Arabah (Hastings' Dictionary)

This word occurs only once in the AV (Jos 1?) in the de.^cription of the border of the lot of Benjamin ; but in KV it has a more extended meaning, and is applied to at least a portion of the great valley (Wady el Arabah) which stretches from the tiulf of Akabah into the Jordanic basin. 1. In the former sense the name applies to the broad plain of alluvial land stretching from the N.

shore of the Dead Sea along the right bank of the Jordan fur a distance of about 50 miles, and bounded on the W. by the broken line of steep slopes and precipitous dill's which close in the valley from its junction with the Wady el Joseleh south- wards to the heights of Kuruntftl and the shore of the Dead Sea itself. The surface is comnosed of suc- ctssive terraces of gypseous marl ami loam, rising by steps from the river's edge to a height of (idO ft.

, and marking the successive levels at which the waters stood when they were receding to their present limits. Nearly all authorities are now agreed that the plain we are considering was tlie site of the doomed cities Sodom and Gomorrah, and aft«nvards of the Jericho of Joshua and the more modem city in the time of our Lord.

The climate is troi)ical and the soil rich ; and biung abundantly supplied with water from the Wady el Aujah, the Kelt, and the Makuk, with natural fountains such as the "Ain es Sultan and Ain Dftk, It may well have deserved the title bestowed apon it even in the days of Lot, ' the garden of the Lord' (Gn 13'").

Near the banks of the Kelt is situated the miserable village of Er-Riha, probably the ancient Gil gal, surrounded by gardens producing lemons, oranges, bananas, figs, melons, and castor- oil trees. The copious .spring of Es Sultfln breaks out near the base of the limestone escarpment of Kuruntlil, and its waters are caught in a basin of solid masonry forming the ancient baths. The temperature of the water in the pool, taken on 15th January 1884, was 71° Fahr.

, but that of the spring itself is doubtless higher. The locality is rich in natural history objects, especially bii-ds, of which Tristram records the bulbul (Ixos xanthopygius), the hoppin^-thrush {Crateropns chalybeus), the Indian blue kingfisher (Alryon smymensis), the sun- bird (Cinnyris osea), Tristram's grakle (Amydrua trixtrami), besides innumerable doves, swallows, and commoner species. 2.

In the latter sense the Wady el-Arabah corre- sponds to the ' WUdemess of Zin ' in part (Nu 34'), where it went up to the border of Edom on the E. Its limits are stated above ; and from the Gulf of Akabah to the Ghor the distance is about 105 miles. At its S.

end the 'U'ady el-Arabah rises gradually from the shore of the Gulf of Akabah, lined by a grove of palms, for a distance of 50 miles, and with an average breadth of 5 miles ; and at this point, nearly opposite Mount Hor, it attains its summit level of (approximately) 723 ft. above that of the Red Sea, or 2015 ft. above that of the Dead Sea.* On the E.

the Arabah is bounded by the high escarpment of Edom (Mount Seir), often broken through by deep ravines which descend from the table-land of the Arabian desert ; except along these ravines, the valley is almost destitute of herbage. On the W. side the Arabah is bounded by terraced cliffs of cretaceous limestone, along which the great waterless plateau of the Badiet et-Tih (Wilderness of Paran, Gn 2^', Nu 12i8) terminates.

The floor of the Arabah is generally formed of gravel, blown-sand, or mud flats ; and these are sometimes hidden beneath vast lUhdcles of shingle brought down bj- torrents from the heights above and spread fan-like over the sides of the valley at the entrance to the ravines. The surface of the sandhills is often marked with the footprints of gazelles, and, to a smaller degree, of hya'n.

as and leopards ; and at intervals water can be had at springs or wells, of which the best known are the Am el-Gliudyfln and the 'Ayun Ghurundel at the entrance to the valley of that name. Near the watershed (or saddle) at the limestone ridge of Er-Rishy the Arabah is contracted to a breadth of half a mile ; but to the N. of this as it begins to descend towards the Dead Sea basin (the (Jhor) it widens out to a breadth of 10 miles, and follows the course of the principal stream. El .

leib, which receives numerous branches from the IMomite mountains on the E. and the Badiefi-et Till on the W. These streams are fed by thunder- storms in the winter months ; but the Jeib is prob- ably perennial ; and alf>ng its banks, from the 'Ain Abu Werideh for several miles, thickets of young palms, tamarisks, willows, and leeds line the course of the stream. At this spot, which is 24 miles from the banks of the Dead Sea, and at the level of the Mediterranean (1292 ft.

above the Dead Sea), are to be found those remarkable lacustrine terraces of marl, sand, and gravel, with numerous semi-fossil shells of the genera Milanopsis and Melanin, which attest the extent to which the waters of the Dead Sea had risen in the Pleistocene period. Otbei • The hei^ht of the watershed ftbove the sea-level was deter- mined by Major Kitehener and Mr. AnnKtrong in 1883 to be 660 ft., and bv M. Vi^nes in IS80 to be 240 mdtrea, or 787 ft,, mean 723 It. : or 201S It.

above the surface of the Dead Sea. ARABAH AKAEIA 131 terraces of marl are to be found at inten-als as the traveller descends towards the margin of the Ghor ; and here tlie valley breaks off in a semicircular line of cliffs formed of sand, gravel, and marl, which encloses the Dead Sea sliore, and seems to be re- ferred to in Jos 15' as the ' Ascent of Akrahhim.' Geology.

— The Jordan- Arahali depressiDn owes its existence mainly to the presence of a line of ' fault,' or fracture of the crust, which may be traced at intervals from the G. of Akabah to the E. shore of the Bead Sea and onwards towards the base of Hernion. This line follows closely the base of the Edomite escarpment, and its effect is to cause the formations to be relatively elevated on the E. and depressed towards the W.

Thus the cretaceous limestone (corresponding to the English chalk fonnation) which forms the crest of the Edomite escarpment and the plateau of the Arabian desert above Petra, at an elevation of 3000- 4000 ft. above the valley, is brought down on the W. side of the same valley to its very floor at Er-Eishy, and forms (as statecl above) that side of the valley throughout its whole length, breaking off in cliffs of nearly horizontal strata.

The more ancient rocks which lie at the base of the Moabite and Edomite escarpment never reach the surface alon^ the W. side of the Wady el-Arabah.* These consLst of red granite and gneiss, various meta- morphic schists, seamed by dykes of basalt, diorite, and porphyry ; above which the carboniferous and cretaceous sandstones are piled in huge masses of nearly horizontal courses, the whole surmounted by the pale yellow beds of cretaceous limestone reach- ing to the summit of the escarpment.

The richness of the colouring of the cretaceous sandstones, vary- ing from orange through red to purple, has been a source of admiration to all travellers, particularly as it is displayed amongst the ruined temples and tombs of tne city of Petra. t Historical.

— The Wady el Arabah appears to have been twice traversed by the Israelites : lirst on their way from Horeb to Kadesh Bamea, and afterwards when obliged to retrace their steps owing to the refusal of the king of Edom to allow them to pass through his land ( Nu 20-', Dt 2'). No passage for the host by which to circumvent Mount Seir was practi- cable till thev reached the stony gorge of the Wady el Ithem, which enters the Arahah 4 miles N. of Akabah.

Traversing this rough and glistering ra\-ine under the rays of an almost vertical sun, it is not surprising that (as we read) 'the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way (Jsu 21*). In later times tlie Arabah became a caravan route from Arabi.i to Pal. and Syria. The fort and harbour of Akabah (Ezion -geber) now constitute an outpost for the Egj'p.

Govern- ment, bej-ond which its authority does not ex- tend ; the Arabah, as well as the Arabian desert, being held by independent Arab cliiefs.J LlTEBATunE. — Bnrcklianit, Trnvels tn .Syria and the FJofy land, 1S-J2; De LiiLonie, Voiiiig,' en Orient, 1^2< : Hull, Mount Seir, .Sinai, and It'utfm Pnirstinr., 1SS1>; 'Tile PhyRicnl Gnol. •iDd Oeop, (if Arabia Pelrifa,' etc., in Mitn. I'EF, \S^Q\ (jirU-t, Voyage d'Eip'irrntion (le la Mer ifurlf, t. :'.b>«, 1S80; Ilfihilisoit, BRI', 1.^5.'

; Stanley, Sinni anil ^'<i' », IRllO; lilnnkiMikurn, 'Ent- IteliunR u. Gesi-h. dc8 T"ilt<;n Jlieies,' In ZDIV, IbUl). Dean Stanley concurs with the view expressed above, that it was through the Wady el Ithem (W. Ithm) that the Israelites passed on their way to Moab after their retreat from Edom {Sinai, p. 85). E. Hull. • Except at Rfld el-Mnfry, cIobo to W. sboi* of O. of Aknbab. f Stanley sp, akH of tlit-Me cnUinrfl ns 'giTKeouH,'— red pa.s.

sing Into rrnuHnii, Ktnak''<) witb pur]>le, yellow, and blue like a Pet^iaii car)>et. Sinat, p. 87. t The head waters of the 0. nf Akal>ali arp fringed by an extensive grove of the date l»alin ll'hrrnU ilarlyliii ra), tojrether with aomeKpeclniensof the mrer dnniii italni(//i/i'/ia*n< TheUiun), whieli Is also found In Upjier Kcypt and on the t>aiiki« of the Atbani. Theae trees are prid>aMj iiidl^'eiinua, aa the old natue of AJcai>ali was ' Elath,' wlilch ineaiia a ' gn>ve of treea ' ( Dt 2^).

ARABIA (3-iv, 'Apa^la), the name given by the Or geographers to the whole of the vast peninsula which lies between the mainlands of Asia and Africa. Of the application of the name in the Bible some account is given under Arablan ; this article will contain a brief account of the country itself, and of the references to it in the sacred books. i. Geography and Geology.— The shape of A.

was compared by Pliny to that of Italy, but the breadth of the former is greater in comjiarison with its length ; the length of the W. coast-line is about 1800 miles, while its breadth is about 600 miles from the Red Sea to the Pers. Gulf. The Sin. peninsula, which divides the Ked Sea at its N. end into the Gulf of Suez on the W. and the Gulf of Akabah on the £., is ordinarily reckoned to A., of which the sea forms the boundarj' on the W., S., and E. sides. On the other hand, the N.

limit is not so easily fixed. Some writers would draw an imaginary line from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to that ot the Pers. Gulf ; but this would cut the S. extremity of the liamad, or stony plain which rises from the level of the Euphrates, and a little N. of 29° suddenly alters into tne broken dunes of red sand called by modem writers Nefud. It seems best, therefore (with the most recent authorities), to extend the application of the name A.

through- out the IlamaU, making the Euphrates for the greater part of its course the N. boundary ; Syria, which separates it from the Mediterranean, forming, between about lats. 32-36% its E. neighbour. For an incalculable period the sea has been re- ceding from the Arubi.-in coast, at a rate reckoned at 22 metres yearly. Hence the peninsula is, esp. on the W. and S. sides, fringed with lowlands, called by the Arabs Tihamah ; yet on parts of the E.

coast the mountains rise directly from the sea. Of the long coast-line on the W. side, much is fringed with coral reefs, greatly endangering navi- gation. Between these and the shore in many places a narrow passage allows only ships of small burden to pass. The reefs commence in the Gulf of Akabah, where alone has their nature as yet been made tlie subject of minute investigation (see Valter, ' Die Korall-riffen der Sinait. Halbinsel,' Abhandl. d. Sachs. Akad., Math. Klasse, vol. xiv.)

The inlets in the coast form not a few harbours, of which, however, owing to the paucity of towns in the interior, only a few are of any importance : Yanbo, the port of Medina; Jiddiih, the port of Mecca ; Hodaida, the port of Sana, on the W. coast ; Aden on the S. ; Mascat on the E. Of these, Aden perhaps is the same as the port which bears the name Eden in Ezk 27^, called Athene by Pliny, and Eudaimon Arabia by the author of the I'criplus J while Yanbo may be the "la/i/Sio of Ptolemy.

Tlie rest were not known to the ancients, whose ports have for the most part disappeared with the advancing coast-line. Oi these, the chief port of the incense country, Moscha according to the Penplus, Abi.ssa Polls according to Ptolemy, has been recently identilicd by Mr. Theodore Bent (Sineteenth Century, Oct. 18'J.')) with a creek two miles long and in parts one wide near the village of Taklia.

Others that played an important part in ancient times, Eeuke Kome, Cliarmotas or C'harmutas, Okelis, Muza, and Canneli (Ezk I.e.), have been located with more or less certainty by Wellstcd, Sprenger, (ilaser, and other ex|ilorers. Wliile the W. and S. coasts are broken by no very striking peninsulait, the sea which lies between A. and Pcrsiu is divided by the peninsula wliieh ends in Has Mesandum into the Pers. Gulf and the Sea of Oman, while the Pers.

Gulf is again broken by the [leninsuhi of Katar, to the W. of which lies the island of Bahrain, with the exception of Socotra 133 AEABIA AEABIA on tbe S. side, the most important of the iBlands ^^'hich lie ofi' Arabia. The ^eolo^cal character of A. is thus described by Mr.

Doughty : 'The constitution of the Arabian peninsula appears to be a central stack of Platonic rocks which are ^ranited uith traps and old basalts, whereupon are laid sandstones (continuous witJj those of Petra, and probably "cretaceous"), and limestones (sometimes with dints) overlie the sandstones. Ne\^er rocks are the volcanic, and namely of the vast " harrahs " : the flint land of eravel (upon limestone with flint veins) that is A.

Petrjea, in which were found flint instruments (as those of Abbeville) by Mr. Doughty at Man, 1S76 ; and ancient flood soil, block drift, loams or clays in the volleys and low j^rounds.' The land won from the sea constitutes the low- lands (called by the Arabs Tihamah), which fringe the peninsuJa, and beyond which there rise ranges of mountains on all three sides. On the N.

the great Nefud, which succeeds to the stony plain, occupies the centre of the peninsula, with a greatest breadth of 150 miles, and a greatest length of 400 miles. Of this wilderness of red sand the most accurate description has been given by W. H. Blunt (in Lady IJlunt's Pilgrimage to Nejd, vol. ii. app. i.) Far greater, however, is the untrodden desert (Ahkaf) which cuts off Central A. from the E. and S.E. provinces.

The sand of these wastes has peculiarproperties, which, according to Blunt, render them as dillerent from other deserts as a glacier is from a mass of snow. To the S. of the former Nefud rises the Jebel Aja, a red granite range, stretching E. by N. and W. by S. for some 100 miles, with a mean breadth of 10-15 mUes, and rising to a height of 5600 ft. (Blunt, I.e.) To similar heights do the movmtains rise which shut in the peninsula on the W. and E. sides ; Wellsted gives the measurement 6500 ft.

for the peak of Mowilah (S. of the Gulf of Akabah), while 9000 ft. is the height of some portions of the Jebel Akhdar, or Green Mountains, which tower over Oman in the E. (according to the latest researches of Mr. Theodore Bent, Cuntemp. Rev. Dec. 1895). To the same height, according to W. B. Harris [A Journey through Yemen, 1894), do the passes by which Yemen is entered from the S. rise in places j and if the measurements of this writer are correct, the plateau of central Yemen, in the S.E.

, has an average altitude of 8000 ft. Farther to the E. this southern range sinks till, where it separates the incense country from the desert (about 55° long. E. of Greenwich), its eleva- tion is not above 3000 ft. Between the mountains and the Nefud in North A. lies El-Hisma, the great sandstone country, described by Doughty as 'a forest of square- built platform mountains, which rise to 2000 ft. above tlie plain ; the heads may be 6U00 ft. above sea-level.' Between lat.

26° and 20° vast tracts form what are called harrahs, beds of basalt, where the sandstone is covered with lava. The most northerly of these volcanic platforms, called'Uwayrid, stretches for 100 miles in length, its middle point being about 120 miles from the Red Sea. It is thickly strewn with the craters of extinct volcanoes, so thickly that in places as many as thirty can be seen at once. The highest cf these peaks, called Anaj, is 7600 ft. About lat. 16° this phenomenon is repeated.

We owe descrip- tions of it to Douglity and Glaser. Of the rivers of A. none are navigable ; few are perennial, or reach the sea. Some such, however, nave been marked in South A. by the travellers Wellsted and W. B. Harris. Most of them dis- ai'pear in the sand at some part of their course.

Instead of a river system tliere is a system of wadys, great receptacles for the water brought down by the mountains, of which the surface for large portions of the year is dry, but where water can be got by digging. Such in North A. is the Wady Birhan, which bisects the country in a line parallel with the Euphrates; in Central A., tlie Wady el- Dawasir and Wady el-Kummali, N. and S. of Yemamah respectively, both issuing in the Perg.

Gulf— with the former of these, or with one great tributary of it, Glaser {Shizze, ii. p. 347) would identify the Biblical Pishon ; and the Wady el- Humd, first traced by Doughtj, which traverses the Hijaz, and issues m the Red Sea. At Saihut (lon^. 51°), on the S.

coast, there issues the Wady of Hadramaut, once probably an arm of the sea, which in its course of 100 miles receives s series of wadys that drain the moimtains behind it ; while the mountains of Yemen proper are drained by wadys called Maur, Surdud, Siham, Kharid, etc., of which the course was traced by Glaser ('Von Hodaida nach Sana,' in Peterraann's Mittheilungsn, 18S6). The classical writers divided A. into A. Felix, A. Petma, and A. Deserta.

This division was based on the pohticat condition of A. in the Ist cent, a.d., the first being free, the second (inclusive of Idumaa) subject to Rome, the third subject to Persia. In the native divisions different principles, u Sprenger {Alt. Geog. Arab p. 9) has pointed out, have been confused. According to a tradition which he quotes, Mohammed, standing at Tebuk (about 2»" C, ST 40'), said that all to the N. wa« Sham (lit. the left, ordinarily used for Syria), all to the S. Yemen (the right).

According to this, the name for the province of Mecca, Hijoz (lit. * the barrier ') would mean the land between Sham and Yemen. More probably it meant the 'middle region' between the lowlands and the Nejd (highlands). These last, then, are terms of ph\^ical geography ; and as those by whom they were applied had no accurate instruments for determining heights, it is natural that the limits of these provinces should be very inexactly fixed. According to Blunt (i.e. i. 23Bqq.)

, Nejd includes all the land that lies within the Nefuds, 'the only doubt being whether it includes the Nefuds or not.' The treble division, Hijaz, Nejd, and Yemen, would thus include all A. within the Tihamas ; Nejd itself being subdivided into seven provinces, whose names need not be given here. Ordinarily, however, it is not customary to extend the application of the name Yemen beyond 45 E. of Green^vich.

Yet the name Hadramaut, applied in European maps to the vast region which extends hence to the S.E. of the peninsula, has been shown by Wellsted and Bent to be properly applied to a wady about icio miles in length. Great discrepancies exist as to the delimitation of the province of Oman on the E. side, which, according to Palgrave (Travels, ii. 255), 'touches Hadramaut on the 8., and Katar, or at least its immediate vicinity, on the N.

, forming a huge crescent, having the sea in front, and the vast desert ol South A. for its background ' ; while the travellers Wellsted and Bent give the name a very limited application. ii. Climate, Flora, and Fauna.— The fertility of portions of Yemen is so great as to have become proverbial in antiquity ; and the few modem travellers who have climbed the mountains which tower above the S.

coast, and have reached the table- lands beyond, speak with enthusiasm of the wealth of the soil, and the high degree of skill displayed by the natives in cultivating it. The greater part of the peninsula, however, is capable of supporting but a small population. 'Nothing like one-third of its surface,' says one of the most capable ex- plorers, ' is cultivated without irrigation, the task of extending which beyond the valleys and natural oases is probably beyond the power of Turk or Arab.

Vast spaces of unchangeable and un- changing barrenness spread themselves over it. Joining themselves to these are larger and scarcely less dreary regions, occupied by precipitous moun- tains accessible only to tne goat : by labyrinthine sandy ravines or gorges bearing only the hardiest shrubs ; and by tepid cultivated palra-oasea, thick with semi-tropical vegetation ' (Tweedie, The Arabian Horse).

It must be observed that even in Yemen, according to Glaser (Petermann's Mittheil ungen for 1884), cultivation even in this century has been steadily diminishing. Thus the plateaus between the basalt peaks were once cultivated, but are so no longer.

Cultivation is indeed confined to the oases, which, of varying extent, enliven the stony plain, and to the valleys which intersect the central plateau, ' some broad, some narrow, some long and winding, some of little length, but almost all bordered with steep and sometimes precipitoiia banks, and looking as though they had been arti- ficially cut out of the limestone mountain' (Pal- grave).

In some of the more northerly oases ARABIA AKALIA 133 not only cere-ils, but fruits such as the plum, the poraetrraniile, the li<;, the IX^^^f- c-itron, suur and sweet leiiioiis, are cultivated. The pahii, whioh has been compared to the camel for its small need of water, is w idely Hpread, and its dates form the staple food of the nouiad population.

No part of the country, however, except perhaps the desert called Ahkaf, is quite destitute of vegetation ; this has been proved in the case of the Ncfud by Blunt, and l)oughty assures us that the harrahs form better Kedawin country than the sandstone. Tlio flora and fauna of A. are still imperfectly known. Glaser (Von Hodaida nach Snn'n) states that he has himself collected out of South A. more than a hundred specimens of animals and birds previously unknown.

In the Nefud, Hlunt 'ascer- tained the existence of the ostrich, the leopard, the wolf, the fox, the hyjena, the hare, the jerboa, the white antelope, and the gazelle ; and of the ibex and the marmot in Jebel Aja ; of reptiles the Nefud boasts, by all accounts, the horned viper and the cobra, besides the harmless grey snake ; there are also immense numbers of lizards. Birds are less numerous . . yet in the Nefud most of the common desert birds are found.'

Of animals the most characteristic of A. is undoubtedly the camel, the ability of which to go without water ' twenty-five days in winter and five in summer, working hard all the time,' renders it of unique service in the desert ; the ' observations on the camel ' in Baron Nolde's lieUe nach Inner- arabien, 1895, ch. vii., form the latest contribution to our knowledge of this creature, with which the early Arabian poets are fond of parading their acquaintance.

No less elaborate are their descrip- tions of the Arabian horse, seen at its best in the highlands of Nejd, of which special studies have been made by many English travellers, and most recently by the tnglish officer, Major-General Tweedie, who would seem to have proved that the home of this animal is elsewhere. The ass is to be seen at his best in the province of Hasa, to the N.W. of the Pers. Gulf. iii. History and Ethnology. — Of the histoiy of A.

during the period covered by OT, little is known, since the records begin much later. Some notices, however, have been collected by Assyri- ologista from the cuneiform inscriptions of cam- paigns in which the ' Arabs ' were concerned. In 854, Shalmaneser II. met in battle a confederation in which was * Gindibu the Arab ' with 1000 camels. In the next century Tiglathpileser III. makes an expedition into A., and m the latter half of it we find Assyr. influence extending over the N.W. and E.

of the peninsula ; and in tlie following century many tribes which can beidentilied with more or less certainty as occupyin" localities in inner A. were defeated by Esarhaddon at Bazu (Buz). From these in-scriptions, interesting as they are, we learn, however, little more than the names of Btates and occasionally of kings, many of which otTer easy Arab, etymologies.

The peninsula might seem to nave been occupied by a number of inde- pendent tribe, sulxjrdinate to no central authority, — a state of things to which the difficulty of com- munication has very fre<|uently reduced it. Nor is much more light to be obtamed from the classical authors, who till the lieginning of the 3rd cent. B.C. had only vague ideas aliout the pcnin- •ala. Great collections of inscriptions have, how- ever, l)een made both in N. and S. Arabia by Euro- pean scholars, esp.

Arnaud, Ilali^vy, and Gla-serj and although many of the most remarkable of these still await p\iblication, the Arabian states, of which merely the names liad been recorded by Pliny and Ptolemy, and of which only a vague tratlition circulated among the Arabs, have become far more familinr timn formcrlv, and something has oeen learnt about their lines of kings, the extent of their territory, and their wars and alliances. To the Eng.

travellers Wtllsted &nd Cruttenden belongs the merit of having first called attention to the existence of the ruined cities in South A., whence the most important of these docu- ments have been brought. Of the nations thus rescued from oblivion the most important were the Mina?ans (the d-ju'O of the Heb. records) and Saba'ans, Avliose dialects ditl'ered in certain par- ticulars, while both had more in common with Heb. than with Arabic.

A third monarchy, of which the indigenous name was Libyan, has left traces of its existence and its language in North A., but far less distinct in their nature than those of the former two. The chief towns of the MlnBans were Ms'tn. Kamau, and Vatit, all of them in South A. ; 3"et the presence of .Min:tHin inscripLioua at El-Xia in North A. would seem to show that their |)Ower was not contlne<l to the S. of the peninsula, and some scnolara would extend it as far N. as Gaza. While U. H.

Muller would make the Miniean empire himultaneous with the .Siiliajan, ar^j^u* meiits are adduced by Gia^er and Hommel which make it prob- able that the latter State was one of several that sprang out of the ruins of the .Miniean empire. Of these ar^ments, besides the greater antiquity of the Mina^n character and dialect, may be noticed the fact that most of the names occurring in the -Minffian inscriptions are prehistorical.

wliile those in the Sabsan inscriptions can fretiuently be identified ; that the ^lina^ns are not mentioned in the Assyr. inscriptions, and must tlierelore have been powerful at an epoch prior lo the inter- vention of the Assyrians in the affairs of A. ; that whereas Saba is mentioned in some Miniean inscriptions, the .Min^ans are never mentioned in those of Saba. It is urced, on the other hand, that the acquaintance with the Minujans shown by Gr.

writcru and in late parts of the Hible (1 Ch i", Job 2" LXX) is inconsistent with the hoary antiauity assij^ned them ; to which the answer j.'iven by Glaser, that the classical writere are acquainted with them as a nation but not as an empire, is per- haps insulHcient. The MinaMLii rule of Kl-'L'la is thoui^ht to have exterideii over at least nine genemtions (Hommel, Au/nnUf, p. 27); and the statement in .Ik- W" (cf.

2 Ch 20'), that the Israelites before they had kin^rs hail been saved from the MinasanB, implies thai their power exu-nded far north. Like other Oriental Slates, it is probable that the power of Ma'in varied greatly with the cap,acitv of particular rulers ; for, while from the Inscr. Haltvy 50i it might appear that the Minnan king Waqah-ii Vatha' waa a vasjiat of the king of Kataban, his sod Il'Vafa-Yathar was a great conqueror, who extended his rule over tlie whole region S. of Jauf from E.

to W. Lastly, we may notice an of great historical interest the Inscr. HalCvy 635, which tells us of their successful resistance of an invajiion of Saba and Haulan, and how their god Atthar saved them from trouble in a war that broke out between the king of the N. and the king of the 8. This invasion of Salia was.

If Olaaer's theory be correct, one of a series of attackji continued (or a period of 200 vears, during which the princea of Saba were endeavouring to iindermine the Minsan power,— an end achieved (according to the same scholar's reckoning) about 820 B.C. Both the inscrip- tions and the Bible tell us more of Saba, the trilie whose kings were the cliief power in the south of A., till aliout i.e. SOO they gave wav to the Abvssinians.

Their capital was Marib (Mariaba of the classics), some 45 miles E. of San a, famous for the great dkm, the breaking of which was regarded by the Arab chroni- clers aa the immediate cause of tlie declme of the Sabaian empire (Shelm, Saba).

The 8ab»an empire was, without doubt, simultaneous with monarchies of Kataban, lladraniaut (with it» chief town Sabata), Raidan, and Habashah, all of which are mentioned as included in a treaty In an Interesting Inscrip- tion commented on by Olaser (/>i< Abi/tnni<rr in ArtUiim, p. 68 ff.), and aasi^rned by him to the 2nd cent. B.o. Ilabashah, corresiwnding with the region now known •» Mahra, was, according to the same author's calculations, absorbetl by Iladramaut about i.D.

46; the Katabanian state («ith Timna for it*t capitAl) was ruined at some time in the 2nd cent. B.C. ; and from an inscription of extraordinary Interest, published on p. 118 of the work last quoted, we Icam how the prince of Raiilati and Hiinyar was defcale<l by the king of 8at>a in sjiite of th. former's alliance with Hubashah, and from that time (B.C. ll.'iri the kings of Saba style theliiselves kings of Saba and of Raidan.

When the Kataltariians disjipiiear from the ins-riptions, the Himyar (the Honierit« of the classical authors) come into proniinence ; ati'l at the roniiiiencement of our era the south ol A. was shared bv three motmrchs, of Himyar, Iladramaut. and Saha with Ralilan. Aided by the Siissanians, the llimyars presently became all-powerful In South A.

; in the middle of the 4th cent, the monument of Adnlis telbt us that the Sabaian iKiwer ha/l been overthrown, and the Abyssinians tHt-anie rulers of Yemen ; In 378 the Aralw hwl made hewl against the Abxssinians, and indeed conllne<l them to the Tihatnab, but In 625 tile Abyssinians, with the countenance of the Hyiantine empire, in a vicuirious campaign killed the king of the Uimyars. The condition of A.

, as represented by the authors of the inscriptions, is very dilTerent from 134 AEABIA ARABIA the nomad and patriarchal condition which we ordinarily associate with the name Arab, and which is certainly associated with it in the Bible. The Sabseans and Minitans are people of fixed habitations ; they b\iild fortresses, and live in walled cities ; they raise massive temples, and con- struct works of irrigation on a grand scale.

War forms only an occasional incident in their lives ; the main source of their wealth is commerce ; and besides agriculture, they carry on mining and manufactures. Texts containing ' ordres de police ' give evidence, says M. Hal^vy, 'd'une haute per- fection d'organization civile, et de I'existence d'un code p^nal chez les Sab^ens.'

Their inscriptions are, many of them, specimens of the most finished workmanship, and show signs of the cultivation of other fine arts ; nor can their civilisation be sliown to have been derived from any other nation. Their Pantheon, says the same \\Titer, was marvellously rich, and of prodigious variety.

The temples of both the chief races were built east of the to^^'ns, which would point to the worship of the sun ; yet this cannot be shown to have existed among the Minasans ; neither do the Min.-ean documents show the worship of Al-Makah, the chief Sabrean deity. Common to both was the worship of Attar (the male Ashtoreth), who in Minsean texts appears in the two forms of \p-iv and pij;, which, in the opinion of D. H. Miiller, mean the rising and setting sun.

Two female deities, Wadd and Nikrah, interpreted by the same writer as 'Love' and 'Hate,' also occupy an important place in the Minsean Pantheon. Yet from the nature of things civilisation of this kind can only have existed in South A. and the cases ; the life of the dwellers in the ' black tents,' as described by Burckhardt and Doughty in this century, must have existed from immemorial time in the desert.

Several writers, indeed, suppose the ditl'erence between the nomad Arabs and the stationary Arabs to be one of race ; and, strange as it may seem, the purest Arab blood is supposed to be found in the latter {'aribah) ; while the name of the former contains the idea of Arab by adoption (mutn arnbah). Neither half of the Arab stock can be traced with any probability to any other country ; and ethnologists are now with something like unanimity making A.

the home of the whoie Semitic race ; and the emigrations of the Shammar and Anezah clans northwards in search of richer pasturage than the A" deserts afl'ord, emigrations wliich have taken place within the last century, represent the continuation of a series of simihir waves of which the commencement is prehistoric, all brought about by the same causes, though not all following the same direction.

The fact that the names by which they call their towns and villages, as well as the natural features of their country, are all Arabic, and bear no trace of the memory of another home, is, as Gen. Tweedie has pointed out, strikingly in favour of the theory which makes the Arabs autocthonous. This autocthony naturally does not exclude the presence of a certain number of colonists.

Four Greek colonies are mentioned by Pliny, Ampeloiie, Arethusa, Chalkis, and Larissa, of which the first only seems cajjalile of identification ; Glaser (Skizze, ii. 1.54) tiies to find it on the coast of Ilijaz. Being a Milesian colony, it must have been planted not later than the 6th cent. B.C. The name Javan, mentioned in Ezk 27" in a context which points to A., is possibly to be interpreted of a Gr. colony in the peninsula ; and the statement of Diodorus (iii. 43), that a tribe on the W.

coast of A. culti- vated friendly relations with Greeks of Bocotia and the Peloponnesus, may have been rightly connected with the existence of these colonies by Glaser (I.e. p. 155). Jewish colonies akso existed in A. long before the time of the Prophet Mohammed ; in the 3rd and 4th cent. A.D. they would seem to have been favoured by the Persians in opposition to the Christian communities which had the support of the W. empire (Die Abyssinier in Arabien, p. 175).

The ethnolopcal tables of On would seem to take special not« of the inhabitants of A., who are assigned places in the human family in the following passages : Gn 10' (children of Cush), 1022.23 (children of Shem), 1025-30 (children of Eber), ia^-* (children of Abraham and I\eturah), 2512-13 (Ishmaelites).

The eminent explorer Carsten Niebuhr argued from the number of places in Yemen and Haflramaut mentioned by ' Moses ' in these places that the legislator must himself have travelled in the country ; but his attempts at identifying them do little towards confirming this proposition. More elaborate attempts ha^■e been made in more recent times, notably by Glaser in his Skizze, ii. 314-470. without, however, producing many con\*incing results.

The tables are not quite consistent, as the same names are assigned different iiedi^ees ; but this Glaser would account for by supposing the tables compiled at different periods between the 11th and the 6th cent. B.C. Some of the names, such as Sheba and Dedan, are known from other parts of Scripture, and are otherwise famous ; a few, e.g. Hadramaut (n^3li;n), can be identified with certainty ; several, esp.

Ophir and Ha\-ilah, are frequently mentioned in Scripture, but are difficult to localise. Most of the names, however, occur in these tables only ; and as we are quite ignorant of the sources from which their comjiiler drew, endeavours to localise them would seem to have Httle scientific value.

They duubtless signified to the compiler tribes or nations ; but the ordinarj- rule for the interpretation of these patronymic pedigrees, according to which the fathers stand to the sons in the relation of genus to species, cannot be applied to them. Thus the great nation of Sheba is called a son of Ra'mah (probably the Regma of Ptolemy, a town on the Pers. Gulf, Glaser, p. 252), which is co-ortlinated with it in Ezk 2722, and Ra'mah itself a son of Chish.

Still stranger is it that the patri- arch of the Arab nations, including Ophir and Hadramaut, Joktan, should have left so iittle trace in A. that Sprenger (Geog. p. 50) is fain to identify the name with Bishat Yakzan, a station on the incense roati. Glaser, perhaps with greater probability, connects it vnth Kat.an, a town of Hadramaut. It IS probable, therefore, that these tables, so far from being exact, are as vague as might be expected in the case of so vast and un- explored a countrj'.

Even Saba, which we know to have been a powerful empire, is vaguely spoken of by the prophets as a distant country- (Jer 620, ji 3's)_ in NT as at the ends of the earth (Mt 12-^, Lk ifsi). iv. Trade and Commerce. — The chief import- ance of A. to the ancients lay in its exports, of which the most renowned was incense, a gum obtaaied from a certain tree by incisions made in the bark. The countiy where this product is culti- vated is a narrow strip of the S. coast from about 53-55° long. E.

of Greenwich, its headquarters being the ancient city of Dafar (probably the teo of Gn 10*'). After doubts had been cast even on the possibility of A. producing incense (see the excursus on this in Ritter, Erdkunae von Arabien), this region was visited by Mr. Theodore Bent in 1895, who described the industry in the Nineteenth Century for Oct. of that year. It is uncertain whether its cidtivation ever extended over a much greater area th.in now. Sprenger (Geoff, p.

299) regards the incense country as ' the heart of the commerce of the ancient world,' owing to the vast amount of it required for religious rites, and terms the Arabs, or, more nearly, the inhabitants of the incense country, ' the founders of commerce as it existed in the ancient world.' It is perhaps noteworthy that the verb 'Arab' and its derivatives are used in Heb. to signify 'commerce.' The incense traffic of A.

is alluded to by all the ancient \vTiters who speak of that country, and it formed the basis of the proverbial wealtli of the Sabajans, who regu- lated it with the utmost precision and severity (see Sprenger, I.e. pp. 2ti9-303). Reference is made to this in tlie lonis classicus for ancient commerce, Ezk 27^. Other scents and spices are also men- tioned as Arabian exports ; but we notice as interest- ing the observation of Glaser (I.e. p.

426), that the particular spices mentioned in Ezk 27" as exported from a place we have grounds for locating in South A. do not really grow there. Almost as famous as the incense was the Arabian gold. The gold used by Solomon for gilding the temple is stated (2 Ch 3') to have come from Parvvaim, which is plausibly AEAEIAJS' AKABIAN 135 identitied by Glaser (I.e.

347) with Sak-el-Fanvain, a place mentioned by the Arabian geo^apher Hanidani, who has preserved many notices of gold mines at one time worked in Central A. (see Spren^'er, pp. 49-03, and Glaser, p. 347 U'.)

And since in On 10^ 0|>liir, which by the time of the composition of the lik of Job has become a sj'nonym for gold, is called a son of Joktan, various scholars have attempted to localise that famous gold-pro- ducing region somewhere in Arabia ; and there are still more forcible reasons for placing there the land of Havilah, ' where is gold, and the gold of that land is };ood' (On 2"), which Glaser has en- deavoured to identify with the province Yemamah.

Precious stones, as well as gold and spices, were brought by the S. Arabian queen to Solomon ( 1 K 10') ; and these are mentioned by Ezk (27^^) as the merchandise of Saba. The exportation of iron from Uzal, if that be the right reading, and if the tradition which identities Uzal with Sana be cor- rect (Ezk 27'"), would agree with the fact that the steel of Sana is still in high repute ; moreover, Mr. Doughty found [daces in Central A. where iron might be worked with profit.

In the same passage of Ezk, Ked.'ir and North A. are made to deal in cattle, anil Dedan in horse-cloths. There is further mention in 27**, if the text be correct, of embroidered textures 'in well-.secured chests' from Eden (and perhaps other S. Arabian ports). This would correspond with the high state of civilisation which from the inscriptions we know the S. Arabians at early times to have attained. Sprenger, ZDMG xlii.

332, states that before the time of Islam leather was the chief export of Arabia. U. S. Margoliouth.