Acknowledgements
The dissertation on which this work is based would not have looked the same without the advice and input from my supervisors Petra Sijpesteijn and Ahmad Al-Jallad. I am particularly indebted to Ahmad Al-Jallad, who was always there to offer advice and support. I am very grateful to Petra Sijpesteijn for inviting me to the bi-weekly reading group she hosted, even though I was slightly out of place, working on a period so remote from the others. They helped me approach my research from new angles.
I would like to thank Michael Macdonald whose critical thinking encouraged me to think twice about any statement I wrote and who first introduced me to Arabian epigraphy.
This work would have been many pages shorter without my conversations with Maarten Kossmann, who always knew the right time to ask the right questions.
I am greatly indebted to my officemate Marijn van Putten for always being happy to share and discuss our work. In that light I would also like to thank Benjamin Suchard, master of style, for his tireless reading of paper drafts and conference abstracts related to the research for this book.
I have learned that, sometimes, deciphering inscriptions is best done as a group effort. Therefore, I would like to thank everyone who has been involved with the LeiCenSAA over the years, Johan Lundberg, Phillip Stokes, Chiara Della Puppa, Hekmat Dirbas, Jouni Harjumäki, and anyone I may have forgotten, for the inspiring reading sessions.
Of my friends I am especially thankful to Eli de Graaf and Ellen Hoogwater for always being there for me and understanding my occasional periods of absence.
I would like to thank my family. My sister and brother have been especially supportive in the final months before completing my PhD. My parents made the perfect team, my dad always being keen on me doing well in life and my mum reminding me to take good care of myself. My mother and her husband deserve special mentioning for making their home a safe-haven when life got particularly challenging in the final stretch of my PhD.
The research and Open Access publication of this work were financially supported by the NWO (NWO-PGW, Grant/Award Number: PGW-14-43). Significant work on the revision and preparation for publication was carried out during my stay at NYU, at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World as a visiting research scholar.