South Arabian Archaeology

Triliths are stone monuments distributed in the landscape throughout the coastal highlands of southern Arabia, from Ḥaḍramawt
in Yemen to Raʾs al-Ḥādd in Oman. They consist of three standing flat stones forming a pyramid which stands in line with others
on a low platform complemented by arranged square-shaped boulders and large fireplaces. Triliths’ site stone compositions mark
a special space of particular meaning for rituals we still do not know. They were 14C dated (from the charcoal of the fireplaces) to
the Late Iron Age period (200 BC–AD 400). The interpretation is challenging due to a lack of underlying archaeological evidence.
The first in-depth study on the triliths of southern Arabia yielded a consolidated trilith dataset of 554 trilith sites consisting of
2162 trilith clusters. It showed great variability in the spatial configuration of trilith elements, architectural design, and level of
preservation. The increased number of trilith sites has started to reveal trails of mobility across southern Arabia. Some trilith
sites are exceptional in size and unique in layout, which needs further attention. Field missions in Oman are planned in 2018–2020
to collect more relevant data, challenge trilith chronology, and test existing trilith interpretation hypotheses.

This paper provides a broad overview of the current state of archaeogenetic research in Arabia. We summarise recent studies of mitochondrial DNA and lactase persistence allele -13915*G in order to reconstruct the population histories of modern Arabs. These data, in turn, enable us to assess different scenarios for the peopling of the Pen- insula over the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. The evidence sup- ports the posited existence of Arabian refugia, although it is inconclusive which (e.g. Persian Gulf basin, Yemeni highlands and/or Red Sea basin) was/were responsible for housing ancestral populations during the Last Glacial Maximum. Synthesising genetic and archaeological data sets, we conclude that a substantial portion of the present South Arabian gene pool derives from a deeply rooted population that underwent sig- nificant internal growth within Arabia some 12,000 years ago. At the same time, we interpret the disappearance of Nejd Leptolithic archaeological sites in southern Arabia around 8000 years ago to represent the termination of a significant component of the Pleistocene gene pool.

For more than 10 years, I was one of a number of American and Yemeni archaeologists surveying and excavating sites dating to the fabled South Arabian kingdoms and beyond, to prehistoric times. We were members of the Dhamar Survey Project, started by the University of Chicago and named for a historic town in highland Yemen.

The Husn is a solid squared structure with the sides measuring about 60x60m. It was built on a higher plan, in a dominant position compared to the rest of the city. An extension to the northern side where plastered room and channels with stone pipes were unearthed, has been interpreted as bathroom drains for the Husn. The ongoing excavation allowed the discovery of an extension also outside the latest and still standing eastern curtain wall, which has been tentatively interpreted as the stables of the Husn. This area, and possibly parts of the northern one, were obliterated during the 16 th century, when the fortification system was increased with the addition of bastions, towers, buttresses and casemates to defend the complex from the attacks of Portuguese and Turks and to return fire to the assailants. Husn Al Baleed has now a maximum an elevation of about 13 m asl, with a general surface of almost 5000 sqm. The building was multi-storey and it is possible that in the last phases it had four levels. Parts of the ceilings with the wooden beams have been discovered in some areas of the building during the ongoing excavations. The Husn was object of periodical rebuilding and modifications over the time, but this is not surprising considering the long history of the settlement building, being in use for more than eight centuries. At least five different kinds of masonries and construction techniques have been preliminary recognized at the complex. The use of wood in shape of trunks of local trees or re-used ship planks, most likely for static purposes or to help in the arrangement of horizontal plans, is attested already from the first constructional phase (1000 AD).

Sabeans: folk settled in central Yemen belonging to the great tribe and kingdom of Saba’ (8th century BCE – 3rd century CE). Famous for the likely fictitious character of the Queen of Saba’, this kingdom established itself as one of the great power of pre-Islamic Arabia.

After seven excavation campaigns in the ruins of Barâqish (Yemeni Jawf), the article is resuming the main results of the researches carried on by the Joint Italian-Yemenite Archaeological Mission in Yemen (1989-1990, 2003-2007). The region where the work was carried out, the Jawf, is one of the most impenetrable regions of Yemen, but it is also one of the richest in pre-Islamic antiquities: more than a dozen of Sabaean, Minaean and Madhabite walled cities are scattered there, but none has been excavated up to now, except Barâqish. The two beautiful temples, the necropolis, the two stratigraphical probes and the many object, ceramics and inscriptions found give one a first direct picture of the Minaeans, a commercial people who lived in the Arabia Felix and was well known in the classical world.

"""Table of Contents.
1. Arabia and the study of the ancient Near East.
2. Ecological and environmental diversity in Arabia.
3. The formation of Arabian society: 7000 to 3000 BC.
4. Eastern Arabia from 3000 to 2000 BC.
5. The Bronze Age in western Arabia.
6. Eastern Arabia from 2000 to 1300 BC.
7. Humans, dromedaries, and the transformation of ancient Arabia.
8. Intensification and consolidation: Arabia from 1300 to 800 BC.
9. Expansion and engagement: Arabia and the ancient Near East.
10. Adaptation and social formation in ancient Arabia."""

كلمات مفتاحية: أوسان، وادي مرخة، نقوش قديمة، كتابات كلاسيكية، الهمداني

ملخص البحث: نشأت في الألف الأول قبل الميلاد بجنوب الجزيرة العربية، حضارة عريقة. قام بتلك الحضارة ممالك أو كيانات سياسية، اصطُلِح على تسميتها ممالك جنوب الجزيرة العربية. وهذه الممالك عاشت في فترات متداخلة ومتعاقبة؛ وهي معين، سبأ، وقتبان، وحضرموت وحمير، ثم هناك أَوْسَان. وسيقتصر هذا البحث على تناول المصادر الكتابية لدراسة تاريخ مملكة أوسان، التي نشأت في وادي مرخة، ونجحت في فترات مختلفة من تاريخها السياسي في السيطرة على كثير من مناطق جنوب الجزيرة العربية. بما تتضمنه تلك المصادر من نقوش يمنية قديمة (أَوْسَانية، سبئية، قتبانية، معينية)، وكتابات كلاسيكية، علاوة على الكتابات العربية الإسلامية. ويناقش البحث ما تقدمه من معلومات يمكن الاستفادة منها في زيادة الجانب المعرفي عن بعض أنماط الحياة العامة؛ متمثلة في الأوضاع السياسية والدينية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية.

Keywords: Awsan, Wadi Markha, ancient inscriptions, Classic writings, Al- Hamadani

Abstract: An ancient great civilization in Southern Arabia was established in the first millennium BC. This was carried out by several kingdoms or political entities, termed the kingdoms of South Arabia. These kingdoms lived in overlapping and successive periods, which are known as; Saba, Qataban, Hadramout and Himyar, as well as Awsan. This research will be limited to taking the written sources for the study of the history of the Kingdom of Awsan, which originated in the valley of Markha, and succeeded in different periods of its political history of control of many areas of the southern part of Arabia. These sources include ancient Yemeni inscriptions (Awsanite, Sabaean, Qatabanian, Mainaean), and the classical writings, as well as the Arab- Islamic writings.
This research asserts that the information obtained from the aforementioned material can be utilized to increase knowledge about general aspects of life; in light of its religious, political, economic and social conditions.

The authors suggest to view the origins of Islam against the background of the 6th century AD Arabian socio-ecological crisis whose model is specified in the paper through the study of cli-matological, seismological, volcanological and epidemiological history of the period. Most so-cio-political systems of the Arabs reacted to the socio-ecological crisis by getting rid of the rig-id supra-tribal political structures (kingdoms and chiefdoms) which started posing a real threat to their very survival. The decades of fighting which led to the destruction of the most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms (reflected in Ayyam al-`Arab tradition) led to the elabora-tion of some definite "anti-royal" freedom-loving tribal ethos. At the beginning of the 7th cen-tury a tribe which would recognize themselves as subjects of some terrestrial super-tribal polit-ical authority, a "king", risked to lose its honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type, the "celestial" one. At the meantime the early 7th century evi-dences the merging of the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the Arabian Monotheist "Rah-manist" tradition which produced "the Arabian prophetic movement". The Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented a supratribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were looking for at this very time, which seems to explain to a certain extent those prophets' political success (including the extreme political success of Muhammad).

The origin and the emergence of the kingdom of Maʿīn in South West
Arabia in the light of a new inscription from the eighth century BCE: This study discusses the
occurrence of the Minaean kingdom in the Yemeni Jawf according to recently discovered epigraphic
evidence. A newly discovered South Arabian inscription, which is published in this study, gives us a
new data and an earlier history of the kingdom of Maʿīn. It gives us an earlier history of this kingdom
than it has been suggested. This new inscription provides historical evidence for the origin and
emergence of the kingdom in the eighth century BCE and mentions rulers of the kingdom of Sabaʾ,
Maʿīn and Nashshān today al-Sawdāʾ .

KEYWORDS
Southarabian art – Indian art – Globalization – Transcultural – Indian Ocean trade – Trade network

ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the spread of Indian elements in Southarabian art. A new artistic language arose in South Arabia in the period of greater development of transoceanic trade with India. The adoption of foreign artistic elements can be read as an indicator of increasing external contacts, and as the output of a stronger presence into the trade and cultural networks of ancient Globalization.
The analysis of some Southarabian bronzes reveals very interesting details on the adoption of foreign forms in Southarabian art. In particular it is possible to detect some Indian element. It is not only Gandharan syncretism that reverberates in Southarabian art; indeed, some examples are reminiscent of late Mauryan and Shunga art from Northern India.
In Southarabian art the so-called Hellenistic period counts iconographic elements that are not Hellenistic. Hellenism in the East is a centrifugal and centripetal koine, indeed it absorbs autochthonous characteristics, also from peripheral areas, and at the same time it radiates outward their re-elaboration. So a reassessment of the use of this category is strongly needed, and this paper wants to be a contribution toward the abandonment of old interpretative patterns, and the creation of a new transcultural comprehension of historical phenomena.

Presentation of the discovery of a Sabaean presence on the Somali coast. It results from the illegal excavation of an archaeological site in Somalia, a temple for which no
parallel is attested in the region. There, monumental Sabaic inscriptions were unearthed, their photographs were posted on the Web and simultaneously handed down to Christian Robin and Khaldun Nuʿmān in 2019-20. Since then, we have had the opportunity to present this discovery in order to prevent the illegal trafficking of these artefacts.

Here is the story of human origins in the Arabian Peninsula, the lost Southern Crescent where humanity took its first steps toward civilization. Under Arabia’s surface of sand and stone lies a primordial realm of rolling grasslands, freshwater lakes, and river floodplains. This book aims to restore a critical missing chapter in the prehistory of our species that played out in this forgotten place of plenty.

With twenty years of fieldwork experience in Yemen and Oman, Dr. Jeff Rose leaves no stone unturned, weaving together an unorthodox tapestry of archaeology, environmental science, genetics, even Middle Eastern mythology. At times, Arabia’s grasslands formed an extension of the East African savannah. For most of our species’ tenure on earth, the Gulf was not there, instead a well-watered river valley flowing into the Indian Ocean. This book proposes that there was more than just a Fertile Crescent spanning Mesopotamia and the Levant, there was another crescent, a lost southern Crescent that served as a bridge between prehistoric worlds. Combined, these formed a Fertile Circle, which was the crucible where the world's first civilization was cast.

Pour les sources arabo-islamiques, l’Arabie d’avant l’Islam — période dénommée Jāhiliyya (“ignorance” des lumières de la vraie foi) — est misérable, isolée, vouée à l’anarchie. C’est le pays “du sable et des puces”. Or, les sites antiques donnent une image bien différente. De grandes villes furent fondées en Arabie du Nord, sur les rives du golfe Persique ou dans l’antique Yémen. L’une d’elles, Taymâ’, fut même la résidence du roi babylonien Nabonide vers le milieu du VIe s. avant l’ère chrétienne. Une autre, Ma’rib, était au centre d’une vaste palmeraie qu’alimentait en eau l’un des plus longs barrages de l’ancien monde. Entre ces deux visions, celle d’une Arabie pitoyable et celle d’une Arabie heureuse, qu’en était-il ? Archéologues, épigraphistes et historiens se réunissent ici pour dessiner les contours de la péninsule à la veille de l’Islam. Ils concilient et pondèrent ces deux visions à travers l’étude des productions épigraphiques d’Arabie du Nord et d’Arabie du Sud, des productions artistiques, du peuplement des sites majeurs de l’Arabie préislamique : Taymā’, Madā’in Ṣāliḥ, Yathrib, al-Mulayḥa, Kush, Shabwa, Ma’rib, Ṣan’ā’... Comme le suggère la vision traditionnelle de la Jāhiliyya, ils montrent que la plupart des villes d’Arabie sont sur le déclin après le IIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne. Seuls quelques sites emblématiques survivent. La production épigraphique diminue fortement. Les émissions monétaires cessent. Mais à l’inverse, un empire se forme, une production artistique éclot. À la veille de l’Islam, il en résulte une situation contrastée, oscillant entre grandeur et décadence.

Dieser erste von zwei Bänden bietet 22 Beiträge renommierte Wissenschaftler zu verschiedenen Aspekten süd-arabischer Kulturen. Die Beiträge zeigen, dass Süd-Arabien einer der wesentlichen kulturellen Korridore war, der nicht nur die altorientalischen Kulturen miteinander verband, sondern auch als Sprungbrett nach Afrika und Indien diente. Süd-Arabien erweist sich als einer der Schnittpunkte des frühesten Globalisierungsprozesses.
Inhalt:
Vorwort / Preface
Welcome by Prof. Heinz W. Engl, Rector of the University of Vienna
Welcome by Prof. Franz Römer, Dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
Programm Symposion 2008
Zum Geleit / Statements, Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien
Prof. Claudia Römer
Prof. Gebhard J. Selz
Prof. Stephan Procházka
Prof. Rüdiger Lohlker
Worte des Dankes / Acknowledgements
Hinweise zu Transliteration und Abkürzungen / Informations to transliteration and abbreviations
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : Motivation, Motive, Ziele, Literatur / Motive-force, Motives, Aims, Literature
Impulse zur Einstimmung / Impulses to Join in
Roswitha G. Stiegner (Graz/Wien) : 1. Gastvorträge / Guest Lectures, Excursions, Workshops, Institut für Orientalistik 2008–2013 - 2. ‚Mittelmeer-Alphabete‘ / ‚Mediterranean Alphabets‘

I Einführungen / Introductions
Werner Arnold (Heidelberg) : Keynote 1 - Alexander Sima in Heidelberg. Vom Altsüdarabischen zum Mehri
Gebhard J. Selz (Wien) : Keynote 2 - Das Verändern der Erzählungen. Zur Bedeutung der Altsüdarabien­forschungen aus altorientalistischer Perspektive

II Prähistorik, Archäologie und Kulturgeschichte / Prehistory, Archaeology and Culture
Jeffrey I. Rose (Oxford) : Ice Age Arabia: Archaeology, Genetics, and Palaeoenvironments Along the Highway of Human Evolution
Holger Hitgen (DAI Ṣanʿāʾ) : Archäologische Geländebegehungen im Khawlān. Eine Einführung in das neueste Forschungsprojekt des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts im Jemen
Ueli Brunner (Zürich) : The Gardens of the Queen of Sabaʾ
Paul Yule (Heidelberg) : Ẓafār / Yemen – a Brief Summary
Elisabeth Monamy (Wien) : Die Steinzeichen von Ẓafār (Jemen)
Yuri A. Vinogradov (St.Petersburg) : The Main Results of the Archaeological Investigations at the Area of the Building 6: The Raybūn I Settlement in Western Ḥaḍramawt
Ricardo Eichmann (Berlin) : Die Oasensiedlung von Taymāʾ(NW-Arabien) im Kontext überregionaler Netzwerke
Walter Raunig (München) : Die Länder des Südmeeres um Christi Geburt – Ein Streiflicht
Marta Luciani (Vienna) : Training Saudi Women in Archaeological Restoration: A Report from the Field

III Afr(o)-Asiatica / Äthio-Semitistik, Neusüdarabisches, Semitistik / Altorientalische Philologie, Arabistik, Osmanisches
Afr(o)-Asiatica / Ethio-Semitica, Modern South Arabian, Semitistica / Ancient Oriental Philology, Arabistica, Osmanica
Andrzej Zaborski (Krakau) : South Arabian Languages in a Semitic Perspective Hermann Hunger (Wien) : Begegnungen der Assyrer mit Arabern
Rainer Voigt (Berlin) : Sprache, Schrift und Gesellschaft im axumitischen Reich
Orhan Elmaz (Vienna/St. Andrews) : ʿarim – A Sabaic Word in the Qurʾān
Herbert Eisenstein (Wien) : Spezielle Themen der klassisch-arabischen Literatur aus dem Jemen
Janet C. E. Watson (Salford) : Translation, Mistranslation and the Seasons in Mahrah Acoustic
Sam Liebhaber (Middlebury) : Spectrum Analysis of Mahri Oral Poetry: An Empirical Approach to Bedouin Vernacular Prosody
Peter Behnstedt (Chipiona) : Jemenitische Dialekte
Clive Holes (Oxford) : The Omani Arabic Dialects in their Regional Context
Gisela Procházka-Eisl & Stephan Procházka (Vienna) : Notes on the Cultural and Linguistic Legacy of the Ottomans in Yemen.

Anhänge / Attachments
Autoren / Authors
Tafeln / Figures
Indices

This paper suggests that 6th-century Yemenite Christianity should be taken into consideration as a relevant, if hitherto often neglected, factor that may help to explain both the emergence of Islam and its South-Arabian component. It also explores the extent to which the interactions between the Christians and the Jews of pre-Islamic Yemen may be said to be of especial relevance to understand the Christology of the Qur’ān. Lastly, it contends that this represents a better approach to deciphering the Jewish and Christian roots of emergent Islam than the hypothesis of a “Jewish-Christian” influence upon the latter.

If compared to Esimiphaios’s, Abraha’s thanksgiving formulas hint at political and cultural shift in 6th-century Yemen. This paper explores whether such shift had too – as suggested by several authors over the past decades – religious motivations; and, if so, which were these. It also analyses the eventual implications of the aforementioned shift for the renewed study of Islam’s origins by examining Abraha’s rhetoric and several key passages in the Qur’ān, in addition to other late-antique sources like the synoptic gospels and Musaylima’s prophetic stanzas. All this in the conviction that to escape a paradigm that has clearly overemphasised the Hijazi background of emergent Islam, one does not need to overemphasise, in turn, its Syrian-Iraqi setting at the expense of the its South-Arabian connections, no matter how decisive the North-Arabian ones prove.

This article investigates the evolution of political systems in North-Eastern Yemen in the course of the last two millennia. By examining the main shifts of political power and their structural elements, it describes a typology of socio-political and economic formation that was particular to the Yemeni Highlands and that has been designated as ‘multi-polity’. The study concludes that a North Yemeni type of tribe is a non-primitive and highly developed political structure, which may be considered in some respects as an alternative to state organization.

"Cette introduction revient sur les deux siècles précédant l’avènement de l’islam à travers deux interrogations : le déclin qui s’observe en péninsule Arabique doit-il être considéré comme un phénomène local ou s’inscrit-il dans un processus régional ? La
transition entre périodes préislamique et islamique doit-elle être perçue en termes de rupture ou de continuité ?
Pour ce faire, nous faisons dans un premier temps la synthèse des études récemment consacrées au déclin de la péninsule Arabique entre le IVe et le VIe siècle. La seconde partie est consacrée aux régions voisines du Proche-Orient et montre dans quelle mesure les processus observés en Arabie y trouvent ou non un écho. Il en ressort qu’il ne saurait être question d’un déclin généralisé de la région à la veille de l’islam. En ce sens, c’est moins une rupture qu’une transformation lente et progressive qui se dégage, entre un monde antique finissant et un monde moderne en devenir."

Zeitschrift für Orient-Archäologie 8: 253-278.
This paper presents an overview of the state of evidence concerning the of domesticated dromedary camel in the ancient Near East. It draws upon artifactual, textual, and archaeological evidence from southern Arabia to Syria, including recently excavated material from the United Arab Emirates.

The destiny of three of the largest South-Arabian towns – Shabwa, Maʾrib, and Ṣanʿāʾ – is examined from the turn of Christian era down to the advent of Islam. The political, religious, military and economic functions of each one show the evolution of these capital cities. Their histories highlight how artificial the separation between pre-Islamic and Islamic times is. Two of them, Shabwa and Maʾrib, do show a decline but this one can be explained by internal causes dating back to before the 7th century. At the same time, the third one, Ṣanʿāʾ, founded in the 1st century, grew steadily without being affected by the advent of Islam.