmed by the Egyptian inscription, which says, simply, mry h.t-h.r mfk3.t, which is embellished in translation (presumably based on external evidence, but I really don't know why) to "Beloved of Hathor [Lady] of Turquoise" or something very similar - though actually it means Beloved of "Hathor of Turquoise." That may have been 'ahubbaclt[u]'s Egyptian name, though it isn't clear who she (or he**) was - 'ahubbaclt- being juxtaposed with Meri-Hathar.
So what kind of wrench does this throw into the Wadi el-Hol hypothesis? Again really none. If you don't accept my hypothesis (effectively) that Egyptian paleography seems not to have been singularly influential in the earliest period of alphabetic development, then maybe none of this matters. But if the issue again is this apparently concocted new character that crops up as a demonstrative/relative, the basic premise remains in tact:
MN `T_TRH QS1T KPT_ / 'L... "What are for Athtar? The bow and the scimitar. Ilu is..."
The initial three-peaked character is still bisected by an N but in addition to M-, MN is also a common and widespread Semitic term for "who." However, though Wadi el-Hol is unique, this would mark the only early alphabetic occurrence of MN (that I am aware of), and I think in context also the (also) common Semitic MN [Akkadian minu] - "what" pronoun fits better here. So here, we come to a similar revision: MN cT_TRH QS1T KPT_ 'L - "What are for `Athtar? The bow and the scimitar. Ilu..."
And the same character appears without that -N in the Horizontal Inscription a few feet to the left of this right-to-left Vertical Inscription (on the same rock spur). They're the only known inscription in this alphabet and so separating them particularly given the overt connection of two modal halves of a singular cosmological story common both to Semitic speakers and Egyptians, and celebrated particularly in the area of Wadi el-Hol - and Wadi el-Hol itself is probably the site of at least one chapel specifically related to a holiday devoted to this story.
RB [ilu] DN M NwH. NPS2=H' WS.H_R "...the Powerful Lord who intoxciates her soul and depletes it."
So the same revision herein yields: RB DN M NH. NPS2=H' W=S.H_R - "...the Powerful Lord [ILU] who intoxicates her soul that it is depleted." It's worth noting that the variant orthography S.H_R may have been influenced by the cuneiform orthography (which would have lacked the root -G/- that is transformed to H_ here) - in which case the term S.G/R to refer to depleting the soul of the violent goddess may have been influenced by Akkadian (where I anyway found this meaning originally).
Conversely, the variant orthography NPS2 instead of the expected NPS1 may have precedent in Amorite but suggests this is a very early use and maybe borrowing of a word (originally meaning to breathe or a breath) for a progressive meaning that would later become the more widespread common Semitic form - that likely speaks to the genuine antiquity of these inscriptions. And the entire thing would read:
MN cT_TRH QS1T KPT_ 'L / RB DN M NH. NPS2=H' W=S.H_R
"What are for Athtar? The bow and the scimitar. Ilu / is the Powerful Lord [god] who intoxicates her soul and depletes [it]."
I suppose if one were really against reading them together, one could read: "What are for Athtar? The bow, the scimitar, and Ilu. The Powerful Lord [is] who intoxicates..."
The grammar does not make as much sense, in my opinion, read that way - but we have no examples of this dialect (that we know of now) other than this. Ultimately, read either way, in my opinion the meaning is overtly clear - violence and intoxicated rest. This is the story of the Wandering Goddess - possibly the earliest extant version (predating Egyptian?; I'm not sure about that claim).
In some ways this revision both reduces tension between my hypothesis and extant literature, though it doesn't really reconcile the general conflict, but it also strengthens the translations of both Sinai 345 and the Wadi el-Hol Inscriptions. I guess I'm prepared to admit that without additional evidence, my hypothesis was spurious and I was wrong there.
** It's actually worth noting my hypothesis on Sinai 350, because even though the inscription is badly fragmented, reconstructed as in Hamilton 2006, 341 the first two lines can be reconstructed in full with a high degree of certainty (because they contain a standard format found elsewhere) as: R: ’L . ṢṮ . [Ẓ?]B[Ṭ?] . NQB / L: ’HB . [---]T –... preceding the T is arguably BcL- though I had also contemplated 'RH_; but in any case it is very likely an epithet to 'the Goddess' involved in many or most of the Proto-Sinaitic corpus. This inscription seems to say, then: “The god Set is the [Keep]er? of Naqab / The-Beloved-of–[the-Mistr]ess [?]...” In the context of other inscriptions, these titles are basically unremarkable, but they suggest that 'hb[bclt] may have commonly referred to Set and therefore in Sinai 345 it may refer to a man's name. This is not spurious despite the uncertainty, as Sinai 350 contains the only other reference to 'hb that I have thus far found among Proto-Sinaitic.
