Bible Encyclopedias
Sabaeans

Inscriptions

This abstract of the history of Yemen from ancient sources can now be verified and supplemented from inscriptions. Doubts as to the greatness and importance of the Sabaean state, as attested by the ancients, and as to the existence of a special Sabaean writing, called " Musnad," of which the Arabs tell, were still current when Niebuhr, in the 18th. century, brought to Europe the first account of the existence of ancient inscriptions (not seen by himself) in the neighbourhood of Yarim. Following this hint, Seetzen, in 1810, was able to send to Europe, from porphyry blocks near Yarim, the first copies of Sabaean inscriptions. They could not, however, be read. But the inscriptions found by Wellsted in 1834 at Hisn Ghorab were deciphered by Gesenius and Rodiger. Soon after this the courageous explorer Arnaud discovered the ancient Mariab, the royal city of the Sabaeans, and at great risk copied fifty-six inscriptions and took a plan of the walls, the dam, and the temple to the east of the city. These, with other inscriptions on stone and on bronze plates brought home by Englishmen, found a cautious and sound interpreter in Osiander. The historical and geographical researches of Kremer and Sprenger gave a fresh impulse to inquiry. Then Joseph Halevy made his remarkable journey through the Jauf, visiting districts and ruins which no European foot had trod since the expedition of Gallus, and returned with almost Boo inscriptions. Of more recent travellers S. Langer and E. Glaser have done most for epigraphy, while Manzoni is to be remembered for his excellent geographical work.

The alphabet of the Sabaean inscriptions is most closely akin to the Ethiopic, but is purely consonantal, without the modifications in the consonantal forms which Ethiopic has devised to express vowels. There are twenty-nine letters, one more than in Arabic, Samech and Sin being distinct forms, as in Hebrew. This alphabet, which is probably the parent of the South-Indian character, is undoubtedly derived from the so-called Phoenician alphabet, the connecting link being the forms of the Sala inscriptions and of the Thamudaean inscriptions found by Doughty and Euting. Of the latter we can determine twenty-six characters, while a twenty seventh probably corresponds to Arabic z (.). A sign for uv also probably existed, but does not occur in the known inscriptions. In the Thamudaean and Sabaean alphabets the twenty-two original Phoenician characters are mostly similar, and so are the differentiated forms for, and?. while v, ?, and probably also. and f, have been differentiated in many ways. This seems to imply that the two alphabets had a common history up to a certain point, but parted company before they were fully developed. The Thamudaean inscriptions are locally nearer to Phoenicia, and the letters are more like the Phoenician; this character therefore appears to be the link connecting Phoenician with Sabaean writing. It may be noticed that a Thamudaean legend has been found on a Babylonian cylinder of about woo B.C., and it is remarkable that the Sabaean satara, " write," seems to be borrowed from Assyrian shataru. The language of the inscriptions is South Semitic, forming a link between the North Arabic and the Ethiopic, but is much nearer the former than the latter. Of the two dialects commonly called Sabaean and Minaean the latter might be better called Hadramitic, inasmuch as it is the dialect of the inscriptions found in Hadramut, and the Minaeans seem undoubtedly to have entered the Jauf from Ijadramut.

The inscriptions not only give names of nations corresponding to those in the Bible and in classical authors, but throw a good deal of fresh light on the political history of Yemen. The inscriptions and coins give the names of more than forty-five Sabaean kings. The chronology is still vague, since only a few very late inscriptions are dated by an era and the era itself is not certain. But the rulers named can be assigned to three periods, according as they bear the title " mukrab of Saba," " king of Saba," or " king of Saba and Raidan." The last, as we know from the Axum inscriptions, are the latest, and those with the title " mukrab " must be the earliest. Four princes of the oldest period bear the name Yatha'amar, and one of these may, with the greatest probability, be held to be the " Itamara Sabai " who paid tribute to Sargon of Assyria. This helps us to the age of some buildings also. The famous dam of Ma'rib and its sluices were the work of this ancient prince - structures which Arnaud in the 19th century found in the same state in which Hamdani saw them a thousand years ago. The power of these old sovereigns extended far beyond Ma'rib, for their names are found on buildings and monuments in the Jauf.

We cannot tell when the kings took the place of the mukrab, but the Sabaeo-Himyaritic period seems to begin with, or a little after, the expedition of Aelius Gallus. A fragmentary inscription of Ma'rib (Br. Mus., 33) was made by " Ilsharh Yandib and Ya'zil Bayyin, the two kings of Saba and Raidan, sons of Farm Yanhab, king of Saba." If this Ilsharh is identical with the 'I%aavapos of Strabo, king of Mariaba at the time of the Roman invasion, the inscription preserves a trace of the influence of that event on the union of the two kingdoms.

The inscriptions of the latest period present a series of dates-669, 640, 582, 573, 385 - of an unknown era. Reinaud thought of the Seleucid era, which is not impossible; but Halevy observes that the fortress of Mawiyyat (now Hisn Ghorab) bears the date 640, and is said to have been erected " when the Abyssinians overran the country and destroyed the king of Himyar and his princes." Referring this to the death of Dhu Nuwas (A.D. 525), Halevy fixes 115 B.C. as the epoch of the Sabaean era. This ingenious combination accords well with the circumstance that the oldest dated inscription, of the year 385 (A.D. 270), mentions 'Athtar, Shams and other heathen deities, while the inscriptions of 582 (A.D. 467) and 573 (A.D. 458), so far as they can be read, contain no name of a heathen god, but do speak of a god Rahmanan - that is, the Hebrew Rahman, " the compassionate " (Arabic, al-Rahman), agreeably with the fact that Jewish and Christian influences were powerful in Arabia in the 4th century. The only objections to Halevy's hypothesis are (I) that we know nothing of an epoch-making event in 115 B.C., and (2) that it is a little remarkable that the latest dated inscription, of the year 669 (A.D. 554), should be twenty-five years later than the Abyssinian conquest. An inscription found by Wrede at 'Obne is dated " in the year 120 of the Lion in Heaven, which we must leave the astronomers to explain.

The inscriptions throw considerable light not only on the Sabaeans but on other South-Arabian nations. The Minaeans, whose importance has been already indicated, appear in the inscriptions as only second to the Sabaeans, and with details which have put an end to much guesswork, e.g. to the idea that they are connected with Mina near Mecca. Their capital, Ma'in, lay in the heart of the Sabaean country, forming a sort of enclave on the right hand of the road that leads northward from Ma'rib. South-west of Ma'in, on the west of the mountain range and commanding the road from San'a to the north, lies Baraqish, anciently Yathil, which the inscriptions and Arabic geographers always mention with Main. The third Minaean fortress, probably identical with the Kapva of the Greeks, lies in the middle of the northern Jauf, and north of the other two.

The three Minaean citadels lie nearly in this position (..), with old Sabaean settlements (Raiam) all round them, and even with some Sabaean places (e.g. Nask and Kamna) within the triangle they form. The dialect of the Minaeans is sharply distinguished from the Sabaeans (see above). The inscriptions have yielded the names of twenty-seven Minaean kings, who were quite independent, and, as it would seem, not always friends of the Sabaeans, for neither dynasty mentions the other on its inscriptions, while minor kings and kingdoms are freely mentioned by both, presumably when they stood under the protection of the one or the other respectively. The Minaeans were evidently active rivals of the Sabaean influence, and a war between the two is once mentioned. In Hadramut they disputed the hegemony with one another, the government there being at one time under a Minaean, at another under a Sabaean prince, while the language shows now the one and now the other influence. The religions also of the two powers present many points of agreement, with some notable differences. Thus, puzzling as the fact appears, it is clear that the Minaeans formed a sort of political and linguistic island in the Sabaean country. The origin of the Minaeans from Hadramut is rendered probable by the predominance of their dialect in the inscriptions of that country (except in that of Hisn Ghorab), by the rule, already mentioned, of a Minaean prince in Hadramut, and by Pliny's statement (H.N. xii. 63) that frankincense was collected at Sabota (the capital of Hadramut; inscr. n w), but exported only through the Gebanites, whose kings received custom dues on it, compared with xii. 69, where he speaks of Minaean myrrh " in qua et Atramitica est et Gebbanitica et Ausaritis Gebbanitarum regno," &c., implying that Minaean myrrh was really a Hadramite and Gebanite product. All this suggests a close connexion between the Minaeans and Hadramut; and from the Minaean inscriptions we know that the Gebanites were at one time a Minaean race, and stood in high favour with the queen of Ma`in. Thus we are led to conclude that the Minaeans were a Hadramite settlement in the Jauf, whose object was to secure the northern trade road for their products. We cannot but see that their fortified posts in the north of the Sabaean kingdom had a strategical purpose; and so Pliny (xii. 54) says, " Attingunt et Minaei, pagus alius, per quos evehitur uno tramite angusto [from Hadramut]. Hi primi commercium turis fecere maximeque exercent, a quibus et Minaeum dictum est." Besides this road, they had the sea-route, for, according to Pliny, their allies, the Gebanites, held the port of Ocelis. If the Minaeans were later immigrants from Hadramut, we can understand how they are not mentioned in Gen. x. In later times, as is proved by the Minaean colony in Al-`01a, which Euting has revealed to us, they superseded the Sabaeans in some parts of the north. In the `Ola inscriptions we read the names of Minaean kings and gods. Notable also is the mention in i Chron. iv. 41 of the " Bedouin encampments (a'5nrz) and the Ma`inim " smitten by the Simeonites, which may possibly refer to the destruction of a Minaean caravan protected by these Bedouins. The LXX. at least renders Ma`inim by Mwaious. It seems bold to conjecture that the Minaeans were in accord with the Romans under Aelius Gallus, yet it is noteworthy that no Minaean town is named among the cities which that general destroyed, though ruin fell on Nask and Kamna, which lie inside the Minaean territory.

The inscriptions seem to indicate that the monarchies of South Arabia were hereditary, the son generally following the father, though not seldom the brother of the deceased came between, apparently on the principle of seniority, which we find also in North Arabia. Eratosthenes (in Strabo xvi. 4, 3) says that the first child born to one of the magnates after a king came to the throne was his designated successor; the wives of the magnates who were pregnant at the king's accession were carefully watched, and the first child born was brought up as heir to the kingdom. There seems to be a mistake in the first part of this statement; what Eratosthenes will have said is that the oldest prince after the king was the designated successor. This law of succession explains how we repeatedly find two kings named together among the Sabaeans, and almost always find two among the Minaeans; the second king is the heir. The principle of seniority, as we know from North Arabian history, gives rise to intrigues and palace revolutions, and was probably often violated in favour of the direct heir. On the other hand, it readily leads to a limited power of election by the magnates, and in fact good Arabian sources speak of seven electoral princes. Some inscriptions name, besides the king, an eponymus, whose office seems to have been priestly, his titles being dhu harif, eponymus and rashuw, " sacrificer." All royal inscriptions are signed by him at the beginning and the end, and he appears with the king on coins.

Religion

In spite of the many ruins of temples and inscriptions, the religion of the Sabaeans is obscure. Most of the many names of gods are mere names that appear and vanish again in particular districts and temples. Of the great national gods of the Sabaeans and Minaeans we know a little more. The worship of the heavenly bodies, for which there is Arabic evidence, had really a great place in Yemen. Sun-worship seems to have been peculiar to the Sabaeans and Hamdanites; and, if the Sabis of Sabota (Pliny) was in fact the sun deity Shams, this must be ascribed to Sabaean influence. The Sabaean Shams was a goddess, while the chief divinity of the Minaeans was the god `Athtar, -a male figure, worshipped under several forms, of which the commonest are the Eastern `Athtar and `Athtar Dhu Kabd. Wadd and Nikrah, the gods of love and hate, are possibly only other forms of the two `Athtars. The Sabaeans also recognize `Athtar; but with them he is superseded by Almaqah, who, according to Hamdani, is the planet Venus, and therefore is identical with `Athtar. The moon-god Sin appears on an inscription of Shahwat; but, according to Hamdani, Haubas, " the drier," was the Sabaean moon-god. On the Shabwat inscription `Athtar is the father of Sin, and it is noteworthy that these two deities also appear as nearly related in the Babylonian legend of 'Ishtar's descent to Hades, where `Ishtar is conversely the daughter of the god Sin. The mother of `Athtar on another inscription is probably the sun. We find also the common Semitic Il (El) and a Dhu Samai answering to the northern Baal Shamayim. Three gods of the inscriptions are named in the Koran - Wadd, Yaghuth and Nasr. In the god name Ta'lab there may be an indication of tree-worship. The many minor deities may be passed over; but we must mention the sanctuary of Riyam, with its images of the sun and moon, and, according to tradition, an oracle. In conformity with old Semitic usage, pilgrimages were made at definite seasons to certain deities, and the Sabaean pilgrim month, Dhu Hijjatan, is the northern Dhu'l-Hijja. The outlines, and little more, of a few of the many temples can still be traced. Noteworthy are the elliptic form of the chief temples. in Ma'rib and Sirwah, and the castle of Naqab-al-Hajar with its entrances north and south.

Sacrifices and incense were offered to the gods. The names for altar (midhbaji) and sacrifice (dhibh) are common Semitic words, and the altar of incense has among other names that of miktar, as in Hebrew. A variety of spices - the wealth of the land - are named on these altars, as rand, ladanum, costus, tarum, &c. Frankincense appears as luban, and there are other names not yet understood. The gods received tithes of the produce of trade and of the field, in kind or in ingots and golden statues, and these tributes, with freewill offerings, erected and maintained the temples. Temples and fortifications were often combined. The golden statues were votive offerings; thus a man and his wife offer four statues for the health of their four children, and a man offers to Dhu Samai statues of a man and two camels, in prayer for his own health and the protection of his camels from disease of the joints.

Their commerce brought the Sabaeans under Christian and Jewish influence; and, though the old gods were too closely connected with their life and trade to be readily abandoned, the great change in the trading policy, already spoken of, seems to have affected religion as well as the state. The inland gods lost importance with the failure of the overland trade, and Judaism and Christianity seem for a time to have contended for the mastery in South Arabia. Jewish influence appears in the name Raliman (see above), while efforts at Christianization seem to have gone forth from several places at various times. According to Philostorgius, the Homerites were converted under Constantius II. by the Indian Theophilus, who built churches in afar and Aden. Another account places their conversion in the reign of Anastasius (491-518). In Nejran Syrian missionaries seem to have introduced Christianity (Noldeke). Butt as the religion of the hostile Ethiopians, Christianity found political obstacles to its adoption in Yemen; and, as heathenism had quite lost its power, it is intelligible that Dhu Nuwas, who was at war with Ethiopia before the last fatal struggle, became a Jew. His expedition against Christian Nejran had therefore political as well as religious motives. The Ethiopian conquest rather hurt than helped Christianity. The famous galis (:sitar ria) of Abraha in San`a seems to have been looked on as a sign of foreign dominion,. and Islam found it easy to supersede Christianity in Yemen.

Coins

In older times and in many districts coins were not used, and trade was carried on mainly by barter. Nor have there been many great finds of coins; indeed most of the pieces in European collections probably come from the same hoard. At the same time the coins throw a general light on the relations of ancient Yemen. The oldest known pieces are imitations of the Athenian mintage of the 4th century B.C., with the legend AOE and the owl standing on an overturned amphora. The reverse has the head of Pallas with a Sabaean N. Of younger coins the first series has a king's head on the reverse, and the old obverse is enriched with two Sabaean monograms, which have been interpreted as meaning " majesty " and "eponymus " respectively. In a second series the Greek. legend has disappeared, and, instead of the two Sabaean monograms, we have the names of the king and the eponymus. A third series shows Roman influence and must be later than the expedition of Gallus. As the standard of the coins of Attic type is not Attic but Babylonian, we must not think of direct Athenian influence. The type must have been introduced either from Persia or from Phoenicia (Gaza). One remarkable tetradrachm with the Sabaean legend Abyath'a is imitated from an Alexander of the 2nd century B.C., the execution being quite artistic and the weight Attic. There are also coins struck at Raydan and Harib, which must be assigned to the Himyarite period (1st and 2nd century A.D.). The inscriptions. speak of " bright Hayyili coins in high relief," but of these none have been found. They also speak of Bela` pieces. The sela` in late Hebrew answers to the older shekel, and the mention of it seems to point to Jewish or Christian influence.

LITERATuRE

Fresnel, Pieces rel. aux inscrr. Himyarites dec. par M. Arnaud (1845); Inscriptions in the Himyaritic Character in the British Museum (London, 1863); Praetorius, Beitr. zur Erkldrung der himjar. Inschr. (3 parts, Halle, 1872-1874); Kremer, Sadarabische Sage (1866); Sprenger, Alte Geogr. Arabiens (1873); D. H. Muller, Sdarabische Studien (Vienna, 1877); Id., Die Burgen u. Schlosser Sudarabiens (2 parts, Vienna, 1879-1881) (especially for chronology and antiquities); Mordtmann and Muller, Sabdische Denkmdler (Vienna, 1883); Derenbourg, Etudes sur l'epigraphie du Yemen (Paris, 1884); Id., Nouv. E tud. (1885); Glaser, Mitteilungen 'fiber. sab. Inschr. (1886); Hamdanf, Geogr. d. arab. Halbinsel, ed. D. H. Muller, vol. i. (Leiden, 1884). See also papers by Osiander, Z.D.M.G. xix.-xx. (1864-1865); Halevy, Journ. As. (1872-1874); D. H. Muller, Z.D.M.G. xxix.-xxxi., xxxvii.; Prideaux, Tr. Soc. Bibl. Arch. (1873); Derenbourg, Bab. and Or. Record (London, 1887).

Later works are: D. H. Muller, Epigraphische Denkmdler aus Arabien (Vienna, 1889); E. Glaser, Skizze der Geschichte and Geographie Arabiens &c., I Heft (Munich, 1889), vol. ii. (Berlin, 1890); Corpus inscriptionum Semiticarum ..., iv., Paris. vol. i. fast. i (1889), 2 (1892), 3 (1900), 4(1908); Fr.Hommel,A ufsdtze and Abhandlungen (1892 sqq.); Fr. Hommel, Sudarabische Chrestomathie (Munich, 1893); J. H. Mordtmann, Himjarische Inschriften and Altertumer in den kgl. Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 1893); H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen (" das Land Musri "); D. H. Muller, Epigraphische Denkmdler aus Abessinien (Vienna, 1894); E. Glaser, Die Abessinier in Arabien and Afrika (Munich,1895); J.H.Mordtmann, Musee Imperial Ottoman, &c. (Constantinople, 1895); D. H. Muller, " Arabia " in Pauly-Wissowa, Recaencyclopddie des klassischen Altertums, i. 344-359 (1897); J. H. Mordtmann, Beitrage zur mindischen Epigraphik (Weimar, 1897); E. Glaser, Zwei Inschriften fiber den Dambruch von Mdrib; D. H. Muller, Sudarabische Altertumer im kunsthistorischen Hofmuseum (Vienna, 1899); M. Lidzbarski in Ephemeris (1901 sqq.); 0. Weber, Studien zur sudarabischen Altertumskunde, i.-iii. (1901-1908); H. Grimme, " Verschiedene Aufsatze " in O.L.Z., &c.; D. Nielsen, Die altarabische Mondreligion (1904); D. Nielsen, Neue Katabanische Inschriften (1906); E. Glaser, Altjemenische Nachrichten, vol. i. (1906); M. Hartman, " Sudarabisches," i.-viii., in O.L.Z. (1907-1908); Mélanges H. Derenbourg (Paris, 1909); M. Hartman, Die arabische Frage mit einem Versuche der Archriologie Jemens (Halle, 1908); D. Nielsen, Der siedarabische Gott Ilmekah (1909); 0. Weber, " Gottes Symbole auf sudarabischen Denkma.lern " in the HilprechtBuch (1909), 269-280; cf. also Arabia, AxuM.

The lexical material, in so far as it touches the Hebrew, was incorporated by D. H. Muller in the Loth-12th edition of the Gesenius Lexicon and is now incorporated by 0. Weber in the 15th edition of the Gesenius-Buhl Lexicon. For collected literature see: up to 1892, F. Hommel's Sudarabische Chrestomathie; from 1892 to 1907, 0. Weber's Studien zur sudarabischen Altertumskunde, iii. (D. H. M.)