Article table of contents: B
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In the period between the collapse of the Assyrian Empire in the last decades of the 7th century BCE and the consolidation of Babylonian rule at the beginning of the 6th century BCE, the political situation changed substantially. The desert border in Transjordan became defenceless, Egypt raised claim over the Levant, and in the east, the Medes and Persians rose as new political entities. These changes forced the Chaldean Kings Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE) and Nabonidus (556–539 BCE) to act against the Arabs in the Levant and in the Arabian Peninsula respectively. The latter was the most famous historical event of Nabonidus’ long and enigmatic stay at Taymāʾ.
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Identified with ancient Madyan on the basis of Arabic sources, this oasis in north-western Arabia was already occupied in the Prehistoric period and comprises a rich variety of pre-Islamic and Islamic archaeological remains.
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The Bahrain archipelago, in the Arabian-Persian Gulf, was the centre of two pre-Islamic cultural areas: Dilmun, from the late 3rd millennium BCE onwards, and Tylos, after the classical name the island is known as in ancient Greek sources.
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A large-scale Arabian lineage group; sub-clans of the Bakr ibn Wāʾil lived between central Iraq's desert frontier and al-Yamāma in eastern Arabia at the dawn of Islam.
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Banqueting has been a widespread ritual practice in the Ancient Near East since the third millennium. It is best documented in the Arabian Peninsula in the kingdom of Sabaʾ (Southwest Arabia) and in the Nabataean kingdom (Northwest Arabia). Banquets could be held during religious, funerary or private celebrations, and were usually placed under the protection of a deity. Beyond their religious aspect, they also fulfilled social and political functions.
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Ancient fortified city of the Jawf valley (Yemen) founded no later than the 12th cent. BCE and abandoned in the 1st/2nd centuries CE. It was initially part of the northern edge of the kingdom of Sabaʾ, and entered the kingdom of Maʿīn in the late 7th cent. BCE. It was surrounded by a large irrigated area and was one of the main caravan cities along trans-Arabian routes.
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Barley was one of the earliest domesticated crops in the Near East where it is widely cultivated today for its resilience. This rustic cereal is represented by two-rowed and six-rowed forms, as well as hulled and naked cultivars. Hulled and six-rowed forms are the most frequent forms in the Arabian Peninsula since the Bronze Age.
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Bashamum is an Ancient South Arabian god. He was probably the main deity of the city of Ḥalzaw (today Hajar Lajiya) in the Wādī Markha around the turn of the Christian era, but his cult is attested even earlier in the Jawf region. His name means 'balsam'.
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Ancient settlement and political centre of the tribal federation of Shaddād.
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A god worshipped first by the Phoenicians as “Baʿal of the heavens” from at least 950 BCE, and then throughout Syria where the Aramaic form Baʿal-šamīn was interpreted as a divine epithet “Lord of the heavens”. He was believed to control the weather and was worshipped by the nomads and farmers alike. In South Arabia in the monotheistic period (4th century CE onwards), Bʿls¹myn (‘the Lord of heaven’) was used as an epithet of the One God
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See Sacred stones
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The Hebrew Bible contains several references to 1st-millennium-BCE Arabian place names and peoples from a wide area along the South Arabian incense trade routes, particularly concentrated in the northern Hejaz, the Syro-Arabian Desert, and the Negev.
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Bithnah is a small oasis in the Emirate of Fujairah (UAE) along the wadi Ham, comprising several Iron Age sites. The excavated sites include a collective grave (Bithnah-14, 2nd millennium BCE and LPI C period), a fortress (Bithnah-24) and a place of worship (Bithnah-44), occupied during the Iron Age II. The place of worship yielded a series of ritual practices associated with the snake.
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Ancient city and seaport of the kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt (1st cent. BCE-6th cent. CE), located on the southern coast of modern Yemen. The city was situated at the crossroads of the sea routes between India, the Horn of Africa, Aksum and the Red Sea. Aromatic resins stored in warehouses were traded from there.
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See Script
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See Weaponry