Back مملكة سبأ Arabic مملكة سبأ ARZ Səba dövləti Azerbaijani Сәба батшалығы Bashkir Сабейскае царства Byelorussian শেবা Bengali/Bangla སེ་བ། (གསུང་རབ།) Tibetan Regne de Sabà Catalan Sabejci Czech Saba Danish
Kingdom of Sheba Kingdom of Saba | |||||||||
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| ~1000 BCE–275 CE | |||||||||
.jpg) Emblem
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 Map of Sheba in blue in South Arabia | |||||||||
| Capital | Marib Sanaa[1][2] | ||||||||
| Official languages | Sabaic | ||||||||
| Religion | South Arabian polytheism | ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Sabaeans | ||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||
| Mukarrib (list of rulers) | |||||||||
• 730–710 BCE | Yatha' Amar Watar | ||||||||
• 620–600 BCE | Karib'il Watar | ||||||||
• 120–130 CE | Ilīsharaḥ Yaḥḍub I | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | ~1000 BCE | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 275 CE | ||||||||
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| Today part of | South Arabia YemenHorn of Africa  Eritrea Ethiopia | ||||||||
| Part of a series on the |
| History of Yemen |
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 Yemen portal |
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Sheba,[a] or Saba,[b] was an ancient South Arabian kingdom in modern-day Yemen[3] whose inhabitants were known as the Sabaeans[c] or the tribe of Sabaʾ which, for much of the 1st millennium BCE, were indissociable from the kingdom itself.[4] Modern historians agree that the heartland of the Sabaean civilization was located in the region around Marib and Sirwah.[5][6] In some periods, they expanded to much of what is now modern-day Yemen[4] and even parts of the Horn of Africa, in modern-day Eritrea and Ethiopia.[7] The spoken language of the Sabaeans was Sabaic, a variety of Old South Arabian.[8]
The Sabaeans founded the Kingdom of Saba in the late second or first millennium BCE,[9][10] considered by South Arabians and the first Abyssinian kingdoms to be the birthplace of South Arabian civilization, and whose name carried prestige.[11] The first Sabaean kingdom lasted from the 8th to the 1st centuries BCE. This kingdom can be divided into the mukarrib period, where Saba reigned supreme over South Arabia, and the kingly period, a long period of decline to the neighbouring kingdoms of Ma'in, Hadhramaut, and Qataban, ultimately ending when a newer neighbour, Himyar, annexed them.[12] Saba was originally confined to the region of Marib (its capital) and its surroundings. At its height, it encompassed much of southwest Arabia, before eventually declining to the regions of Marib. Saba re-emerged from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. In this time, a secondary capital was founded at Sanaa, which has become the capital of Yemen today. Around 275 CE, the Saba civilization permanently came to an end after another annexation by Himyar.[1][12]
Saba existed alongside several neighboring kingdoms in ancient South Arabia. To their north was the Kingdom of Ma'in, and to their east was the Kingdom of Qataban and the Kingdom of Hadhramaut. The Sabaeans, like the other Yemenite kingdoms of their time, were involved in the extremely lucrative spice trade, especially including frankincense and myrrh.[13] They left behind many inscriptions in the monumental Ancient South Arabian script as well as numerous documents in the related cursive Zabūr script. They also interacted with the societies in the Horn of Africa where they left numerous traces, including inscriptions and temples that date back to the Sabaean colonization of Africa.[14][15][16]
This kingdom came to play an important role in the Hebrew Bible and appears in the Quran (not to be confused with the Quranic Sabians).[17][18][19] The story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba has raised questions of historicity, although recent research indicates that Saba was involved in the lucrative incense trade as early in its history as the time of Solomon.[20][21] Traditions about Saba particularly feature in the tradition of Orthodox Tewahedo in today's Yemen and is also asserted as the home of the Queen of Sheba, who is left unnamed in Jewish texts but is known as Makeda in Ethiopian texts and as Bilqīs in Arabic texts. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Sheba was the home of Princess Tharbis, who is said to have been the wife of Moses before he married Zipporah. Some Islamic exegetes identified Sheba with the People of Tubba.[22]
- ^ a b Robin 2002, p. 51.
- ^ Hoyland 2002, p. 47.
- ^ "The kingdoms of ancient South Arabia". British Museum. Archived from the original on May 4, 2015. Retrieved 2013-02-22.
- ^ a b Schiettecatte 2024.
- ^ Michael Wood, "The Queen Of Sheba", BBC History.
- ^ Nebes 2023, p. 299.
- ^ Nebes 2023, pp. 348, 350.
- ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, 1991.
- ^ Nebes 2023, p. 332.
- ^ Stein 2024, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Robin 2002, pp. 56–57.
- ^ a b Arbach & Rossi 2022, pp. 40–41.
- ^ "Yemen | Facts, History & News". InfoPlease.
- ^ Japp, Sarah; Gerlach, Iris; Hitgen, Holger; Schnelle, Mike (2011). "Yeha and Hawelti: cultural contacts between Sabaʾ and DʿMT — New research by the German Archaeological Institute in Ethiopia". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies. 41: 145–160. ISSN 0308-8421. JSTOR 41622129.
- ^ Prioletta, Alessia; Robin, Christian Julien; Schiettecatte, Jérémie; Gajda, Iwona; Nuʿmān, Khaldūn Hazzāʿ (2021). "Sabaeans on the Somali coast". Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy. 32 (S1): 328–339. doi:10.1111/aae.12202. ISSN 1600-0471.
- ^ Robin, Christian Julien; Prioletta, Alessia; Schiettecatte, Jérémie; Gajda, Iwona; Nuʿmān, Khaldūn Hazzāʿ (2021). "Des Sabéens dans la Corne de l'Afrique (Somalie du Nord) vers les VIIIe-VIIe siècles av. l'ère chrétienne". Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (in French). 2021 (1): 4–49. doi:10.2143/CRA.2021.1.0000001. ISSN 0065-0536.
- ^ Burrowes, Robert D. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Yemen. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 319. ISBN 978-0810855281.
- ^ St. John Simpson (2002). Queen of Sheba: treasures from ancient Yemen. British Museum Press. p. 8. ISBN 0714111511.
- ^ Kitchen, Kenneth Anderson (2003). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 116. ISBN 0802849601.
- ^ Lemaire, André (2014). "The Queen of Sheba and the Trade Between South Arabia and Judah". In Hussein, Ali A.; Oettinger, Ayelet (eds.). Ben ‘Ever La‘Arav VI: Contacts between Arabic Literature and Jewish Literature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. A Collection of Studies Dedicated to Prof. Yosef Tobi on the Occasion of his Retirement. Haifa: University of Haifa. pp. xi–xxxiv.
- ^ Stein, Peter (2017). "Sabäer in Juda, Juden in Saba. Sprach- und Kulturkontakt zwischen Südarabien und Palästina in der Antike". In Hübner, Ulrich; Niehr, Herbert (eds.). Sprachen in Palästina im 2. und 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (in German). Vol. 43. Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 113. ISBN 978-3-447-10780-8.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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