Article table of contents: M
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Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ is one of the names given to the ancient city of Hegra, in Northwest Arabia, a possibly Liḥyanite and certainly a Nabataean and Roman site. It reached its peak in the first century BCE and in the first two centuries CE. It is famous for its monumental rock-cut tombs with decorated facades, similar to those of the Nabataean capital, Petra.
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Extra muros Sabaean federal temple dedicated to the deity Almaqah, located two kilometres south of ancient Maʾrib and connected to it by a 3-km-long processional road. The chronological span of temple use ranges from the 8th cent. BCE at the latest to the end of the 4th cent. CE.
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Archaeological site in eastern Ḥaḍramawt, Yemen, occupied from the late 2nd mill. BCE to the 4th cent. CE.
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An Arab ruler of the fourth century CE known only from a five-line epitaph, in the Arabic language but the Nabataean Aramaic script, in which he is credited with ruling most of Arabia as far as the northern borders of Yemen. It has been speculated that he was the second Nasrid (Lakhmid) king.
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See Ṣirwāḥ (Arḥab)
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See Minaic
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See Qatabanic
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The Arabian Peninsula is bordered by the Red Sea, the Arabian-Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea. Maritime contacts constituted important links with the outside world. Arabian ships ventured overseas, and visitors came to Arabian ports from most of the wider Indian Ocean world. Arabia was tightly integrated in networks exchanging commodities ranging from necessities to prestige and luxury goods, as well as conveying cultural impulses.
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Ancient city of the Wādī Ḥarīb (Yemen) founded no later than the 7th cent. BCE and abandoned during the 3rd century CE at the latest. For most of its history, it was a major town of the kingdom of Qatabān and an important caravan city along the trans-Arabian routes at the turn of the Christian era.
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Oasis located in the northern Hajar chain, on the border between the emirates of Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah (United Arab Emirates). Three wādīs originate from this area (Sījī, ʿAbādila and Ḥām), famous for its water springs. Remains of Late Bronze Age (1600–1200 BCE: Masāfī-5) and Iron Age (1200–600 BCE: Masāfī-2, Masāfī-1, Masāfī-3) sites have been recorded and excavated in this area by the French Archaeological Mission in the U.A.E. between 2007 and 2020. Geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental investigations carried out in the oasis have led to the reconstruction of environmental conditions and farming practices, from the Late Bronze Age to the present day.
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Maṣnaʿat Mariya is a large walled plateau-top archaeological site located in the Dhamar province of highland Yemen.
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See Raybūn
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Group of archaeological sites located in the Sharqiyah piedmont in eastern Oman dated from the 3rd mill. BCE up until the Islamic period. Among the latter, several cemeteries and three settlements dated from the Early Iron Age located in the vicinity of an ancient falaj have served as a basis to establish the present Iron Age chronology in use in eastern Oman.
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Ancient city founded no later than the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE and abandoned in the late 6th/early 7th century CE. It was the capital city of the kingdom of Sabaʾ. Its surrounding oasis was the largest in pre-Islamic Arabia. It was watered by the 700-m-long dam. The extra muros temple Awām, dedicated to Almaqah, was a major place of pilgrimage in South Arabia.
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The iconic status of Maʾrib Dam in pre-Islamic Arabia owes much to its gigantic dimensions and the ingenuity of its builders, but even more to the fact that the Qur’an refers to its ultimate collapse.
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Ancient city-state and the former capital city of the kingdom of Maʿīn, located in the central part of the Jawf valley, in modern Yemen. Despite the absence of archaeological excavations, the remains of a city-wall and several temples have been identified. A corpus of more than 110 inscriptions from the site provides information on its social, political, and religious background.
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See Persia [Fars]
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An ancient oasis settlement in western central Arabia along the Incense Road, between Tabāla in the south and Dadān in the north. From an economic perspective, it was perhaps more significant than Mecca. Medina (Arabic: al-Madīna) is Islam’s holy city, second only to Mecca, and is the site of the “visitation to the Prophet”, i.e., the visit of his sepulchre located in the central mosque, the mosque of the Prophet Muḥammad.
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Archaeological site in Tigrai and location of a temple for the Sabaean god Almaqah. Erected in the 8th century BCE, the temple and its outstanding cult inventory, including a perfectly preserved limestone libation altar, provides important evidence of the association between South Arabian and Northeast African cultural traditions in the 1st millennium BCE in a clear archaeological context and highlights the economic, political and religious network of the polity of Daʿamat.
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See Sabaic
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Minaic is an Ancient South Arabian (ASA) language attested by a corpus of about 1500 inscriptions and more than a hundred minuscule texts on wooden sticks, originating from the region of Wādī al-Jawf (northwestern Yemen) during the first millennium BCE. Several hundred Minaic inscriptions and graffiti are also documented in far-away sites with commercial settlements of the kingdom of Maʿīn.
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Mišmārōt [List of priestly courses]
Lists of priestly courses in service of the Temple in Jerusalem. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jewish priests referred to them every week.
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Ancient city in the southern highlands of Yemen. It was the capital of the tribal principality of Radmān-and-Khawlān and one of the main urban centres of the kingdom of Ḥimyar.
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Archaeological site located along the western foothills of the al-Hajjar Mountains in the Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Probably the central place of the kingdom of ʿUmān between the 3rd cent. BCE and the 3rd cent. CE.
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See Script
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Name of a tribe or of a tribal aggregate referred to by two epigraphic testimonies from the 5th and 6th centuries CE. One of these suggests a location in the middle valley of the Euphrates, in contemporary Syria.
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Mudhmar East is an Early Iron Age cultic site in Eastern Arabia. The site revealed several buildings, rich copper alloy artefacts, including weapons and snake figurines, and pottery, highlighting the region’s cultural practices.
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See Script
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Myrrh tree (Commiphora myrrha)
The myrrh tree or Commiphora myrrha (Nees) Engl. belongs to the Burseraceae family. It yields myrrh resin that was praised for its healing properties and was mainly used as a balm.