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Main articles: Ancient history of Yemen




The 'Sabaeans' (Arabic: السبأيين) were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen, in south west Arabian Peninsula; in the 8th century BC Sabaean also founded colonies in today Ethiopia and Eritria and lived in D'mt, located in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, due to their hegemony over the Red Sea^[1].

Contents

History

See also

Notes

References

External links

History

The ancient 'Sabaean Kingdom' lasted from the early 1st millennium (ca. 9th century BC) to the 1st century BC. In the 1st century BC it was conquered by the Himyarites, but after the disintegration of the first Himyarite empire of the Kings of Saba' and dhu-Raydan the Middle Sabaean Kingdom reappeared in the early 2nd century. It was finally conquered by the Himyarites in the late 3rd century. Its capital was Ma'rib. The kingdom was located along the strip of desert called Sayhad by medieval Arab geographers and that is called now Ramlat al-Sab`atayn.
The Sabaean people were South Arabian people. Each of these had regional kingdoms in ancient Yemen, with the 'Minaeans' in the north along the Red sea, the 'Sabeans' on the south western tip, streaching from the highlands to the sea, the 'Qatabanians' to the east of them and the 'Hadramites' east of them.
The Sabaeans, as were the other Arabian and Yemenite kingdoms of the same period, were involved in the extremely lucrative spice trade, especially frankincense and myrrh.[1]
Most archaeologists now believe them to be the same nation as the Biblical kingdom of Sheba. They left behind many inscriptions in the monumental Musnad (Old South Arabian) alphabet, as well as numerous documents in the cursive Zabur script.
They were polytheistic, and should not be confused with the Sabians mentioned in the Qur'an, whose name is written with the Arabic letter ''sad'' rather than ''sin''. Due to their hegemony of the Red Sea some Sabaeans lived in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea during the Sabaean-influenced kingdom of D`mt. Most modern historians consider this civilization to be indigenous,^[2], but some still view, as in the past, D`mt as the result of a mixture of "culturally superior" Sabaeans and indigenous peoples;^[3] a very small minority even views the kingdom as wholly Sabaean or Eritreans and Ethiopians as the descendents of ancient Sabaean immigrants, but with little evidence.

See also

★ Yemen

★ Minaean Kingdom

Notes

1. Stuart Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'', 1991.
2. Stuart Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity''. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, pp.57.
3. Taddesse Tamrat, ''Church and State in Ethiopia: 1270-1527'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp.5-13.

References

★ Bafaqīh, M. ‛A., ''L'unification du Yémen antique. La lutte entre Saba’, Himyar et le Hadramawt de Ier au IIIème siècle de l'ère chrétienne''. Paris, 1990 (Bibliothèque de Raydan, 1).

★ Ryckmans, J., Müller, W. W., and ‛Abdallah, Yu., ''Textes du Yémen Antique inscrits sur bois''. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994 (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, 43).

★ Info Please

★ Article at Encyclopedia Britannica

External links

★ S. Arabian "Inscription of Abraha" in the Sabaean language, at Smithsonian/NMNH website