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Sabaeans in Tihāma
Author(s) -
Beeston A. F. L.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
arabian archaeology and epigraphy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.384
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1600-0471
pISSN - 0905-7196
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0471.1995.tb00004.x
Subject(s) - settlement (finance) , period (music) , sovereignty , archaeology , ancient history , population , geography , history , law , political science , demography , sociology , art , politics , world wide web , computer science , payment , aesthetics
Evidences of Sabaean presence in the Red Sea coastal area west of the Sarāt watershed are exceedingly scanty. In the first three centuries AD, rulers based on Marib or Sanaa made occasional military campaigns down into the coastal area, in order to prevent or punish raiders from the coastal tribes who sometimes made incursions into the highlands; but these campaigns were purely military and led to no permanent Sabaean settlement there. In the very late period, in the sixth century AD, despite the Himyarite kings of the Tabābiʿa dynasty claiming sovereignty over the Tihāma in their title, they were still obliged to undertake military policing activity against what was evidently a non‐Sabaean population. However, in the archaic period (first half of the first millennium BC), we have evidence of just one small Sabaean (or Sabaean influenced) settlement in the W. Sihām a little south of Bāǧil, where a small shrine has yielded a handful of early Sabaean votive inscriptions.