JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 
Part I.—HISTORY, LITERATURE, &e. 
Ir 
No. II.—1881. 
On the Coins of Charibael, king of the Homerites and Sabceans .— By 
Major W. F. Phieeaux, F. R. G. S., Bombay Staff* Corps. 
(With a Plate.) 
In the year 1843 M. Arnaud, a French traveller, discovered at San’a 
and the neighbouring cities of South Arabia a considerable number of 
Himyaritic inscriptions, which were subsequently collected and published 
by M. Fresnel, the distinguished Arabic scholar, in the Journal Asiatiquo 
(IV serie, tome V,.pp. 211, 309 ; VI, p 169). On some of these inscriptions 
were found the names of two ancient kings called Kariba-el, one of whom 
it was tolerably evident, must be identical with the monarch of that name 
who is mentioned in the twenty-third chapter of the Beriplus of the Ery¬ 
thraean Sea, as having been the paramount sovereign (eVfW/xos /JacnXeu?) of 
the two contiguous tribes of the Homerites and the Sabseans at the time 
that work was compiled The name of one of these princes occurs in one 
passage only (Fres. XXIX) where he is described as Kariba-el Bayyan, son 
of Yatha'-amar, Alakrab of Saba y while the other is mentioned in three 
inscriptions, first (Fres, XI) as Kariba-el Wattar, son of .D/mnar-’ali, 
Makrab of Saba ; secondly (Fres-. LVI), at the end of a long list of princes* 
as Kariba-el Wattar ; and thirdly (Fres. LIV) as Kariba-el JVattdr 
Yehan’am, king of Saba and Raidan, son of Z)Aamar-’ali Bayyan. A com¬ 
parison of these names and titles with the text of the Beriplus affords 
sufficient evidence that the king mentioned in that work is identical with 
the second of the princes named in the inscriptions. The writer of the- 
JBeriplus states three facts regarding Kariba-el, firstly, that his metropolis 
N 
