SOUTHERN ARABIA—COON 401 
This cosmopolitan character is revealed by the nature of the objects 
found in Sabaean sites, many of which are too large to have been 
imported and must have been made by traveling workmen. Other 
things revealed by recent findings are Philby’s discovery that Shabwa 
itself, although flanked by residential suburbs, was a small, walled- 
city nucleus, scarcely 300 to 350 yards square, in contradiction to Pliny’s 
statement that the city alone contained 60 temples. We now know 
for the first time that the salt deposits at Shabwa, which are still 
worked, formed a major incentive for the location of the city at that 
spot, and that prosaic salt shared the trade with the more romantic 
frankincense and myrrh. We also know that Marib is surrounded by 
submerged volcanic craters, which, Philby suggests, may have erupted 
at about the time of the destruction of Pompeii, thus weakening or 
breaking the famous dam. Through the diligence of this same 
explorer, we are introduced to a new city site, Ukhdud, in the Wady 
Nejran, a step farther north from the Minaean center, and the seat of 
a bishopric in Christian times. 
Much remains to bedone. The field of southern Arabian archeology 
is about to open. Let us hope that its miraculous preservation past 
the period of trial and error in archeology elsewhere may permit slow 
and careful excavation by properly qualified persons, trained in ade- 
quate techniques. Let us further hope that the princes and kings who 
control these sites will continue to be well advised and will refuse 
permits to the sensational and the incompetent, following the policy 
so ably expressed by His Excellency Raghib Bey, Foreign Minister of 
Yemen, who feels that some important remains Should be preserved 
for the archeologists of the future, who will have developed techniques 
of obtaining scientific information unknown today. 
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ANSALDI, C. 
1933. Il Yemen. Rome. 
BEntT, T., and Mrs. 
1910. Southern Arabia. London. 
CaTon-THOMPSON, G., and GARDNER, E. W. 
1939. Climate, irrigation and early man inthe Hadhramaut. Geogr. Journ., 
vol. 98. London. 
Coon, C. S. 
1989. The races of Europe. New York. 
Dovueurty, C. M. 
1923. Arabia Deserta. New York. 
Fier, H. 
1934. Sulle Caratteristiche Geografiche de l’Arabia Settentrionale. Rome. 
1936. Racial types from south Arabia. The open court. Chicago. 
Harris, W. B. 
1893. The Yemen. London. 
Hitt, P. 
1937. The history of the Arabs. New York. 
