A short Aramaic inscription on basalt was discovered at al-Mal in Syria in 1973. The inscribed basalt block had been cut by builders for use in a modern building. The text is not entirely preserved. It was discovered and photographed by an Israeli expedition following the Yom Kippur War.
The inscription reads:
The script of the al-Mal inscription is almost identical to Palmyrene. Its spellings, however, are more typical of Nabataean. It also contains unusual spellings found in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic. Joseph Naveh thought the inscription may have been carved by an Ituraean. He argued that the script was 'Seleucid Aramaic', from which Palmyrene and Syrica were developed.
Klaus Beyer classifies the language of the al-Mal inscription as 'Pagan Old Palestinian', specifically 'Pagan Old East Jordanian'. It is the only surviving example of this dialect. Holger Gzella, however, writes that "the text is too brief and too formulaic to exhibit any linguistic peculiarities, so it remains open whether it attests to another, non-Jewish, written tradition of Aramaic during this period."