Article table of contents: W
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Wadd is a male Ancient South Arabian divinity, symbolised by a snake. His cult is attested since the earliest written sources, mainly in the Minaean, Sabaean and Qatabanian areas, including the Minaean settlements of Dadan and Qaryat al-Fāw, and the Sabaean sites in Ethiopia. The propitiatory formula “Wadd is father” was widespread and long lasting, and survived the adoption of monotheism.
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Site of a Nabataean/Roman provincial centre located in the northwest of Saudi Arabia. Since prehistoric times, it has benefited from favourable environmental conditions for human settlement thanks to the presence of numerous springs.
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See Salūt
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Wādī Banī Khālid, eastern Oman, a territorial unit exploited since the Late Iron Age. A late first millennium BCE – 3rd–4th cent. CE fortified settlement (WBK1) attests to a subsistence model of occupation integrated with the Samad and Eastern Arabian exchange circuit, as well as an agricultural exploitation pattern still valid in the 18th cent. Islamic settlement (WBK2).
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Prince of the tribe of Radmān-and-Khawlān, from the lineage of Maʿāhir-and-Khawlān, Wahabʾīl Yaḥuz (Sab. Whbʾl Yḥz ) ascended the throne of Sabaʾ in ca. 155-159 CE amidst a struggle between Ḥimyar and the rulers of Sabaean tribes.
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The sources regarding pre-Islamic warfare in Arabia contrast between South-east and South-west Arabia, the former with a rich array of copper-alloy weapons and the latter de facto with a true epigraphic tradition. Other such sources include Ancient South Arabian inscriptions, Greco-Roman history, archaeological finds, contexts such as buildings and oral history which was written down centuries after the fact.
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Water management refers to both the technical means used to implement water systems (environmental assessment, landscaping and building of hydraulic structures) and to the related organizations operating and maintaining them.
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Few reliefs, early Arabic and Graeco-Roman texts as well as rock art from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity illuminate weaponry in south-western Arabia. In addition, excavated finds reflect the contemporary weapons in south-eastern Arabia. Outside analogies are essential to reconstruct the historic situation.
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A well is a vertical cavity dug into the soil and/or rock to reach an underground water table. Wells can be lined, with stones and/or baked bricks, or not, depending on the firmness of the ground.
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Wheat is one of the most cultivated cereals in the world today. The domestication processes leading to the formation of wheat groups in the Near East during the Neolithic are complex and remain to be better understood. Free-threshing wheats (bread and durum wheats) are the represented wheats in the Arabian Peninsula since the Bronze Age.