Sheba is a kingdom mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Sheba features in Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions, particularly the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition. It was the home of the biblical "Queen of Sheba", who is left unnamed in the Bible, but receives the names Makeda in Ethiopian and Bilqīs in Arabic tradition. According to Josephus it was also the home of the biblical "Princess Tharbis" said to have been the first wife of Moses when he was still a prince of Egypt.
Midian is a geographical region in Western Asia mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was in the "northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea", an area which contained at least fourteen inhabited sites during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.
The Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke Sabaic, 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 Queen of Sheba is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for the Israelite King Solomon. This account has undergone extensive Jewish, Islamic, Yemenite and Ethiopian elaborations, and it has become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in Asia and Africa.
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar, historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According to classical sources, their capital was the ancient city of Zafar, relatively near the modern-day city of Sana'a. Himyarite power eventually shifted to Sana'a as the population increased in the fifth century. After the establishment of their kingdom, it was ruled by kings from dhū-Raydān tribe. The kingdom was named Raydān.
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.
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.
The Incense Trade Route was an ancient network of major land and sea trading routes linking the Mediterranean world with eastern and southern sources of incense, spices and other luxury goods, stretching from Mediterranean ports across the Levant and Egypt through Northeastern Africa and Arabia to India and beyond. These routes collectively served as channels for the trading of goods such as Arabian frankincense and myrrh; Indian spices, precious stones, pearls, ebony, silk and fine textiles; and from the Horn of Africa, rare woods, feathers, animal skins, Somali frankincense, gold, and slaves. The incense land trade from South Arabia to the Mediterranean flourished between roughly the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD.
South Arabia is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jizan, Al-Bahah, and 'Asir, which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and the Dhofar of present-day Oman.
Dedan has several different meanings in the Hebrew Bible. Dedan was an oasis and city-state of north-western Arabia. The people of Dedan are called Dedanim or Dedanites. Dedan is also the name of the son of Raamah and the son of Jokshan.
Uqair, alternatively spelled as al-'Uqair, Uqayr, and Ogair, is an ancient seaport city in the Al-Ahsa Governorate of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is the first seaport in the Persian Gulf and has been linked by some to the ancient city of Gerrha mentioned in Greek and Roman sources. The site was also the location of the conference at which the Uqair Protocol of 1922 was issued, which helped to establish the borders of modern Saudi Arabia.
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.
Qataban was an ancient South Semitic-speaking kingdom of South Arabia that existed from the early 1st millennium BCE to the late 1st or 2nd centuries CE.
Ḥaḍramawt was an ancient South Semitic-speaking kingdom of South Arabia which existed from the early 1st millennium BCE till the late 3rd century CE in the area currently named after it in the region of the Ṣayhad desert.
Ancient South Arabian art was the art of the Pre-Islamic cultures of South Arabia, which was produced from the 3rd millennium BC until the 7th century AD.
Wendell Phillips was an American archaeologist and oil magnate who led some of the first archaeological expeditions in the areas that are part of modern-day Yemen and Oman. Excavating primarily in the 1950s, Phillips unearthed artifacts from the ancient kingdom of Sabaʾ. He was famous in the United States for his dashing style and adventurous stories, leading to his nickname, "America's Lawrence of Arabia".
Hadramout region, which is the largest of the six Federal Regions of Yemen that is expected to be activated in the next constitution, to be a federal autonomous region in eastern Yemen. The Hadramawt region includes four Yemeni “Wilayat” or States, which are Hadramout, Al-Mahrah, Shabwah and Socotra, with its capital being the city of Al-Mukalla. Some of the people of Al-Mahrah governorate reject the decision of mixing them with the Hadramout region and demand the establishment of a region of their own.
