Article table of contents: A
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See Text typology
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King of Maʿīn (South Arabia), c. 5th century BCE. His reign marked the beginning of the kingdom’s golden age with major construction projects and intense trade relations with Egypt, the Levant and Assyria.
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Around the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE, the name Abīyathaʿ / Abīyathaʿ Ghaylān recurs repeatedly in the region of Najrān, Qaryat al-Faw, and in Eastern Arabia. These mentions may correspond to one or more rulers who had authority over eastern and/or south-western Arabia.
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See Queen [Arabian]
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A Christian, Ethiopian-born king of Ḥimyar who participated in the Aksumite invasion of South Arabia in 525 and subsequently seized the Himyarite throne, ruling independently from Aksum. After suppressing a revolt within South Arabia, he set about re-establishing the Himyarite Empire, which during his reign extended over most of the Arabian Peninsula.
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The name of the Roman prefect of Egypt from 27 to 25 BCE. In an Arabian context, Aelius Gallus is famous as the leader of the expedition to South Arabia he was ordered to undertake by the emperor Augustus. The motives behind this expedition are usually considered to be both economic and political, but are still debated.
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Agatharchides of Cnidus [Arabia in ...]
Agatharchides (before 200 BCE? - after 145 BCE) of Cnidus is the author of 'On the Erythrean Sea', a geographic and ethnographic description of the countries around the Indian Ocean. Book V of these volumes contains one of the most detailed ancient descriptions of the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula.
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Agraeans (Greek Ἀγραῖοι, Latin Agraei), the name assigned by Eratosthenes (transmitted by Strabo Geog. XVI, 4, 2), Pliny (HN VI, 154; 159; 161), Dionysius Periegetes (v. 956, from Eratosthenes or Strabo), Ptolemy (Geog. V, 19, 2) and Stephanus (s.u. Ἀγραῖοι, according to Strabo) to one or several tribes (ethnos / gens) in Arabia.
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Aksum is both the name of a kingdom located in northern Ethiopia and the capital of said kingdom. The Aksumite kingdom, whose lingua franca was the Ethiosemitic language of Gəʿəz, enters the historical record around the turn of the Common Era and came to an end around the seventh century. Throughout much of that period, the Aksumites were in regular contact – sometimes amicable, sometimes hostile – with the South Arabian kingdoms of Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar, at times invading and occupying parts of South Arabia.
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A protracted series of battles waged in central Arabia between the Bakr and Taghlib lineage groups during the early sixth century CE. Muslim-era literature narrates the war as one of the classic epics of pre-Islamic Arabian history, and legendary accounts proliferated in scholarly writing and popular epics.
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Isolated place of worship comprising a succession of basins where enthronement ceremonies of the Ḥaḍramawt kings took place.
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Whitish and translucent soft stone widely used in Antiquity for ornamental sculpture in high and low relief, and for small objects, in particular for perfume vases. South Arabia was one of the main calcite-alabaster sources from the first millennium BCE onwards. Quarries dating to the Sabaean period have been found in the region of Ṣirwāḥ (Yemen).
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See Cult objects
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An important tribe of the Najrān oasis and the name of a kingdom in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE. Prior to this period, the tribe of Amīr was part of a tribal federation forming the core of the kingdom of Muhaʾmir.
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Ammianus Marcellinus [Arabia in ...]
Based on Ammianus Marcellinus’ 'History', it is possible to study representations pertaining to Arabs, as well as the history of the Arabs, called Saraceni, in the fourth century.
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See Kamna (Site)
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Ancient South Arabian (Languages)
Ancient South Arabian (ASA) designates a group of four Semitic languages, Sabaic, Qatabanic, Minaic and Hadramitic, attested from the end of the 2nd- beginning of the 1st millennium BCE until the advent of Islam in what is now Yemen, in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. ASA inscriptions have also been found in Ethiopia, northern Arabia and Dhofar in Oman.
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Arabia [Geography and environment]
The Arabian Peninsula’s unique geography and environment encompass a variety of landscapes and geological formations. Bordered by the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, the region’s arid climate exhibits significant variations in temperature, with sporadic rainfall. Intermittent watercourses and aquifers are vital water sources. Tropical cyclones can bring heavy rains, and flash floods pose water-management challenges.
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Arabia Deserta (Greek Ἔρημος Ἀραβία), name given by Ptolemy, Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE, to the eastern part of the Syro-Arabian desert, different from its western part, Arabia Petraea (Πετραία Ἀραβία), and from the Arabian Peninsula, Arabia Eudaemon (Εὐδαίμων Ἀραβία).
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Arabia Eudaemon (Greek Ἀραβία Εὐδαίμων, Latin Arabia Eudaemon, Arabia Felix, or Arabia Beata, “Fertile/Flourishing/Happy/Blessed Arabia”), geographic name of the Arabian Peninsula in Greek and Latin texts, referring to the legendary wealth assigned to parts of this region.
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Arabs [in the Near-Eastern sources]
The term ‘Arab’ is first attested in sources from outside the Arabian Peninsula, in Assyria and Mesopotamia, in the Bible and in Greek sources. Its significance varies and cannot always be precisely established. In most cases, it refers to populations living between Egypt and Mesopotamia, on the northern margins of the Arabian Peninsula.
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Arabs [in the South Arabian sources]
In the South Arabian sources, the term Arabs initially refers to peripheral, often threatening groups of the population (1st cent. BCE/CE), who transitioned to integrated auxiliaries of the main kingdoms, prominently participating in conflicts (2nd–3rd cent. CE). In Late Antiquity, Arabs became a constituent population in the Ḥimyarite kingdom.
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The tutelary god of the city-state of Nashshān (now al-Sawdāʾ), worshipped between the 8th century BCE and the 3rd century CE.
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Arbaʿān/Arbaʿum is the name of a Sabaean tribe or social group headed by a ruler (malik). It is not clear whether this was an autonomous tribe or a Sabaean institution.
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See Weaponry
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Artemidorus Ephesius [Arabia in…]
Artemidorus of Ephesus, Greek geographer. Book VIII of his 'Geography', written ca. 100 BCE, contained a description of the western coastal regions of the Arabian Peninsula.
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Contacts between Assyria and the Arabian tribes took place over a vast area, ranging from the Southern Levant, the Jazīra, and Southern Babylonia to East and South Arabia. Arabs are first mentioned in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and correspondence from the 9th century BCE onwards. In addition, iconographic material, namely depictions of military campaigns against Arab tribes from the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 BCE; Barnett & Falkner 1962: pl. xiii–xvii, xxiv–xxviii), and Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE; see below), can be related to passages from written sources. Aribi, a term written with different spellings (Arabi, Aribu, Arubu), referring to the dwellers of the Syrian and North Arabian deserts, was a general designation for nomads, but could also refer to specific tribes in the Southern Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. In the Assyrian mental map, the region where Arabs dwelled represented the southern border of the empire, and was associated with a natural barrier, namely the desert.
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Athirat is an Ancient South Arabian goddess. She was venerated in Qatabān and sporadically in the Jawf region and in Sabaʾ. She has been associated with the homonymous West Semitic goddesses – the Ugaritic Athirat and the Biblical Asherah.