SOUTHERN ARABIA—COON 393 
while the Sabaean kingdom was, relatively speaking, young. The 
history of southern Arabia, as an important center of civilization, 
may have started, however, as early as 1300 B. C. and it continued 
until the time of Mohammed. A more conservative, but otherwise in 
no way preferable, date is 900 B. C. Whichever or whatever date one 
accepts, there can be no doubt that this cultural emergence was pre- 
ceded by centuries of preliterate, in a sense predynastic, agricultural 
civilization. 
At some chronological point between the two dates mentioned, 
southern Arabia came into prominence as a highly civilized agricul- 
tural region, flourishing near the source of the incense trade route, 
which went up from the Hadhramaut around the western edge of the 
Empty Quarter to Mekka, Medina, and the ports of the eastern Medi- 
terranean. It also served as the principal or only route by which goods 
from India were transshipped and carried overland. This trade posi- 
tion was highly artificial and depended almost wholly upon the sup- 
pression of the sea route up the Red Sea. When this was opened, in 
the second century A. D., the kingdoms of southern Arabia fell, and 
the country lost its importance to the world. 
Of the four kingdoms, Hadhramaut alone produced incense, which 
also came from Dhofar farther east. The other three lay on the trade 
route and served as carriers, thereby collecting their “cuts” from the 
rich trade profits. A tear of incense resin, of negligible value on the 
tree, had been doubled and redoubled many times in price before it 
reached the Mediterranean. This ancient racketeering was based upon 
two sound economic principles, as valid now as then: the first, that 
of the monopoly, and the second, that of bought protection, in which 
the Arabs and desert people elsewhere have long been experts. 
The Minaean kingdom, which was apparently the oldest, had passed 
its period of efflorescence before the Sabaeans began. It was also 
the northernmost, located in the Jauf and Nejran, with Ma‘an its main 
city. Nielsen believes that the basic elements of this civilization came 
from the coastal strip along the northern Persian Gulf, which the 
Arabs call Bahrain, and the Babylonians called Magan. According 
to Nielsen, Ma‘an=Magan, with the ‘ain substituted for the Baby- 
lonian G. 3 
There were 20 Minaean kings, covering, in their combined reigns, 
a period of at least 600 years. The older estimate would place the 
Minaean period from 1300 to 700 B. C.; the younger, from 900 to 300. 
If the alphabetic inscriptions from Ma‘an go back to the oldest period, 
then the younger dating is the more likely, since, in the Sinai region 
and northern Arabia, alphabetic writing does not antedate the first 
millennium. The age of the Katabanians is also in doubt, but in all 
probability their kingdom was roughly contemporaneous with that of 
