The Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient South Arabian people of South Arabia. They spoke the Sabaean language, one of the Old South Arabian languages. They founded the kingdom of Sabaʾ in modern-day Yemen, which was believed to be the biblical land of Sheba and "the oldest and most important of the South Arabian kingdoms".
The ancient Kingdom of Awsān in South Arabia, modern-day Yemen, with a capital at Ḥajar Yaḥirr in Wādī Markhah, to the south of Wādī Bayḥān, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which is locally named Ḥajar Asfal. Once it was one of the most important small kingdoms of South Arabia. The city seems to have been destroyed in the 7th century BCE by the king and Mukarrib of Saba' Karab El Watar, according to a Sabaean text that reports the victory in terms that attest to its significance for the Sabaeans.
Old South Arabian is a group of four closely related extinct languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script.
The Marib Dam is a modern dam blocking the Wadi Adhanah in the valley of Dhana in the Balaq Hills, located in the Ma'rib Governorate in Yemen. The current dam was built in the 1980s and is close to the ruins of the ancient Great Dam of Marib, first built in the 8th century BC. It was one of the engineering wonders of the ancient world and a central part of the Sabaean and Himyarite kingdoms around Marib.
Najran, is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen. It is the capital of Najran Province. Designated as a new town, Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom; its population has risen from 47,500 in 1974 and 90,983 in 1992 to 246,880 in 2004 and 505,652 in 2017. The population mostly originates from the ancient tribes of Yām, Mákram, and Hamdan.
Marib is the capital city of Marib Governorate, Yemen. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Sabaʾ, which some scholars believe to be the ancient Sheba of biblical fame. It is about 120 kilometres east of Yemen's modern capital, Sanaa, and is in the region of the Sarawat Mountains. In 2005 it had a population of 16,794. However, in 2021, it had absorbed close to a million refugees fleeing the Yemeni Civil War.
Barāqish or Barāgish or Aythel is a town in north-western Yemen, 120 miles to the east of Sanaa in al Jawf Governorate on a high hill. It is located in Wādī Farda(h), a popular caravan route because of the presence of water. It was known to the Greeks and Romans as Athlula, from the ancient Sabaean yθl.
Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabian Peninsula before the emergence of Islam in 610 CE.
The Minaean people were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ma'in in modern-day Yemen, dating back to the 10th century BCE-150 BCE. It was located along the strip of desert called Ṣayhad by medieval Arab geographers, which is now known as Ramlat Dehem.
The ancient history of Yemen is especially important because Yemen is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia. Between the eighth century BCE and the sixth century CE, it was dominated by six main states which rivaled each other, or were allied with each other and controlled the lucrative spice trade: Saba', Ma'īn, Qatabān, Hadhramaut, Kingdom of Awsan, and the Himyarite Kingdom. Islam arrived in 630 CE and Yemen became part of the Muslim realm.
The Minaean language was an Old South Arabian or Ṣayhadic language spoken in Yemen in the times of the Old South Arabian civilisation. The main area of its use may be located in the al-Jawf region of North-East Yemen, primarily in the Wādī Madhāb. Most of texts in this language were composed by the Minaeans, but the other civil-temple communities of the Wādī Madhāb also used it as a literary medium.
Qataban was an ancient Yemeni kingdom which existed from the early 1st millennium BCE till the late 1st or 2nd centuries CE.
Kaminahu is the name of an ancient South Arabian city in the northern al-Jawf region of present day Yemen, 107 km north-east of Sana'a at about 1100 meters above sea level.
Haram is an ancient city in the north of al-Jawf in modern-day Yemen, at about 1100 metres above sea level. It is bordered by the Yemen Highlands to the north, in the west by the ancient Kaminahu, in the east by the ancient Qarnāwu, and in the south by the Ghayl, otherwise known as the village of al-Ḥazm.
The Amran Tablets or ʿAmrān Tablets are a series of ancient bronze plaques written in the Sabaean language found in the town of 'Amran, Yemen. Now part of the British Museum's ancient Middle Eastern collection, they form an important corpus of information on religious and military practices in South Arabia between the 1st Century BC and 3rd Century AD.
Karib'il Watar, sometimes distinguished as Karib'il Watar II, was probably the most important ruler of the early days of the Sabaean Kingdom. He is sometimes regarded as the founder of the kingdom proper, as he was responsible for changing the ruler's title from ("Mukarrib") to "king" (malik).
Karibi-ilu was a Mukarrib of Saba' reigned in 700–680 BC. The name Karibi-ilu in Akkadian matches "Karab-El Bayin" in Sabaean, combined of "KRB-El" which means one who carries out the instructions of El and "BYN" one who removes punishment.
Charibael was a South Arabian ruler described in and contemporary with the 1st-century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Nakrah was an ancient South Arabian god of protection and salvation worshiped in the Minaean Kingdom.
Nashaq is the name of an ancient South Arabian city in the northern al-Jawf region of present-day Yemen, in the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Ma'in.
