December 13, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



40 7 



Abyssinians, who migrated from Himyar to Africa in the second 

 or first century B.C. When we first hear of them in the inscrip- 

 tions, they are still the inhabitants of northern Yemen and 

 Mahrah. More than once the Axumites made themselves masters 

 ■of southern Arabia. About A.D. 300 they occupied its ports and 

 islands, and from 350 to 378 even the Sabasan kingdom was tribu- 

 tary to them. Their last successes were gained in 525, when, with 

 Byzantine help, they conquered the whole of Yemen. But the 

 Sabsean kingdom, in spite of its temporary subjection to Ethiopia, 

 had long been a formidable state. Jewish colonies settled in it, 

 and one of its princes became a convert to the Jewish faith. His 

 successors gradually extended their dominion as far as Ormuz, and, 

 after the successful revolt from Axum in 378, brought not only the 

 whole of the southern coast under their sway, but the western 

 coast as well, as far north as Mecca. Jewish influence made itself 

 felt in the future birthplace of Mohammed, and thus introduced 

 those ideas and beliefs which subsequently had so profound an 

 effect upon the birth of Islam. The Byzantines and Axumites en- 

 deavored to counteract the influence of Judaism by means of 

 Christian colonies and proselytism. The result was a conflict be- 

 tween Saba and its assailants, which took the form of a conflict 

 between the members of the two religions. A violent persecution 

 was directed against the Christians of Yemen, avenged by the 

 Ethiopian conquest of the country and the removal of its capital to 

 San 'a. The intervention of Persia in the struggle was soon fol- 

 lowed by the appearance of Mohammedanism upon the scene, and 

 Jew, Christian, and Parsi were alike overwhelmed by the flowing 

 tide of the new creed. 



The epigraphic evidence makes it clear that the origin of the 

 kingdom of Saba went back to a distant date. Dr. Glaser traces 

 its history from the time when its princes were still but Makdrib, 

 or " priests," like Jethro the priest of Midian, through the ages 

 when they were " kings of Saba," and later still " kings of Saba and 

 Raidan," to the days when they claimed imperial supremacy over 

 all the principalities of southern Arabia. It was in this later pe- 

 riod that they dated their inscriptions by an era, which, as Halevy 

 first discovered, corresponds to 115 B.C.* One of the kings of Saba 

 is mentioned in an inscription of the Assyrian king Sargon (B.C. 

 715), and Dr. Glaser believes that he has found his name in a 

 " Himyaritic " text. When the last priest, Samah'ali Darrahh, be- 

 came king of Saba, we do not yet know ; but the age must be suf- 

 ficiently remote, if the kingdom of Saba already existed when the 

 Queen of Sheba came from Ophir to visit Solomon. 



The visit need no longer cause astonishment, notwithstanding 

 the long journey by land which lay between Palestine and the 

 south of Arabia. One of the Minaaan inscriptions discovered by 

 Dr. Glaser mentions Gaza; and we now have abundant evidence, 

 as we shall see, that the power and culture of the Sabasans extend- 

 ed to the frontiers of Edom. From the earliest times the caravans 

 of Dedan and Tenia had traversed the highways which led from 

 Syria to the spice-bearing regions of Yemen. Three thousand 

 years ago it was easier to travel through the length of Arabia than 

 it is to-day. A culture and civilization existed there of which only 

 echoes remain in Mohammedan tradition. 



As we have seen, the inscriptions of Ma'in set before us a dialect 

 of more primitive character than that of Saba. Hitherto it has been 

 supposed, however, that the two dialects were spoken contempora- 

 neously, and that the Minffian and Sabffian kingdoms existed side 

 by side. But geography offered difficulties in the way of such a 

 belief, since the seats of Minsean power were embedded in the 

 midst of the Sabasan kingdom, much as the fragments of Cromarty 

 are embedded in the midst of other counties. Dr. Glaser has now 

 made it clear that the old supposition was incorrect, and that the 

 Minffian kingdom preceded the rise of Saba. We can now under- 

 stand why it is that neither in the Old Testament nor in the Assyrian 

 inscriptions do we hear of any princes of Ma'in ; and that, though 

 the classical writers are acquainted with the Min^an people, they 

 know nothing of a Minasan kingdom.' The Minasn kingdom, in 

 fact, with its culture and monuments, the relics of which still sur- 

 vive, must have flourished in the gray dawn of history, at an epoch 

 at which, as we have hitherto imagined, Arabia was the home only 



^ It is possible that a Minaean popula 

 2, the " Mehunims '" of 2 Chron. xxvi. 



by the M: 



of Judges 



of nomad barbarism ; and yet in this remote age alphabetic writ- 

 ing was already known and practised, the alphabet being a modi- 

 fication of the'Phoenician written vertically and not horizontally. 

 To what an early date are we referred for the origin of the Phoeni- 

 cian alphabet itself ! 



The Minsean kingdom must have had a long existence. The 

 names of thirty-three of its kings are already known to us, three of 

 them occurring not only on monuments of southern Arabia, but on 

 those of northern Arabia as well. 



Northern Arabia has been as much a terra z'ncogmta to Euro- 

 peans as the fertile fields and ruins of Arabia Felix. But here, too, 

 the veil has been lifted by recent exploration. First, Mr. Doughty 

 made his way to the ruins of Teima, the Tema of the Bible (Isa. 

 xxi. 14 ; Jer. xxv. 23 ; Job vi. 19), and the rock-cut tombs of Medain 

 Salihh, wandering in Bedouin dress, at the risk of his life, through 

 a large part of central Arabia. He brought back with him a num- 

 ber of inscriptions, which proved that this part of the Arabian 

 .continent had once been in the hands of Nabatheans who spoke an 

 Aramaic language, and that the Ishmaelites of Scripture, instead 

 of being the ancestors of the tribe of Koreish, as Mohammedan 

 writers imagine, were an Aramasan population, whose language 

 was that of Aram, and not of Arabia. The Sinaitic inscriptions 

 had already shown that in the Sinaitic peninsula Arabic is as much 

 an imported language as it is in Egypt and Syria. There, too, in 

 pre-Christian times, inscriptions were engraved upon the rocks in 

 the Nabathean characters and language of Petra, — inscriptions in 

 which a fertile imagination once discovered a record of the miracles 

 wrought by Moses in the wilderness. 



Since Mr. Doughty 's adventurous wanderings, Teima and its 

 neighborhood have been explored by the famous German epig- 

 raphist, Professor Euting, in company with a Frenchman, M. 

 Huber. M. Huber's life was sacrificed to Arab fanaticism, but 

 Professor Euting returned with a valuable stock of inscriptions. 

 Some of these are in Aramaic Nabathean, the most important 

 being on a stelS discovered at Teima, which is now in the Mu- 

 seum of the Louvre. About 750 are in an alphabet and language 

 which have been termed " Proto-arabic," and are still for the most 

 part unpublished. Others are in a closely allied language and 

 alphabet, called " Lihhyanian " by Professor D. H. Miiller, since 

 the kings by whose reigns the inscriptions are dated are entitled 

 kings of Lihhyan, though it_is more than probable that Lihhyan 

 represents the Thamud of the Arabic genealogists. The rest are 

 in the language and alphabet of Ma'in, and m.ention Minaan 

 sovereigns, whose names are found on the monuments of southern 

 Arabia.' 



The Minasan and Lihhyanian texts have been mainly discovered 

 in El-Ola and El-Higr, between Teima and El-Wej, — a port that 

 until recently belonged to Egypt, — on the line of the pilgrims' 

 road to Mecca. The Proto-arabic inscriptions, on the other hand, 

 are met with in all parts of the country, and, according to Pro- 

 fessor Miiller, form the intermediate link between the Phoenician 

 and Minasan alphabets. Like the Lihhyanian, the language they 

 embody is distinctly Arabic, though presenting curious points of 

 contact with the Semitic languages of the north ; as, for example, 

 in the possession of an article ka. The antiquity of Lihhyanian 

 writing may be judged from the fact that Professor Muller has de- 

 tected a Lihhyanian inscription on a Babylonian cylinder in the 

 British Museum, the age of which is approximately given as 1000 

 B.C. 



We gather, therefore, that, as far back as the time of Solomon, 

 a rich and cultured Sabasan kingdom flourished in the south of 

 Arabia, the influence of which, if not its authority, extended to the 

 borders of Palestine, and between which and Syria an active com- 

 mercial intercourse was carried on by land as well as by sea. The 

 kingdom of Saba had been preceded by the kingdom of Ma'in, 

 equally civilized and equally powerful, whose garrisons and colo- 

 nies were stationed on the high-road which led past Mecca to the 

 countries of the Mediterranean. Throughout this vast extent of 

 territory alphabetic writing in various forms was known and prac- 

 tised, ihe Phoenician alphabet being the source from which it was 



1 The Minsean and Lihiiyanian te.vts have been edited and translated, with an im- 

 portant introduction, by Professor D. H. Muller: " Epigraphbche Denkmaler aus 

 Arabien," in the " Denkschriften d. K. Akademie d. Wissenschaften zu Wien," vol. 



