Ancient history of Yemen

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gods, two reigning sovereigns and two governors, 7th century BCE.
A Griffon from the royal palace at Shabwa, Hadhramaut.
Barran Temple or the throne of the Queen of Sheba.

The ancient history of Yemen or South Arabia is especially important because it is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia (better known in its Latin translation, Arabia Felix) meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia. Between the eighth century BCE and the sixth century CE, it was dominated by six main states which rivaled each other, or were allied with each other and controlled the lucrative spice trade: Saba', Ma'īn, Qatabān, Hadhramaut, Kingdom of Awsan, and the Himyarite Kingdom. Islam arrived in 630 CE and Yemen became part of the Muslim realm.

The centers of the Old South Arabian kingdoms of present-day Yemen lay around the desert area called Ramlat al-Sab'atayn, known to medieval Arab geographers as Ṣayhad. The southern and western Highlands and the coastal region were less influential politically. The coastal cities were however already very important from the beginning for trade. Apart from the territory of modern Yemen, the kingdoms extended into Oman, as far as the north Arabian oasis of Lihyan (also called Dedan), to Eritrea, and even along coastal East Africa to what is now Tanzania.

History of archaeological research in Yemen

Sabaean Studies, the study of the cultures of Ancient South Arabia, belong to the younger branches of archaeology since in Europe ancient South Arabia remained unknown for much longer than other regions of the Orient. In 1504 a European, namely the Italian Lodovico di Varthema, first managed to venture into the interior.[1] Two Danish expeditions contributed to by Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) and Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) among others, contributed to scientific study, if only in a modest way.[2][3]

Shabwah and in other locations, the Italian investigations of Paleolithic remains and the work of the German Archaeological Institute
in the Ma'rib area are particularly noteworthy.

Written sources

The body of source material for Old South Arabia is sparse. Apart from a few mentions in Assyrian, Persian, Roman and Arabic sources, as well as in the Old Testament, which date back to the 8th century BCE right up to the Islamic period, the Old South Arabian inscriptions are the main source. These are however largely very short and as a result limited in the information they provide. The predominant part of the inscriptions originates from Saba' and from the Sabaeo-Himyaritic Kingdom which succeeded it, the least come from Awsān, which only existed as an independent state for a short time. Most of the extant texts are building inscriptions or dedications; it is rare for historical texts to be found.

Chronology

Although the Kingdom of

radio carbon dating. Here two schools of thought have essentially evolved: the "Short Chronology" and the "Long Chronology". At the end of the 19th century Eduard Glaser and Fritz Hommel
dated the beginning of the Old South Arabian Civilisation to the late 2nd millennium BCE, a dating that persisted for many years.

In 1955

Shabwah
the "Long Chronology" attracts more and more supporters. Meanwhile, the majority of experts in Sabaean studies adhere to Wissman's Long Chronology, which is why the dates in this article have been adjusted in accordance with it.

Islamic accounts of pre-dynastic Qahṭān (3rd millennium BCE - 8th century BCE)

According to medieval Muslim Arab historians,

Qahtanites.[8] The Qahṭānites began building simple earth dams and canals in the Marib area in the Ramlat al-Sab'atayn. This area would later become the site of the Marib Dam
.

A trade route began to flourish along the Red Sea coasts of Tihāmah. This period witnessed the reign of the legendary Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Bible, called Bilqīs by Muslim scholars.[9]

At the end of this period, in the 9th century BCE, writing was introduced; this now meant that South Arabian history could be written down.

Archaeology and the prehistory of Yemen

The study of South Arabian prehistory is still at the beginning, although sites are known going back to the

megalithic enclosures dating back to the Neolithic. Immediately before the historical kingdoms in 2500, two Bronze Age cultures go out of North Yemen and from the coast of the Indian Ocean. In the middle of the second millennium BCE, the first important urban centers appear in the coastal area, among which are the sites of Sabir and Ma'laybah.[10] So far, it has not been adequately explained whether the Old South Arabian Civilization of Yemen was a direct continuation from the Bronze Age, or if at the beginning of the Iron Age groups of people began wandering south from Palestine
or North Arabia, as is partly conjectured.

Documented history

It is not yet possible to specify with any certainty when the great South Arabian Kingdoms appeared; estimates range (within the framework of the long chronology) from the 12th until the 8th century BCE.

Kingdom of Saba (12th century BCE – 275 CE)

Main article: Sabaeans

During Sabaean rule, trade and agriculture flourished generating much wealth and prosperity. The Sabaean kingdom was located in what is now the

Sana'a.[11] According to Arab tradition, the eldest son of Noah, Shem
, founded the city of Sana’a, which is also called the city of Sam, or also called Azal city, which means the ancient city.

Sabaean hegemony (800 BCE – 400 BCE)

At the time of the earliest historical sources originating in South Arabia the territory was under the rule of the Kingdom of

Najrān in the south of modern South Arabia right up to Bāb al-Mandab, on the Red Sea. The formation of the Minaean Kingdom in the river oasis of al-Jawf, north-west of Saba' in the 6th century BCE, actually posed a danger for Sabaean hegemony, but Yitha'amar Bayyin II, who had completed the great reservoir dam of Ma'rib, succeeded in reconquering the northern part of South Arabia. Between the 8th and 4th centuries the state of Da'amot emerged, under Sabaean influence in Ethiopia, which survived until the beginning of the Christian era at the latest. The exact chronology of Da'amot
and to what extent it was politically independent of Saba' remains in any case uncertain.

The success of the Kingdom was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh. These were exported to the Mediterranean, India, and Abyssinia where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea. Evidence of Sabaean influence is found in northern Ethiopia, where the South Arabian alphabet, religion and pantheon, and the South Arabian style of art and architecture were introduced.[12][13][14] The Sabaeans created a sense of identity through their religion. They worshipped El-Maqah and believed that they were his children.[15] For centuries, the Sabaeans controlled outbound trade across the Bab-el-Mandeb, a strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean.[16]

Agriculture in Yemen thrived during this time due to an advanced irrigation system which consisted of large water tunnels in mountains, and dams. The most impressive of these earthworks, known as the

Ma'rib Dam was built c. 700 BCE, provided irrigation for about 25,000 acres (101 km²) of land[17]
and stood for over a millennium, finally collapsing in 570 CE after centuries of neglect. The final destruction of the dam is noted in the Qur'an and the consequent failure of the irrigation system provoked the migration of up to 50,000 people.

The Sabaean kingdom, with its capital at

Ma'rib where the remains of a large temple can still be seen, thrived for almost 14 centuries. This kingdom was the Sheba described in the Old Testament
.

Kingdom of Ḥaḑramawt (8th century BCE – 300 CE)

Main article: Kingdom of Hadhramaut
Louvre Museum
.

The first known inscriptions of Ḥaḑramawt are known from the 8th century BCE. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an

Thifar, the Ḥimyarite capital, as well as from the southern coast against Ḥaḑramawt as Sabaean allies. The kingdom of Ḥaḑramawt was eventually conquered by the Ḥimyarite king Shammar Yuhar'ish around 300 CE, unifying all of the south Arabic kingdoms.[18]

Kingdom of Awsan (800 BCE – 500 BCE)

Main article: Kingdom of Awsan

The ancient Kingdom of Awsān in South Arabia with a capital at Ḥajar Yaḥirr in Wādī Markhah, to the south of the Wādī Bayḥān, is now marked by a

Shabwah. Once it was one of the most important small kingdoms of South Arabia. The city seems to have been destroyed in the 7th century BCE by the king and mukarrib of Saba Karib'il Watar
, according to a Sabaean text that reports the victory in terms that attest to its significance for the Sabaeans.

Between 700 and 680 BC, the Kingdom of Awsan dominated Aden and its surroundings and challenged the Sabaean supremacy in South Arabia. Sabaean Mukarrib Karib'il Watar I conquered Awsan,[19] and expanded Sabaean rule and territory to include much of South Arabia.[20] Lack of water in the Arabian Peninsula prevented the Sabaeans from unifying the entire peninsula. Instead, they established various colonies to control trade routes.[21]

A funerary stela featuring a musical scene, 1st century AD

Kingdom of Qatabān (4th century BCE – 200 CE)

Qatabānians
c. 75–50 BCE.
Main article: Qataban

Qatabān was one of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms which thrived in the

Bayḥān valley. Like the other Southern Arabian kingdoms it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh incense which were burned at altars. The capital of Qatabān was named Timna
and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Ḥaḑramawt, Saba' and Ma'īn. The chief deity of the Qatabānians was 'Amm, or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of 'Amm".

Kingdom of Ma'in (8th century BCE – 100 BCE)

Main article: Minaeans

During Minaean rule, the capital was at

al-Ūlā in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and in Egypt. It was the first of the South Arabian kingdoms to end, and the Minaean language died around 100 CE.[22]

Kingdom of Ḥimyar (2nd century BCE – 525 CE)

Statue of Ammaalay, 1st century BCE, Yemen
Main article: Himyarite Kingdom

The Ḥimyarites eventually united Southwestern Arabia, controlling the Red Sea as well as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden. From their capital city, the Ḥimyarite kings launched successful military campaigns, and had stretched its domain at times as far east to the Persian Gulf and as far north as the Arabian Desert.

During the 3rd century CE, the South Arabian kingdoms were in continuous conflict with one another.

Ẓifār in the first quarter of the 3rd century. However, the alliances did not last, and Sha'ir Awtar of Saba' unexpectedly turned on Ḥadramawt, allying again with Aksum and taking its capital in 225. Ḥimyar then allied with Saba' and invaded the newly taken Aksumite territories, retaking Ẓifār, which had been under the control of GDRT's son BYGT, and pushing Aksum back into the Tihāmah.[23][24]

They established their capital at

Persia
.

Kingdom of Aksum (520 – 570 CE)

Main article: Kingdom of Aksum

Around 517/8, a

Persians.[28]

Yusuf marched toward the port city of Mocha, killing 14,000 and capturing 11,000.

Madh'hij tribes, eventually wiping out the Christian community in Najran by means of execution and forced conversion to Judaism. Blady speculates that he was likely motivated by stories about Byzantine violence against Byzantine Jewish communities in his decision to begin his campaign of state violence against Christians existing within his territory.[30][31]

Christian sources portray Dhu Nuwas as a Jewish zealot, while Islamic traditions say that he marched around 20,000 Christians into trenches filled with flaming oil, burning them alive.[31][32] Himyarite inscriptions attributed to Dhu Nuwas show great pride in killing 27,000, enslaving 20,500 Christians in Ẓafār and Najran and killing 570,000 beasts of burden belonging to them as a matter of imperial policy.[33] It is reported that Byzantium Emperor Justin I sent a letter to the Aksumite King Kaleb, pressuring him to "...attack the abominable Hebrew."[29] A military alliance of Byzantine, Aksumite, and Arab Christians successfully defeated Dhu Nuwas around 525–527 and a client Christian king was installed on the Himyarite throne.[34]

Esimiphaios was a local Christian lord, mentioned in an inscription celebrating the burning of an ancient Sabaean palace in Marib to build a church on its ruins.[35] Three churches were built in Najran.[35] Many tribes did not recognize Esimiphaios's authority. Esimiphaios was displaced in 531 by a warrior named Abraha, who refused to leave Yemen and declared himself an independent king of Himyar.[36]

Kaleb sent a fleet across the Red Sea and was able to defeat Dhū Nuwās, who was killed in battle according to an inscription from Ḥusn al-Ghurāb, while later Arab tradition has him riding his horse into the sea.

Samu Yafa', who ruled from 525–27 until 531, when he was deposed by the Aksumite general (or soldier and former slave[38]) Abrahah with the support of disgruntled Axumn soldiers.[27] A contemporary inscription refers to Sumyafa' Ashwa' as "viceroy for the kings of Aksum.[39] According to the later Arabic sources, Kaleb retaliated by sending a force of 3,000 men under a relative, but the troops defected and killed their leader, and a second attempt at reigning in the rebellious Abrahah also failed.[40][41] Later Ethiopian sources state that Kaleb abdicated to live out his years in a monastery and sent his crown to be hung in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. While uncertain, it seems to be supported by the die-links between his coins and those of his successor, Alla Amidas. An inscription of Sumyafa' Ashwa' also mentions two kings (nagaśt) of Aksum, indicating that the two may have co-ruled for a while before Kaleb abdicated in favor of Alla Amidas.[40]

Procopius notes that Abrahah later submitted to Kaleb's successor, as supported by the former's inscription in 543 stating Aksum before the territories directly under his control. During his reign, Abrahah repaired the

Vahriz who, according to later legends, famously killed Masrūq with his well-aimed arrow.[39]

Later Arabic sources also say that

Sana'a in order to divert pilgrimage from the Ka'bah and have him die in the Year of the Elephant (570) after returning from a failed attack on Mecca (though he is thought to have died before this time).[38] The exact chronology of the early wars are uncertain, as a 525 inscription mentions the death of a King of Ḥimyar, which could refer either to the Ḥimyarite viceroy of Aksum, Sumyafa' Ashwa', or to Yusuf Asar Yathar. The later Arabic histories also mention a conflict between Abrahah and another Aksumite general named Aryat occurring in 525 as leading to the rebellion.[27]

Sassanid period (570–630 CE)

Main article: Sasanian Empire

Emperor

Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Kingdom of Aksum out of Yemen. South Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sasanian Empire. Later another army was sent to Yemen, and in 597/8 Southern Arabia became a province of the Sassanid Empire under a Persian satrap
. It was a Persian province by name but after the Persians assassinated Dhi Yazan, Yemen divided into a number of autonomous kingdoms.

This development was a consequence of the expansionary policy pursued by the Sassanian king Khosrow II (590–628), whose aim was to secure Persian border areas such as Yemen against Roman and Byzantine incursions. Following the death of Khosrau II in 628, then the Persian governor in Southern Arabia, Badhan, converted to Islam and Yemen followed the new religion.

See also

References

  1. ^ Jones 1863.
  2. ^ Michaelis 1762.
  3. ^ Niehbuhr 1772.
  4. ^ Halévy 1872.
  5. ^ Dostal 1990.
  6. ^ Phillips 1955.
  7. ^ Harding 1964.
  8. ^ [1] The Qahtanites in ancient times Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ [2] Queen Bilqis Archived September 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Görsdorf & Vogt 2001.
  11. ^ [3] Archived April 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ISBN 978-0-8147-6283-7
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  13. ISBN 1-56902-001-9
    .
  14. ISBN 0-7591-1415-3
    .
  15. ISBN 978-0-7614-7571-2
    .
  16. ISBN 978-1-4051-8988-0
    .
  17. ^ Culture of Yemen - History and ethnic relations, urbanism, architecture, and the use of space
  18. ^ Müller 2003, pp. 965–966.
  19. ISBN 3-7016-2292-2
    .
  20. ^ "The kingdoms of ancient South Arabia". British Museum. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  21. ^ Jawād ʻAlī (1968) [Digitized 17 February 2007]. الـمـفـصـّل في تـاريـخ العـرب قبـل الإسـلام [Detailed history of Arabs before Islam] (in Arabic). Vol. 2. Dār al-ʻIlm lil-Malāyīn. p. 19.
  22. ^ Nebes 2003, p. 334.
  23. ^ Sima 2003b, pp. 718–719.
  24. ^ Munro-Hay 1991, p. 72.
  25. ^ Munro-Hay 1991, p. 80.
  26. ^ Mentioned in an inscription dated to 633 of the Himyarite era, or 518 CE.
  27. ^ a b c Munro-Hay 1991, p. 81.
  28. ^ Munro-Hay 1991, p. 54.
  29. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-533693-1
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  30. ISBN 978-1-4422-0045-6
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  31. ^
    ISBN 1-4616-2908-X
    . Even more dramatic was the conversion of Abu-Kariba's grandson, Zar'a, who reigned from C.E. 518 to 525. Legend ascribes his conversion to his having witnessed a rabbi extinguish a fire worshipped by some Arab magi, merely by reading a passage from the Torah over it. 12 After changing his religion, he assumed the name Yusef Ash'ar, but gained notoriety in history by his cognomen Dhu Nuwas ("Lord of the Curls," possibly because he wore his peot long). For some years Dhu Nuwas was successful in staving off Ethiopian incursions and preserving Jewish Himyar's independence. Informed by some Jewish advisors in Tiberias of atrocities perpetrated against Jews in Roman lands, the overzealous proselyte decided on a course of revenge: He executed some Byzantine Christian merchants who were traveling through Himyar on their way to Ethio-pia. This outrage led to a rebellion among his Christian subjects in the city of Nejiran, which Dhu Nuwas suppressed with great cruelty. He is said to have cast twenty thousand Christians into pits filled with flaming oil. " The massacre and forced conversions of thousands of Christians at Nejiran infuriated Constantine, the Byzantine emperor. As he was occupied in a war with Persia, Constantine sent ambassadors to his Ethiopian Christian ally, King Caleb, entreating him to intervene on behalf of their Arabian coreligionists. With a formidable force of sixty thousand men (some say one hundred twenty thousand), Caleb crossed the Red Sea and attacked the Jewish king. In a fierce battle in 525 c.E. the invaders won a decisive victory. His queen captured and his capital laid waste, Dhu Nuwas chose to escape what was sure to be a cruel death by riding horseback off a cliff into the sea.
  32. ISBN 978-1-84467-623-1
    .
  33. ^ Ryckmans, Jacques (1956). La Persécution des Chrétiens Himyarites au Sixième Siècle (in French). Leiden/Istanbul: NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT IN HET NABIJE OOSTEN. Ry 508, le plus ancien des deux textes, termine ici, en mars~avril, le récit de la campagne par le bilan provisoire des opérations effectuées jusque là: 13.000 tués, 9.500 prisonniers, 280.000 têtes de bétail (Ry 508, 4 - 6). [...] Le texte termine là, à la date du mois de ḏū-Maḏraʾān (entre juillet et septembre) le récit des opérations effectuées, en mettant à jour le bilan global de la campagne (Ry 507, 8 ~ 9): on y relève 1.000 tués, 1.500 prisonniers et 10.000 têtes de bétail de plus que dans le bilan clôturé à la date de Ry 508.
  34. ISBN 978-1-84701-041-4
    .
  35. ^
    ISBN 978-9004176881
    .
  36. ISBN 978-0-19-533693-1
    .
  37. ^ de Maigret 2002, p. 251.
  38. ^ a b Sima 2003a, p. 42.
  39. ^ a b c Munro-Hay 2003, pp. 297–298.
  40. ^ a b c Munro-Hay 1991, p. 82.
  41. ^ Munro-Hay 2003, p. 297.

Sources

Further reading

External links

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