Ancient Arabia:

A brief history and time-line

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1. Multiple Arabias
Ancient sources, in particular the Assyrian Annals and the Greek and
Roman historians and geographers, defined ‘Arabia’ as anywhere inhabited
by peoples called ‘Arabs’. They applied this term to populations with very
different ways-of-life in a wide variety of areas, and it seems likely that only
a combination of a recognizably common language and certain common
cultural traits could have defined them all as belonging to the same group.

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 From the 8th century BC, the Assyrians and Babylonians recorded
Arabs living (from east to west) in eastern Mesopotamia between the Tigris
and Iran, settled in large numbers in Babylonia, in the Syrian Jazīra
(between the Tigris and Euphrates), on the slopes of the Anti-Lebanon
mountains (between modern Lebanon and Syria), in north and north-west
Arabia, and in Sinai. By the 6th century, the Achaemenid Persian empire
recognized an Arab enclave in Gaza and its hinterland, and a century later
Herodotus regarded ‘Arabia’ as being most of eastern Egypt, between the
Nile and the Red Sea. Xenophon (c. 430–c. 354 BC) found ‘Arabias’ in
northern Syria and northern and central Mesopotamia, while Alexander the
Great (356–323 BC) encountered Arabs in the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon
mountains, Gaza, Sinai, the eastern Nile Delta, and eastern Egypt, as well as
at the head of the Persian Gulf, and even in central Iran. His explorers also
identified and defined the ‘Arabian’ Peninsula for the first time, and, by the
Roman period, there were ‘Arabias’ in eastern Egypt and the delta, Sinai,
southern Palestine (the Negev), the Beqaʿ Valley of Lebanon and the Anti-
Lebanon, the whole of modern Jordan, southern, central and northern Syria,
northern, central, and southern Mesopotamia, as well as the Peninsula. This
does not mean that the total populations of any of these areas were
considered to be ‘Arabs’, but that there were Arab populations in them of
sufficiently significant size and importance to be recognized by outsiders.
Thus, for instance, while in the early centuries AD there were quite
considerable Arab communities in Southern Arabia (modern Yemen), and
Graeco-Roman geographers mistakenly called it Arabia Felix, the majority
indigenous populations in the kingdoms of that region did not regard
themselves as Arabs.
The ways-of-life of these populations varied considerably. In many
places they were sedentary farmers, in others they had self-governing cities,
in others they formed merchant colonies within cities, in yet others they had
extensive kingdoms (e.g. the Nabataeans and those in northern
Mesopotamia), while others were nomads. Thus, from the early 1st
millennium BC when we first hear of ‘Arabs’, they occupied increasingly
large areas throughout the Fertile Crescent. As yet, we have no evidence of
where they originated. The idea that it was necessarily from the Peninsula is
an anachronistic misunderstanding, since the Peninsula only came to be
called ‘Arabia’ par excellence from the late Hellenistic and Roman periods
onwards. We do not know what, if anything, it was called by its inhabitants
at that time and earlier.
In 64 BC Pompey made Syria into a Roman Province. However, the
Nabataean kingdom which stretched from southern Syria to north-west
Arabia and into southern Palestine, remained independent until AD 106
when it too was annexed by Rome and was renamed Provincia Arabia.
After this, all the inhabitants of this Province were called ‘Arabs’ by the
Romans and it gradually became necessary to find another name for the
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nomads who had previously been called ‘Arabs’ but were not subjects of the
province. For these, the term ‘Saracen’ (probably derived from a North
Arabian word meaning ‘those who migrate to the inner desert’) was slowly
adopted. However, the term ‘Arab’ continued to be used of settled Arabs in
regions such as the Jazīra and northern Mesopotamia. Thus, in AD 195,
Septimius Severus fought ‘Arabs’ in northern Mesopotamia and so assumed
the honorific title Arabicus. Eventually, however, the term ‘Saracen’ was
extended to all those who had previously been called ‘Arabs’, regardless of
whether they were settled or nomadic. In the period after AD 106, it is
therefore important to distinguish between events in the Province of Arabia,
those in the Arabian Peninsula, and those affecting Arabs in other places.

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2. The north, west, centre, and east of the Arabian Peninsula
What we call the ‘Arabian Peninsula’ has been inhabited since Palaeolithic
times. Recent discoveries have shown that early hominids made their way
out of Africa across the bed of the Red Sea (which was almost dry at that
time) and through the Arabian Peninsula into Asia, as well as via the Levant
into Europe. Successive climate changes meant that over tens of thousands
of years, prehistoric Man survived by adopting different ways of life, as
witnessed for instance by rock-drawings of cattle in what are now desert
areas and of the hunting of dromedaries in the days before the animal was
domesticated.
The landmass of the Peninsula slopes gently eastward from a
mountain chain along the western (Red Sea) coast to the Persian Gulf. In the
south-west and, to some extent the south-east, there are extensive
mountainous areas which benefit from the twice-yearly monsoon rains,
which, when conserved, permit permanent irrigated agriculture. This was
the basis of the prosperity of ancient Yemen and also permitted the
cultivation of the frankincense tree (Boswellia sacra) primarily in Dhofar (in
the south of modern Oman). In the centre, north and south-east of the
Peninsula, there are scattered areas where irrigated agricultural is possible
(e.g. in parts of Najd, ‘Asīr, the Wādī al-Dawāsir, and Oman), and there are
numerous oases across the Peninsula, some of them extremely large (e.g. al-
Hasa [= Wāḥat al-Aḥsā’], Ḥā’il, Dūmat [Akkadian Adumatu, Biblical
Dūmâ, mediaeval Dūmat al-Jandal, modern al-Jawf], Tabūk, Taymāʾ, Dadan
[Biblical Dedān, modern al-‘Ulā], and Yathrib [= al-Madīna]) where
permanent settled populations have for millennia practiced agriculture,
horticulture, and the cultivation of huge groves of date-palms, and at
different periods have developed urban societies and even kingdoms.

From the 4th millennium BC onwards, the Peninsula lay between the
two great powers of the ancient Near East: Egypt on the west and
Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia), and later Iran, to the north-east.
Most of our knowledge of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Arabia comes
from eastern Arabia, because it is here that it has been possible to undertake
archaeological work for longest. Eastern Arabia lay between the
civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley and was on the trade-
routes between the two. Its many prehistoric societies named after the sites
where they were first identified (Ḥafīt, Hīlī, Umm an-Nār, etc.) have left
large monumental tombs with communal burials and distinctive repertoires
of artefacts. From the 4th millennium BC onwards, first the eastern coast of
what is now Saudi Arabia and then the islands of Baḥrain were known to the
Sumerians and then the Babylonians as ‘Dilmun’. The earliest sources refer
to it as a staging post for timber (and later, for metals) brought from far-off
lands for use in Mesopotamia. In Sumerian mythology, it was regarded as a
sort of earthly Paradise because of its abundance of fresh water. Between
2400 and 1700 BC over 170,000 large burial tumuli were constructed in the
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north of the island. In the Oman Peninsula, known as Magan in cuneiform
documents, copper was mined, smelted and exported to Mesopotamia from
the third millennium BC onwards.

In Oman, a sophisticated irrigation system called the falaj was

developed in the Iron Age and the technology was later exported to Iran,
where these tunnels were known as qanat [= qanāh]. The falaj brought
water from springs via underground tunnels to the fields and settlements,
making possible extensive agriculture in areas with little seasonal rainfall.

The domestication of the dromedary which seems to have taken place

in south-east Arabia around 1200–1100 BC, provided sources of rich milk
products as well as beasts of burden and means of transport for settled
people and for nomads.

In the last centuries BC and the early centuries AD a number of states

flourished on the east coast of the Peninsula, among which the great trading
city of Gerrha (exact site unidentified) was the most famous. Gerrha
dominated the trade between the Indian Ocean, Mesopotamia, Yemen, and
— via the Nabataeans — the Mediterranean. Several of these states minted
their own coins and these show that some were ruled by women.

In the north and centre of the Peninsula, sedentary life was mainly
concentrated in large oases. While agriculture and the cultivation of the date
palm formed the basis of their economies, by the second millennium and
possibly even earlier, some (e.g. Taymāʾ) had developed into urban centres,
probably as a result of their positions on the trade routes. At Qurayya, in the
north-west, pottery has been found which seems to link it with the copper-
mining site of Timnaʿ in the Wādī ʿAraba (the southern extension of the
Dead Sea Valley) which was controlled by the Egyptians in the 2nd
millennium BC. By the first millennium BC, the oases in the north and
north-west of the Peninsula had become pivotal in the trade in frankincense
and spices brought overland from Southern Arabia to Egypt, the
Mediterranean (at Gaza), the Levant, Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia.
Already in the 8th century BC, a caravan of the people of Taymāʾ (in North
Arabia) and Sabaʾ (in South Arabia) was ambushed by the Assyrian
governor of Suḫu on the Euphrates for trying to avoid paying tolls.

Anxious to control the northern end of this trade, the rulers of Assyria
and Babylonia launched repeated attacks against the populations (both
settled and nomadic) of North Arabia, many of whom were ruled by
priestess-queens based in the oasis of Dūmat (mediaeval Dūmat al-Jandal,
modern al-Jawf). So important was this trade that by the mid-6th century
BC, Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon (555–539 BC), chose to reside in
Taymāʾ for the major part of his reign (probably 552–543 BC), having
already conquered five other major oases on the trade route from the south,
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including Dadan (Biblical Dedān) and Yathrib (modern al-Madīna). In
Dadan, which was the site of two successive kingdoms (Dadan and Liḥyān),
Minaean merchants from South Arabia, who were the major dealers in
frankincense, founded a trading station. By the first century AD, the
Nabataeans — nomadic Arabs who had settled in southern Jordan in the 3rd
century BC and had taken control of the northern end of the trade route —
ruled the whole of the north-west of the Peninsula and had established a
city, Ḥegrā (mediaeval al-Ḥijr, modern Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ) some 20 km north of
Dadan.

In the centre of the Peninsula, on the north-west edge of the ‘Empty

Quarter’, another oasis site called Qaryat Dhāt Kahl (modern Qaryat al-
Faʾw) flourished between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD. It
was the capital of the Arab tribes of Kinda, Madhḥij and Qaḥṭān.
Excavations there have revealed an extraordinarily rich and luxurious way
of life, with wall-paintings, exquisite glass, bronze and stone statuary,
decorative textiles, and large numbers of inscriptions. Luxury goods were
imported from the Mediterranean world, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia,
India, South Arabia and other places. Its prosperity was based on its
strategic location on the major trade route from Southern Arabia to the
Persian Gulf. Although it was within the cultural orbit of the Minaeans and
Sabaeans, it developed an independent artistic style and periodically
asserted its political independence.

Besides these settled cultures, there were nomadic tribes in most parts
of the Peninsula from at least the 4th millennium onwards. These tribes
would have lived in a symbiotic relationship with the inhabitants of the
oases since each population could provide important goods needed by the
other: the nomads provided the sedentaries with meat, animal transport,
leather, wool and milk-products, and in return the oasis dwellers could
provide, vegetables, flour, dates, wood and metal-products. Both
communities were involved in, and profited from, the south-north overland
trade and therefore had a vested interest in the preservation of peace.
When the Nabataeans settled in southern Jordan in the 3rd century
BC, they made their capital at Reqem, called by the Greeks Petra. Even as
nomads, they had been renowned for their expertise in constructing hidden
cisterns in the desert to provide water throughout the year, and when they
settled they became great hydrological engineers and their conservation of
the seasonal rainfall enabled them to put large areas under irrigated
cultivation. The well-ordered urban society of Petra aroused the admiration
of the Greek philosopher Athenodorus, who lived there for some years. The
Nabataeans dominated the northern end of the incense trade route from
Southern Arabia to the Mediterranean, and, as mentioned above, worked
with the merchants from the eastern Arabian city of Gerrha in bringing
spices and other luxury goods from India and beyond to the markets of the
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 ANATOLIA

Ti
gr
is
Eu
ph
ra
tes
Palmyra I R A N
Damascus Babylon

Petra

N A B A T A E A
N
il

Dadan
e

OMAN
Yathrib
E GYPT
‘E M P T Y Q U A R T E R’
Mecca

R
FA
O
H
D
Ni
le

Y E M E N

Mediterranean world. From southern Jordan they expanded their kingdom

until by the end of the 1st century BC it stretched from southern Syria to
north-west Arabia and included Sinai and the Negev. In the mid 1st century
AD, the last Nabataean king, Rabbel II, moved his capital from Petra to
Boṣrā in southern Syria and when, on his death in AD 106, the Romans
annexed the kingdom and named it Provincia Arabia, they retained Boṣrā as
the capital. The new era of the Province was known both as the era of Boṣrā
and of the Province, and continued to be used in official documents until the
Islamic conquests (mid 7th century AD), and by Christians until much later.
The Roman and Byzantine empires ruled the Near East for over 600
years (from 64 BC to the Islamic conquests in AD 635–640), and
throughout this period their policy was dominated by the conflict with
Persia/Iran. The fluctuating border between these two superpowers ran
through Armenia (in what is now eastern Turkey) and the Jazīra between the
Tigris and Euphrates. Parts of this region consisted of rich agricultural land
and parts were desert, and there were cities on both sides of both rivers.
There was one or more settled Arab kingdoms in the northern Jazīra, and
Arab communities, both settled and nomadic, further south. These were
constantly caught up in the conflict between Rome and Persia.
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 In AD 224, the Sasanian dynasty overthrew the Parthians and took
power in Persia, which from now on was called Iran by its rulers. From the
mid 4th century onwards the Sasanians employed the Arab Nasrid
(sometimes called ‘Lakhmid’) kingdom, with its capital at al-Ḥīra (in what
is now south-western Iraq) to raid Byzantine territory; and, by the end of the
5th century, the Arab Jafnids (of the tribal confederation of Ghassān) had
settled in southern Syria and the Province of Arabia, and were being used in
the same way by the Byzantine side. However, the relationship between the
Jafnids and the Byzantine state was constantly disturbed by theological
problems because the Jafnids held firmly to Miaphysite Christianity and
resisted all attempts by the state to impose the Chalcedonian Christology
upon them. Religion was much less of a problem between the Zoroastrian
Iranian state, which had little missionary zeal, and the Nasrids who mostly
remained pagan, apart from the last king who adopted Nestorian
Christianity.
The constant conflicts between the Byzantine and Iranian states so
debilitated both sides that they were unable to resist the armies of the
nascent Islamic state in the 4th decade of the 7th century. The Byzantines
were unable to retain any of their eastern provinces south of Anatolia and, in
a remarkably short period, the Islamic armies had also conquered the Iranian
empire.

3. Ancient South Arabia

Unlike the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, south-west Arabia appears to have
been a coherent cultural sphere, which — despite many outside influences
and drastic internal changes — preserved its own cultural, political, and
linguistic individuality from its historical beginnings until late antiquity. By
the early first millennium BC, highly developed communities had appeared

8
in the arid deltas at the eastern fringes of the Yemeni central plateau. They
used writing and had monumental architecture, and their economy was
based on agriculture watered by the monsoons with at least two harvests per
year. The most important among these communities were Sabaʾ, Maʿin,
Qataban and Ḥaḍramawt. Their wealth — of which Graeco-Roman authors
speak when referring to Arabia Eudaimōn or Arabia Felix — was based on
the trade in frankincense and other spices, and on control of large stretches
of the trade route to the markets in the north.
Our first detailed insight from within South Arabia itself into its
political landscape in the 1st millennium BC is found in the lengthy Res
Gestae (or ‘Deeds’) of the Sabaean rulers Yithaʿʾamar Watar and Karibʾil
Watar. These are the earliest reliably datable historical records from South
Arabia, and indeed from the Arabian Peninsula in general. These huge
inscriptions were set up around 715 and 685 BC respectively, in the
sanctuary of the principal Sabaean deity, ʾAlmaqah, at Ṣirwāḥ, close to the
Sabaean metropolis of Mārib. They tell of the Sabaeans’ defeat of their
southern and northern neighbours and the consequent establishment of their
hegemony in South Arabia.
The epigraphic evidence provides only limited information on the
structure and organization of societies in ancient South Arabia. The most
detailed data concern the situation in the Sabaean heartland around Mārib
and Ṣirwāḥ. At the head of society was the so-called mukarrib who
performed the role of mediator between the principal Sabaean god,
ʾAlmaqah, and the people of Sabaʾ. He was responsible for the exercise of
ritual duties such as the performance of the sacred marriage and the
organization of ritual banquets for ʿAthtar, the only deity venerated by all
South Arabian peoples. He was in charge of the performance of ritual
processions in the large temple complexes, of certain sacrifices, and of the
ritual hunt. The title mukarrib (‘unifier’) probably alludes to the central
political task of the Sabaean ruler, namely uniting the South Arabian cities
and tribes under Sabaean sovereignty through a far-reaching system of
alliances. With the decline of Sabaean power in the 4th century BC, the title
mukarrib passed to other kingdoms and was replaced in Sabaʾ by the term
“king” (mlk).
When, in the 4th century BC, Sabaʾ eventually relinquished its
hegemony, Qataban managed to extend its territory to the south-west as far
as Bab al-Mandab (the straits where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean).
Minaean merchants, who established a trading colony with its own
administrative structures in Dadan (modern al-ʿUlā, in north-west Saudi
Arabia), are also found in Egypt, the Levant, at Ctesiphon on the river Tigris
in Mesopotamia, and even on the Greek island of Delos.
In 25 BC, the Prefect of the Roman Province of Egypt, Aelius Gallus,
set out with an army of 10,000 soldiers towards South Arabia. According to
the Greek geographer Strabo (64/63 BC–AD 25), when the Roman army
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reached the Sabaean metropolis of Mārib they besieged it for six days but
could not take it. Although we lack corresponding sources from the South
Arabian side, this campaign may be connected with the final disappearance
of the Minaeans, with the result that the overland trade in frankincense was
taken over by the Nabataeans. We know that Nabataean merchants were in
South Arabia after this from a Sabaic-Nabataean bilingual inscription found
at Ṣirwāḥ which is dated to the third year of the Nabataean king Aretas IV,
that is 7/6 BC.
Later, due to the increasing importance of the maritime trade with
India, which had already been stimulated by the Roman occupation of
Egypt, the balance of power shifted in South Arabia. The few natural
harbours and their access points became especially important. By this
period, or even earlier, colonizers from the Ḥaḍramawt had established the
port of Samārum (also known as ‘Sumhuram’, modern Khor Rori) on the
coast of Dhofar close to the region where frankincense was produced, while
the harbour of Qaniʾ west of modern al-Mukallā on the southern Yemeni
coast, secured Ḥaḍramī access to maritime trade after the turn of the era.
From the 1st century AD onwards, the people of Ḥimyar in the
southern highlands began to break away from Qataban and eventually
emerged as a considerable power in South Arabian politics. Around the turn
of the era, possibly as a result of Aelius Gallus’ campaign, a coalition was
formed between Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar, and from this point onwards their rulers
called themselves ‘kings of Sabaʾ and Dhū Raidān’, the latter referring to
the royal place in the Himyarite capital, Ẓafār. This coalition was ended by
the rise of tribes in the highlands of northern Yemen, which replaced the
royal dynasty of Sabaʾ in Mārib during the 2nd century AD.
The 2nd and 3rd centuries AD are characterized by a series of wars
between a number of different protagonists. After Qataban had been
absorbed by Ḥaḍramawt, a final, ephemeral, Sabaean hegemony was created
through a policy of large-scale expansion by the Sabaean king Shaʾirum
Awtar. His campaigns led him northwards to Qaryat al-Faʾw (see above). In
the east of Yemen, he destroyed Shabwa, the capital of the Ḥaḍramī
kingdom, and Qāniʾ, its port for trade with India. In the west he marched
against the Abyssinians settled on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. In Sanʿāʾ, he
built the castle of Ghumdān, the splendour of which, even in the 10th
century AD, impressed the Yemeni historian and geographer al-Hamdānī.
Large numbers of inscriptions from the 3rd century AD, by both Sabaeans
and Himyarites, mention the fierce wars conducted — with varying
outcomes — by the Sabaean king Ilsharaḥ Yaḥḍib and his Himyarite
opponents Shammar Yuhaḥmid and Karibʾīl Ayfaʾ. Although there was no
one decisive battle, towards the end of the 3rd century the Himyarites
eventually emerged victorious. By the beginning of the 4th century, Yemen
was united under the Himyarite king Shammar Yuharʿish. The Himyarites

10
composed their inscriptions in a southern Sabaic dialect, using the same
script as their predecessors.
Around the middle of the 4th century AD, the first evidence of
monotheism begins to appear in the Ancient South Arabian inscriptions. The
deity invoked is ‘(god) the Lord of Heaven (and of the earth)’, later also
called Raḥmānan, ‘the merciful’. This was an epithet designating the Jewish
God, as the phraseology in several religious inscriptions from the following
period show. The Himyarite dynasty’s conversion to Judaism was at least in
part a reaction to the increasing Byzantine influence in this region, and in
particular the conversion to Christianity of the Abyssinian king ʿEzānā IV in
Aksum. This adoption of different forms of monotheism gave an additional
religio-political element to the conflict between the two powers on either
side of the Bab al-Mandab: Ḥimyar and Abyssinia.
The epigraphic evidence, however, does not reveal whether there was
a continuous conflict from this time on, or a particular aggravation of the
situation during the 5th century. After several campaigns, Ḥimyar under its
king Abikarib Asʿad managed to extend its sphere of influence into central
Arabia, and to maintain its hold through its Arab proxies the kings of Kinda
and the Bedouin confederation of Maʿadd.

In the first quarter of the 6th century AD, a major conflict erupted
between Ḥimyar and the Abyssinians. We are fortunate to have information
about this not only from Sabaic and Ethiopic inscriptions, but also from
Syriac and Greek literary sources. Immediately before this, the Himyarite
dynasty appears to have been pursuing a pro-Byzantine (and thus pro-
Abyssinian) policy. This would explain the large numbers of Christian
communities on the western coastal plain of Yemen, in the Himyarite capital
Ẓafār, in Ḥaḍramawt, and in Najrān in the north, against which (and against
their Abyssinian protectors) the Himyarite king Yūsuf Ashʿar (known in
later Arab sources as Dhū Nuwas) took action at the beginning of the 520s.
These military actions culminated in the siege and surrender of Najrān and
the massacre of all the Christian inhabitants. Aided by the Byzantines, the
Abyssinian counterattack, led by the Abyssinian Negus (king) Ella-Aṣbeḥa
in person, conquered South Arabia, putting an end to Himyarite rule. An
Abyssinian, Abreha, established himself in the following years as the
Christian ruler of South Arabia, but distanced himself to a considerable
extent from the kings in Aksum. His reign, was marked by large building
projects such as the last overhaul of the Mārib dam and the erection of a
cathedral in the new capital, Ṣanʿāʾ. Abyssinian rule in South Arabia
eventually ended in the 570s when the country was conquered by the
Sasanians. It remained an Iranian province until AD 628 when its governor
converted to Islam and declared his allegiance to the nascent Islamic state in
al-Madīna.
!
11
ANATOLIA

Ti
Carchemish

gr
is
Eu
ph
ra
tes
Palmyra
[Saf
aitic
[Saf]
]
Babylon the oases & nomads in Arabia
[Hism] S a
f a
[Th i t
am
Saf udic B i c
[Tham Petra
aiti ]
c
B,C,D] H Th
is am
m ud Th
Th a ic
[Th

am ic B, am
ud C , ud
amu

ic D ic
B, B,
C,
C,
dic

D Th
N

am D
i

B, C

Dadan
le

ud
ic
,

B,
D]

C, OMAN
Yathrib D
E GYPT [T
ha
mu
dic
B]
‘E M P T Y Q U A R T E R’
Mecca

R
FA
So O
H
Th uther D
Ni

am n [Th
le

ud am
ic udi
cB
]
Y E M E N

4. Literacy in ancient Arabia

The art of writing was practised widely within the western-two thirds of the
Peninsula. Arabia had its own family of alphabets (the South Semitic script
family) descended from the Proto-alphabet of the second millennium, and
which developed in parallel to the Phoenico-Aramaic alphabets of the
Levant. Writing was used extensively not only by oasis-dwellers and in the
states of South Arabia, but also, from the mid 1st millennium BC, by the
nomads, who have left scores of thousands of graffiti on the desert rocks
from southern Syria to the borders of Yemen. The South Semitic script
family seems to be mentioned — as ta-i-ma-ni-ti (i.e. the script of Taymāʾ)
— already in an inscription of the 8th century BC at Carchemish in what is
now southern Turkey. In north-west and central Arabia, the languages of the
inscriptions were Ancient North Arabian, a group of dialects related to
Arabic, although Arabic itself appears to have remained a largely unwritten

12
language until the 5th century AD. Curiously, in eastern Arabia we have
very few inscriptions, and these are in Akkadian, Aramaic, Greek, and South
Arabian, with a handful (Hasaitic) in what may be an Ancient North Arabian
dialect expressed in the Sabaic script.
The Ancient South Arabian languages attested in inscriptions from the
geographical area which is now Yemen, were Sabaic, Minaic, Qatabanic,
and Hadramitic. These stand apart linguistically from the languages known
from the rest of the Peninsula. With more than 5,000 inscriptions spread
over 1,600 years (from the late 10th century BC to the 6th century AD),
Sabaic is the best attested and the longest documented language, not only of
South Arabia but of the entire Arabian Peninsula. The documents, which are
usually engraved on prepared stone surfaces, cover a wide range of topics
and are written in an alphabet of 29 letters, the elegant geometrical forms of
which were already fully developed by the 8th and 7th centuries BC. A
“minuscule” version of the script, which has been known to scholarship
since the 1970s, was incised on palm-leaf stalks and wooden sticks and used
for day-to-day documents. The earliest of these known so far has been dated
by 14C to between 1055 and 901 BC.

Further reading
For histories of north and central Arabia see:
Eph‘al, I. The Ancient Arabs. Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent
9th-5th Centuries B.C. Jerusalem: Magnes / Leiden: Brill, 1982.
Al-Ghabban, A.I., André-Salvini, B., Demange, F., Juvin, C., and Cory, M.
(eds), Roads of Arabia. Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. Paris: Musée du Louvre / Somogy, 2010.
Hoyland, R.G. Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the coming of
Islam. London: Routledge, 2001.
Retsö J., The Arabs in Antiquity. Their history from the Assyrians to the
Umayyads. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
For eastern Arabia, see
Avanzini, A. (ed), Eastern Arabia in the First Millennium BC. (Arabia
Antica, 6). Rome: “L'Erma” di Bretschneider.
Potts, D.T. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity. (2 volumes). Oxford: Clarendon,
1990.
For south Arabia, see
De Maigret, A. Arabia Felix. An exploration of the archaeological history of
Yemen. Translated from the Italian by R. Thompson. London: Stacey
International, 2002.
Nebes, N., Sabäische Texte. Pages 331–367 in B. Janowski and G. Wilhelm,
Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments. Neue Folge. Band 2:
13
Staatsverträge, Herrscherinschriften und andere Dokumente zur politischen
Geschichte. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2005.
Nebes, N., The Martyrs of Najrān and the end of the Ḥimyar: on the
political history of South Arabia in the early sixth century. Pages 27-59 in A.
Neuwirth, N. Dinai and M. Marx (eds), The Qurʾān in Context. Historical
and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu. (Texts and Studies on
the Qurʾān, 6). Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Robin, C.J. Sheba. 2. Dans les inscriptions d'Arabie du Sud. Cols 1047-1254
in J. Brend, E. Cothenet, H. Cazelles, A. Feuillet (eds), Supplément au
Dictionnaire de la Bible. vol. 12 (fasc. 70). Paris: Letouzey.

5. Time-line
10th century BC The earliest securely dated writing in an
indigenous script in Arabia: a document carved
on a stick in the South Arabian script, dated by
14C to between 1055 and 901 BC.
853 BC First reference to an ‘Arab’. The annals of the
Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858–824 BC)
record that ‘Gindibu the Arab’ brought 1000
camels to the alliance of kings against Assyria at
the battle of Qarqar (central Syria).
Late 9th/early 8th century BC
Yariris, the regent of the city of Carchemish (now
southern Turkey), boasts that he can read what is
probably the script of Taymāʾ (perhaps meaning
alphabets of the South Semitic script family).
8th century BC The Neo-Assyrian governor of Suḫu, on the west
bank of the Euphrates, attacks a caravan of ‘the
people of Taymāʾ and Sabaʾ ’.
738 BC Zabibe ‘Queen of the Arabs’, along with many
kings of states in the Levant, Syria and southern
Anatolia, sends tribute to the Assyrian king
Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BC).
734–716 BC The reign of Samsi ‘Queen of the Arabs’, of the
tribe of Qēdār, based at the oasis of Dūmat.
734 BC Samsi swears allegiance to Tiglath-Pileser III.
733 BC Samsi, together with the inhabitants of the oasis
of Taymāʾ, plus various Arab tribes, and possibly
with the assistance of the kingdom of Sabaʾ,
rebels against Tiglath-Pileser III, but is defeated.
The Assyrians claim that 9400 of her soldiers
14
 were killed and over 1000 taken captive along
with 30,000 camels, 20,000 sheep, and 5000
measures of all sorts of spices. Samsi is allowed
to remain queen, but an Assyrian official is
placed over her.
732–705 BC Assyrian officials in Syria write to the king at
Kalḫu (modern Nimrud) about relations with
Arabs in their provinces.
716 BC Sargon II (720–705 BC) settles Arab tribes from
North Arabia in Samaria.
c. 716 BC Samsi, together with ‘Itaʾamara the Sabaean’ and
the Pharaoh of Egypt, sends gifts to Sargon II.
703 BC Arabs living in walled towns and in villages in
western Babylonia support Merodach-Baladan II,
king of Babylon (722–710, and 702 BC), against
the Assyrians, but are defeated and Basqanu,
brother of Iatiʾe, queen of the Arabs, is captured.
Ancient North Arabian inscriptions (in the South
Semitic script) are written in Babylonian cities
probably at this period.
From the 7th century BC
Sabaean colonists begin to settle in the region of
Axum, Ethiopia.
691–689 BC Teʾelḫunu, queen of the Arabs based at Adumatu
(Dūmat) and Hazaʾel, king of Qēdār, are defeated
by Sennacherib, king of Assyria (705–681 BC).
Dūmat is captured and Teʾelḫunu is carried off to
Assyria, along with the images of the gods of the
Arabs. Tabūa, an Arab girl (possibly daughter of
Teʾelḫunu) is also carried off and is brought up at
the court of Senacherib. Hazaʾel surrenders to
Senacherib and a heavy tribute is imposed upon
him.
685 BC Karibilu (Karibʾil Watar bin Dhamarʿali), king of
Sabaʾ, sends a gift (nāmurtu) to Senacherib who
places it in the foundation of the Bīt Akītu (New
Year festival) temple.
685 BC The great inscription of Karibʾil Watar in the
temple to ʾAlmaqah at Ṣirwāḥ records his victory
over the king of Awsān and his allies as well as
the destruction of his palace and capital in Wādī
Markha. Qataban and Ḥaḍramawt form an
15
 alliance with Sabaʾ. The king of Nashshān in the
Yemeni Jawf is defeated. Najrān (north of Yemen
and a focal point on the frankincense trade-
routes) is conquered. Sabaʾ becomes the
dominant power in South Arabia. The upper
storey of the Salḥīn palace in Mārib is built.
681–676 BC Esarhaddon king of Assyria (680–669 BC)
restores the images of the gods to Dūmat and
makes Tabūa queen of the Arabs, in place of
Teʾelhunu. He confirms Hazaʾel as king of Qēdār,
imposing an extra tribute upon him. Hazaʾel dies,
and Esarhaddon confirms the succession of
Hazaʾel's son, Iautaʾ, in return for a heavy extra
annual tribute of 10 minas of gold, 1000 choice
jewels, 50 camels and 1000 bags of spices.
676–673 BC Esarhaddon suppresses a rebellion against Iautaʾ.
673–669 BC Iautaʾ rebels against Esarhaddon but is defeated
and the images of the gods are again taken from
Dūmat.
671 BC Arab tribes in Sinai help Esarhaddon's troops to
cross Sinai and to invade Egypt.
668 BC The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (688–631 BC)
returns the image of the deity ‘Atar-samain to
Iautaʾ king of Qēdār.
Before 652 BC Iautaʾ and his wife Adiya, ‘queen of the Arabs’,
attack Assyria's vassal states in Transjordan. They
are defeated and Adiya is captured. Iautaʾ takes
refuge with Natnū king of the Nabaioth (south of
Taymāʾ) but eventually gives himself up to the
Assyrians. Ashurbanipal replaces Iautaʾ as king
of Qēdār by Abiyataʾ son of Teʾri.
651–648 BC Abiyataʾ supports Shamash-shum-ukin king of
Babylon (667–648 BC) against Ashurbanipal,
who, however, defeats them in Syria.
After 646 BC Ashurbanipal attacks and defeats the Arab tribes
of Qēdār and Nabaioth in central Syria.
Mid-7th century BC The Sabaean mukarrib, Yadaʿʾil Dhariḥ, builds a
wall around the principal sanctuary of ʾAlmaqah,
the god of the Sabaean kingdom, at Mārib, and
the temple of ʾAlmaqah at Ṣirwāḥ.

16
c. 600 BC First Greek references (in Sappho) to
frankincense, using a word of Semitic origin.
6th century BC The first reference to ‘Arabs’ in South Arabia
occurs in a Minaic inscription, though it is
unclear from the context whether it is the name of
a people or a word for ‘nomads’.
599–598 BC Under Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BC), the
Babylonian army plunders Arab nomads in Syria.
552–543 BC Nabonidus, last king of Babylon (555–539 BC)
conquers 6 important oases in north-west Arabia,
including Taymāʾ and Dadan whose kings he
kills. He sets up his residence in Taymāʾ for 10
years (probably 552–543 BC).
c. 550 BC The records of an unnamed Sabaean mukkarrib,
probably Yithaʿʾamar Bayyin son of Sumuhuʿalī
Yanūf, mention a war against Qataban, a
campaign against the Minaeans and their
kingdom of Maʿīn, as well as the siege of Yathill
in the north of the Yemeni Jawf, the heartland of
the Minaeans. Towers and gates were added to
the city wall of Mārib. The northern and southern
sluices of the great dam at Mārib were built. The
rise of Qataban and Maʿīn.
540 BC A king of ‘Arabia’ (in northern Mesopotamia)
brings 100 chariots, 10,000 horsemen and a large
number of infantry armed with slings to join the
kings of Greater Phrygia, and Cappadocia in
support of Nabonidus against Cyrus the Great
(559–530 BC), who defeats them. The Arabians
and ‘Assyrians’ put up the strongest fight
‘because they were on their own land’, and are
massacred.
539–331 BC All the ‘Arabias’ known at the time are ruled by
the Achaemenid empire. But the Arabs in
southern Palestine, centred on Gaza, within the
5th satrapy, are the only people in the empire
(apart from the Colchians in the far north and the
Ethiopians in the far south) not to pay taxes, but
instead to give an annual ‘gift’ to the treasury of
1000 talents (c. 30 tonnes) of frankincense.
525 BC Arabs in Sinai assist the Persian king Cambyses
(530–522 BC) in his invasion of Egypt.

17
c. 520 BC Darius I (521–486 BC) sends Scylax of Caryanda
on a voyage of exploration from the Indus to
Egypt in which he travels along the southern
coast of the Peninsula and up the Red Sea, noting
that the Kamaran Islands (at the southern end of
the Red Sea) are inhabited by ‘Arabs’. The
information gathered by Scylax was incorporated,
rather inaccurately, in a map by the Ionian
geographer Hecataeus.
from the 5th century BC
Qatabanian dominance of South Arabia until the
second half of the 2nd century AD.
mid 5th century BC Herodotus describes ‘Arabia’ as being in eastern
Egypt between the Nile and the Red Sea.
after 445 BC ‘Geshem (Gashmū) the Arab’, probably an
official in the Arab area in southern Palestine
which was semi-autonomous under Achaemenid
rule, together with officials from other parts of
the same satrapy, clashes with Nehemiah over the
rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
410 BC Pharnabazus, Persian satrap of Hellespontine
Phrygia, sends the Phoenician fleet to support
Sparta in a war against Athens, but at a crucial
moment withdraws it ‘on receiving information
[probably false] that the king of the Arabs
[probably based at Gaza] and the king of the
Egyptians had designs upon Phoenicia.’
401 BC Xenophon encounters Arabs living in central
Mesopotamia.
c. 400 BC Maʿīn and Ḥaḍramawt become independent of
Sabaʾ.
343 BC Minaean merchants working in Egypt flee from
the invading Persians and safely reach the
Minaean capital Qarnaw, north of Mārib, in the
Yemeni Jawf.
332 BC Alexander III, the Great, (336–323 BC) attacks
Arab peasants in the Anti-Lebanon mountains
during his siege of Tyre.
332 BC Alexander attacks Gaza, which is defended by the
Persian governor with the help of many Arabs,
one of whom is said to have wounded Alexander.
18
 He then sweeps on into north-eastern Egypt
where he conquered ‘the greater part of [this]
Arabia’.
326 BC Alexander sends Nearchos on a voyage of
discovery from the mouth of the Indus to the head
of the Persian Gulf and the Greeks become aware
for the first time of the eastern coast of the
Arabian Peninsula.
325 BC Alexander sends three other naval expeditions to
try to circumnavigate the Peninsula, one of which
identified for the first time in Greek geography
that Southern Arabia was the true source of
frankincense.
312 BC The Seleucid king, Antigonus ‘the One-eyed’,
attacks the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab tribe in
southern Jordan involved in the northern end of
the incense trade.
3rd century BC The Nabataeans settle in southern Jordan,
southern Palestine and parts of the Nile Delta,
eventually expanding their kingdom to the
Ḥawrān in the north and to north-west Arabia in
the south. They develop highly sophisticated
water-conservation systems and irrigation
agriculture, as well as profiting greatly from the
trade in luxury goods from southern and eastern
Arabia.
3rd/2nd century BC The Greek geographer Eratosthenes describes the
Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains and the
Beqaʿ plain as being inhabited by Ituraeans and
Arabs, and the eastern foothills of the Anti-
Lebanon as ‘the Arabian mountains’.
218 BC In the struggle between the Seleucids and the
Ptolemies for possession of the Levant, the Arabs
of the rich agricultural land of north-west
Transjordan and the city of ‘Rabbatamana of the
Arabs’ [Biblical Rabbat Banī ʿAmmōn, modern
ʿAmmān] help the Seleucid king, Antiochus III.
3rd–1st century BC A series of queens, with the throne-name of
‘Abiel’, issue coins (imitations of Alexander the
Great's coinage) on the north-west coast of the
Persian Gulf, probably Baḥrain. Their name and
patronyms are written in Aramaic

19
2nd century BC Agatharchides of Cnidus describes the west coast
of the Arabian Peninsula.
2nd century BC A kingdom of Hagar in the north of the Peninsula
mints coins (imitations of Alexander the Great's
coinage) in the name of a king named Ḥarethat.
The name and title are written in the Ancient
South Arabian script.
168 BC At the time of the Maccabees, Jason, the
Hellenizing Jewish High Priest, flees to the
Nabataean king, Aretas I, who, however,
imprisons him.
166 BC At the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against
the Seleucid state, the Nabataeans support the
leaders of the Jewish national party (Judas
Maccabaeus 164 BC, Jonathan 160 BC).
153 BC Alexander I Balas seizes the Seleucid throne. He
sends his young son, Antiochus [VI], to be
educated by ‘Imalkoue [or Iamblikhos, or
Malkhos] the Arab’, probably in northern Syria.
145 BC Alexander Balas is deposed and seeks protection
in an ‘Arabia’ probably around Ḥimṣ in central
Syria, but the Zabadaioi Arabs there cut off his
head and send it to Ptolemy VIII of Egypt.
141–139 BC The Arab kingdom of Characene (Mesene) is
established at the head of the Persian Gulf and
lasts until AD 222.
110 BC The theoretical starting date of the Himyarite era
which was used in South Arabia sporadically
from the 2nd century AD, and universally from
the mid-4th to the mid-6th century.
before 100 BC Himyar establishes its independence from
Qataban.
1st century BC (?) The earliest text which may be in a form of the
Arabic language, a 10-line funerary stele written
in the Sabaic script is set up at Qaryat Dhāt Kahl
(modern Qaryat al-Faʾw) in central Arabia.
93 BC The Jewish leader Alexander Jannaeus attacks the
Nabataean king, Obodas I, who inflicts a crushing
defeat upon him.
87 BC The Seleucid king of Syria, Antiochus XII,
attacks the (Nabataean ?) Arabs who defeat him
20
 at the battle of Qana [= Qanawāt ?] (in southern
Syria), where Antiochus is killed.
c. 85 BC The Nabataean king Aretas III gains possession
of Coele (i.e. southern) Syria and Damascus.
83 BC Tigranes the Great, king of Armenia (died c. 55
BC), invades Syria and by 80 BC has ended the
Seleucid kingdom. He rules the north of Syria,
while the south is divided between the Ituraeans
and the Nabataeans. He moves Arab nomads into
the Amanus region (at the north-east corner of the
Mediterranean).
83–80 BC The Jewish ruler, Alexander Jannaeus, conquers
large areas of northern Transjordan from the
Nabataeans.
72 BC Tigranes takes Damascus from the Nabataeans.
69 BC Tigranes is supported by Arabs from northern
Syria and from ‘the Sea of Babylon’, i.e. the head
of the Persian Gulf, but these are defeated by the
Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus.
after 67 BC ‘Azizus the Arab’ crowns a Seleucid pretender,
Antiochus XIII, in Antioch, with the support of
Sampsigeramus, the Arab king of Arethusa and
Emesa [modern Ḥimṣ].
67-65 BC The Nabataean king, Aretas III, sides with the
Jewish ruler Hyrcanus in his struggle against his
brother Aristobulus II, defeats Aristobulus and
besieges him on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
66/65 BC Pompey’s general Afranius (died 62 BC),
followed by Pompey himself, subdues and
receives the submissions of the Arabs around
Mount Amanus, of the king of Osrhoene, of a
certain ‘Alkhaudonios, the Arab who also
attached himself to the stronger party’, and of the
Ituraeans.
65 BC Pompey’s general, Scaurus, having completed the
conquest of Syria enters Judaea, sides with
Aristobulus and forces Aretas III to withdraw.
Scaurus then withdraws to Damascus, and
Aristobulus pursues Aretas, inflicting a crushing
defeat upon him.

21
64 BC Pompey declares Syria a Roman Province and
marches on Petra, but has to divert his forces to
Judaea because of the hostility of Aristobulus.
62 BC Pompey sends Scaurus against Petra, but Aretas
buys him off. Pompey, however, boasts of the
subjugation of Aretas and mints coins celebrating
it.
47 BC The Nabataean king, Malichus I, provides Julius
Caesar with cavalry in the Alexandrian War.
46–44 BC Arabs in Syria support the insurrection against
Rome which Caecilius Bassus started in Apamea
of Syria.
40 BC The Nabataean king, Malichus I, sides with the
Parthians, led by Pacorus and the Roman defector
Labienus, when they invade Syria and Palestine,
and when the Parthians are defeated in 38 BC by
the Roman general Publius Ventidius Bassus,
Malichus is punished by the Romans with the
exaction of a large tribute.
Between 37 and 34 BC Marcus Antonius gives the children of Cleopatra
VII (51–30 BC) parts of the Judaean, Ituraean,
and Nabataean kingdoms in southern Syria, and
ends the Ituraean kingdom.
32 BC Malichus I sends troops to support Marcus
Antonius at the battle of Actium. However,
because the Nabataeans were not paying tribute
for the part of their kingdom given to Cleopatra’s
children, Marcus Antonius orders Herod the
Great to invade the kingdom. In 32/31, after
initial strong resistance from the Nabataeans,
Herod is successful.
25–24 BC The Praefectus Aegypti, Gaius Aelius Gallus
leads an expedition to Southern Arabia. The
Nabataeans provide 1000 auxiliaries and, as a
guide, Syllaeus a high-ranking politician and
close associate of the Nabataean king, who was
later accused of deliberately misleading the
expedition.
12–9/8 BC Herod the Great makes war on the Nabataeans.
9 BC Aretas IV (probably a usurper) becomes king of
Nabataea. The emperor Augustus disapproves,
but is eventually persuaded not to intervene.
22
7/6 BC A Nabataean-Sabaic bilingual inscription dated to
year 3 of the Nabataean king Aretas [IV] is set up
in the temple of ʾAlmaqah at Sirwāḥ, not far from
the Sabaean capital Mārib.
c. 5 BC Syllaeus is executed at Rome.
after 4 BC Aretas IV provides troops to Varus, the legate of
Syria, in his expedition against the Jews,
following the death of Herod the Great.
First half of the 1st century AD
Sabaʾ conquers Maʿīn.
c. AD 25 The Qatabanian capital Timnaʿ, is destroyed by
the armies of the kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt.
AD 36/37 Herod Antipas marries one of the daughters of
Aretas IV, but divorces her in order to marry
Herodias, the wife of his half-brother. This insult,
together with border disputes, leads to a war in
which Aretas defeats Herod Antipas.
c. AD 36/37 Saint Paul escapes from Damascus despite the
guards placed at the gates by the ethnarch of king
Aretas IV.
AD 40 Malichus II (Mankū, in Nabataean) succeeds
Aretas IV.
mid 1st century AD Malichus [II] the king of the Nabataeans, Karibʾil
Watar Yuhanʿim [I] king of Sabaʾ and Dhū
Raydān, and Ilʿazz Yalit king of Ḥaḍramawt are
mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea,
a maritime handbook, written in Greek, which
describes the sea-route from Egypt to India, with
details of all the ports on the way and the goods
which can be exported to them and bought at
them. It provides valuable information on the
western and southern coasts of the Arabian
Peninsula at this period.
AD 58/67 –122 The composition of six Nabataean legal papyri
which were among the documents belonging to
Jews who fled from the village/district of
Maḥôzāʾ at the south-eastern end of the Dead Sea
to a cave on its western edge during the Second
Jewish Revolt (led by Bar-Kokhba) AD 132–135.
AD 67 Malichus II provides the future Roman emperor
Vespasian with 1000 cavalry and 5000 infantry,
23
 mainly archers, when the latter is suppressing the
First Jewish Revolt.
c. AD 75 Pliny the Elder mentions Ẓafār, the capital of
Ḥimyar, and describes the length of the
frankincense route from Timnaʿ (capital of
Qataban) to Gaza on the Mediterranean.
AD 106 The Nabataean king Rabbel II dies and the
Romans annex the Nabataean kingdom naming it
Provincia Arabia, with its capital at Boṣrā, in
southern Syria.
From AD 111 The Roman emperor Trajan orders the
construction of a road, the Via Nova Traiana,
from Boṣrā to the Red Sea at Aila (modern al-
ʿAqaba).
AD 114–115 After his victory against the Parthians in
Armenia, Trajan received the submission of
Abgar VII of Edessa and the chief of the Arabs of
Singara (modern Sinjār, in the Syrian Jazīra).
AD 117 Trajan lays siege to Hatra in an area (in the Iraqi
Jazīra) called ʿArab, but fails to take it.
c. AD 120 A detachment of the Legio VI Ferrata is stationed
on the largest island in the Farasān archipelago
off the coast of Yemen, and sets up a Latin
inscription.
AD 121 A Greek document from Dura Europos on the
middle Euphrates mentions an Arabarchēs (‘ruler
of Arabs’) in that area, subject to the Parthian
King of Kings, Vologases II. Later a Greek
document of AD 133/134 and another of AD 180
are said to be written in ‘Europos at Arabia’.
Between AD 126 and130
The governor of the Province of Arabia, Sextius
Florentinus, is buried in an elaborate tomb at
Petra.
AD 132–135 The Second Jewish Revolt, into which Jews, and
possibly others, from the neighbouring Province
of Arabia are drawn. The governors of the
Provinces of Syria and Arabia are apparently
involved in its suppression since afterwards they
receive the ornamenta triumphalia.

24
AD 144 A detachment of the Legio II Traiana Fortis and
its auxiliary troops are stationed at the port on the
largest island in the Farasan archipelago off the
coast of Yemen, and set up a Latin inscription to
the emperor Antoninus Pius.
AD 163–165 Lucius Verus and Avidius Cassius wage what the
emperor Marcus Aurelius describes as ‘that
Arabian and Parthian war’ in the Jazīra between
the Tigris and Euphrates.
2nd half of the 2nd century AD
Qataban is annexed by Hadramawt.
AD 164–169 A temple, probably for the worship of the god ʾlh,
is built at Ruwāfah, a small site in north-west
Arabia, by a military unit levied from the Arab
tribe of Thamūd under the auspices of two
successive Roman governors of the Province of
Arabia (Quintus Antistius Adventus and Lucius
Claudius Modestus). It is furnished with a
dedication in Greek and Nabataean Aramaic to
the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus,
and another in Greek recording the completion of
the temple, as well as a separate inscription in
Nabataean.
AD 175–177 The ‘chief citizen’ (primus civitatis) and people
of the former Nabataean city of Ḥegrā (modern
Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, in north-west Arabia), set up a
Latin inscription dedicated to the emperor
Marcus Aurelius recording the restoration of the
city walls by the (previously unknown) governor
of the Province, Iulius Firmanus, and a centurion
of the Legio III Cyrenaica.
AD 187 While he is governor of Syria, Septimius Severus
marries Iulia Domna of the Arab priestly ruling
family of Emesa (modern Ḥimṣ, in central Syria).
She, with her sister Iulia Maesa, her niece Iulia
Mammaea, and her descendants, remain a major
force in Roman politics until AD 235.
AD 190-275 The first invasions of South Arabia by the
Abyssinians, who settle in the Tihāma, along the
Red Sea coast of Yemen, and intervene on behalf
of a succession of different parties in the wars
between the South Arabian polities.

25
AD 193 Septimius Severus becomes Roman emperor.
AD 195–204 The Province of Syria is split into two provinces
and the northern Ḥawrān is added to the Province
of Arabia.
AD 195 Septimius Severus attacks the Osrhoenians,
Adiabenians and the ‘inner’ Arabs i.e. (those of
the Jazīra, within the Roman empire). As a result,
he takes the titles Parthicus, Arabicus and
Adiabenicus.
AD 199 Septimius Severus attacks Hatra, with its many
‘Arab’ subjects, but fails to take it.
Early 3rd century AD First evidence of Christianity in Boṣrā, the capital
of the Province of Arabia.
AD 200 Septimius Severus attacks Hatra again and lays
siege to it, but again fails to take it.
AD 218–222 Elagabalus, from the ‘Arab’ city of Emesa
(modern Ḥimṣ, in central Syria) reigns as Roman
emperor.
c. AD 200 The kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt reaches the height of
its power.
First quarter of the 3rd century AD
The king of Sabaʾ, Shaʿirum Awtar, launches two
expeditions against the capital of the Arab tribe of
Kinda, Qaryat Dhāt Kahl (modern Qaryat al-
Faʾw, on the north-west edge of the Empty
Quarter). In another expedition, he conquers
Ḥaḍramawt, destroying its capital, Shabwa.
AD 224 The Sasanian dynasty overthrows the Parthians
and takes power in Iran.
AD 230–240 Origen calls two Church Councils in the Province
of Arabia.
AD 241 The Sasanian King of Kings, Shāpūr I, captures
Hatra.
AD 244 Marcus Iulius Philippus Araps (‘the Arab’), from
Shahbāʾ in the Ḥawrān (southern Syria), becomes
emperor. The soubriquet Araps refers to his
origins in the Province of Arabia.
Mid 3rd century AD A gravestone in Nabataean and Greek is set up at
Umm al-Jimāl (northern-eastern Jordan) to the
memory of Fahru son of Sulay, the tutor of
26
 Gadhīma king of the Arab tribe of Tanūkh which
had moved from Baḥrain and settled on the
Euphrates.
c. AD 250 The Sabaean king Ilsharaḥ Yaḥḍib II and his
brother Yaʾzil Bayyin campaign against the
Abyssinians in the western coastal plain, against
the city of Najrān in the north, and against the
Himyarite kings Shammar Yuhaḥmid and Karibʾil
Ayfaʿ.
AD 253–260 The Sasanian King of Kings, Shāpūr I, overruns
the whole of Roman Asia Minor, Syria (including
Arabia in the Jazīra), and the Province of Arabia,
defeating the Roman army and capturing the
emperor Valerian I in 259.
AD 262 Odainathus, king of Palmyra, expels the
Sasanians from Syria (including ‘Arabia’ in the
Jazīra) and the Province of Arabia, and invades
Mesopotamia reaching the Sasanian capital,
Ctesiphon.
AD 267 Odainathus is murdered and is succeeded by his
son Vaballatus, though the real power is wielded
by Odenathus’ widow Zenobia.
AD 269–270 Zenobia abandons the Mesopotamian conquests
and initiates the conquest of Egypt and Asia
Minor. Vaballatus declares himself emperor and
takes as one of his titles Arabicus Maximus,
probably referring to the expulsion (by his father)
of the Sasanians from the ‘Arabiaʾ in the Jazīra.
Note, however, that there is no evidence that
Odenathus, Zenobia or Vaballatus saw
themselves, or were seen by others as ‘Arabs’.
AD 272 The emperor Aurelian defeats Zenobia and takes
Palmyra.
c. AD 280 The Himyarite king Yasirum Yuhanʿim and/or his
son Shammar Yuharʿish finally conquers the
Sabaean kingdom.
AD 293 The Sasanian King of Kings, Narses (AD 293–
302), erects an inscription in Middle Persian and
Parthian at Paikuli (Kurdistan) listing the rulers
who paid homage to him, among whom is an
ʾAm[rw] Lhmʾdyn ml(ka) / ʾAmrw Lhmyšn mlka,
which is probably the earliest reference to the
27
 Arab Nasrid dynasty (of the tribal group of
Lakhm) ruling in southern Iraq.
AD 298 Peace is established between Rome and Iran
leaving the Jazīra as far east as the Tigris in the
hands of the Romans.
By AD 298 The Roman emperor Diocletian extends the
northern border of the Province of Arabia almost
to Damascus, and north-west roughly to the River
Jordan at the latitude of Tyre. At the same time,
all the territory which had belonged to Arabia
south and south-west of the Wādī al-Ḥasā (at the
latitude of the southern end of the Dead Sea), was
now included in the Province of Palaestina
Salutaris.
end of the 3rd century AD
The Himyarite king Shammar Yuharʿish conquers
Ḥaḍramawt and unites South Arabia in a single
kingdom.
By the end of the 3rd century AD
The nomadic Arab tribe of Ṭayyiʾ had moved
from northern Arabia into Mesopotamia. Its name
soon became the normal term (Ṭayyāyē) for
‘Arab nomads’ in Syriac literature.
early 4th century AD A large part of the Arab tribe of Kinda, which had
taken part in the Himyarite conquest of the
kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt, establish themselves in
the west of Wādī Ḥaḍramawt.
AD 325 The list of those attending the First Council of
Nicaea includes five bishops from the Province of
Arabia.
AD 326 The Sasanian King of Kings, Shāpūr II, launches
an attack which crosses the northern part of the
Arabian Peninsula from the oasis of al-Ḥasā [al-
Aḥsāʾ] in the north-east to Yathrib (modern al-
Madīna) in the west.
AD 328 Maraʾ al-Qays son of ʿAmrw, ‘king of all [the
country called] ʿArab’ and possibly the second
Nasrid king, is buried near a Roman fort at a
watering-place called al-Namāra in the Syrian
desert. His five-line epitaph, written in the
Arabic language using the Nabataean script,
28
 describes his achievements, including the
conquest of a number of powerful Arab tribes and
even an attack on the South Arabian city of
Najrān in the realm of king Shammar Yuharʿish,
the founder of the Himyarite empire.
c. AD 345 The Abyssinian king ʿEzānā IV converts to
Christianity.
c. AD 350 The ecclesiastical writer Philostorgios reports on
the first Christian and Jewish missionary activity
in South Arabia. Churches are built in Ẓafār and
other parts of the kingdom. From this point
onwards almost all the Ancient South Arabian
religious inscriptions are monotheist, and pagan
temples start to be abandoned.
2nd half of the 4th century AD
The first epigraphic evidence for the breaking of
the Mārib dam.
c. AD 358 The Province of Palaestina is divided into three
and the southern area formerly part of Provincia
Arabia becomes Palaestina Tertia.
AD 363 The emperor Julian (‘the Apostate’, AD 361–363)
invades the part of Mesopotamia under Iranian
control, with Saracens (nomadic Arabs) taking an
active part on both sides. According to the
rhetorician Libanius of Antioch, Julian was killed
by a Saracen.
AD 373–378 Unidentified Saracens attack and massacre
Christian hermits in the vicinity of Mount Sinai.
At the same time, other Saracens try to defend the
monastery of Rhaithou (also in Sinai) from an
attack by the Blemmyes (from the Sudan) who,
however, defeat them and massacre the monks.
However, more Saracens from Pharan (also in
Sinai) attack the Blemmyes as they return to their
ships and annihilate them.
c. AD 375–378 Mavia (Arabic Māwiya), queen of those Saracens
who had been allies of the Romans, attacks and
devastates the border regions of the Provinces of
Phoenicia, Arabia, and Palestine as far as Egypt.
She and her tribesmen are only persuaded to
withdraw on the promise that, Moses, a Christian
hermit, would be consecrated as their bishop.
29
 When this was done, he proceeds to convert
many Saracens to Christianity. Mavia marries her
daughter to Victor, the Roman Magister Equitum
of Oriens, a match requiring special dispensation
from the emperor.
AD 378 During the siege of Constantinople by the Goths,
the emperor Valens (AD 364–378) brings in
Saracen troops who terrify the Goths.
AD 383 A revolt by Saracen foederati (allies of the
Romans) is crushed by the Romans under
Theodosius I (AD 379–395).
AD 383 The king of Ḥimyar, Malkikarib Yuhanʿim, and
his sons profess monotheism. Although the deity
is described simply as ‘Lord of heaven and earth’,
it is thought that they espoused Judaism, possibly
as an expression of neutrality since Ḥimyar was
situated between Christian Ethiopia and
Zoroastrian Iran.
first third of the 5th century AD
Under the king Abikarib Asʿad, the Himyarite
kingdom reached its greatest territorial extent.
AD 421–422 The Nasrid Arab king, Mundhir I, intervenes on
the Sasanian side in Theodosius II‘s (AD 408–
450) first war against Iran, but suffers a
disastrous defeat at Nisibis.
AD 441 Saracens, probably from within the Sasanian
empire, join the Iranian attack on Nisibis in
Theodosius II’s second war with Iran.
Between AD 451 and 535
The southern frontier of the Province of Arabia is
brought further north probably to the Wādī Mujib
(between Madaba and Kerak in modern Jordan).
AD 454 Another breach of the Mārib dam is repaired by
the Himyarite king Shuraḥbiʾil Yaʿfur
Before AD 459 Large numbers of ‘Saracens’, as well as some
‘Himyarites’, come to visit St Simeon Stylites at
Telanissos (modern Dayr Simʿan, in northern
Syria) and are converted to Christianity.
!
!
30
Between AD 470 and 475
According to a tradition known only from a
Geʿez manuscript, a South Arabian Christian
priest named Azqīr was martyred at Najrān on the
orders of the Himyarite king Shuraḥbiʾīl Yakkuf.
Before AD 473 A Saracen chief called Amorkesos (Imruʾ al-
Qays?) leaves the Iranians, with whom he has
been allied, and fights other Saracens in Roman
territory on the border with the Iranian empire.
He then establishes himself on the island of
Iotabe, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba, driving
out the Roman customs officers and enriching
himself on the customs dues. Having sent, Petrus,
the bishop of his tribe, to negotiate with the
emperor Leo (AD 457–474), he is invited to
Constantinople in 473 and is showered with
honours including the title of phylarch. The
island was recovered by the Byzantines in 498.
AD 497–502 Jabala the Jafnid with Maʿdikarib and Ḥujr sons
of al-Ḥārith the Thaʿlabite raid the Roman
frontier. In 502, the emperor Anastasius (AD
491–518) concludes a treaty with them, and with
another al-Ḥārith, leader of the tribe of Kinda.
c. AD 500 Abyssinian forces, under a general called Ḥyōnaʾ,
invade South Arabia and make Marthadʾīlān
Yanūf king of Ḥimyar. Persecutions of the Jews
begin.
AD 502–506 The Nasrids and the Jafnids fight each other
within the context of the war between the
Iranians and the Byzantines.
AD 503 The Nasrids under al-Mundhir (later to be al-
Mundhir III, reigned AD 505–554) invade the
Provinces of Arabia and Palaestina Prima
reaching the monasteries of the Judaean Desert.
c. AD 519 Probably as a result of the refusal by Justin I to
renew the Byzantine ‘subsidy’ to Iran, the Nasrid,
al-Mundhir III, attacks Byzantine territory
capturing two Byzantine commanders,
Timostratus son of Silvanus and John son of
Lucas.
AD 519 The Abyssinians invade South Arabia and place
the Christian Maʿdīkarib Yaʿfur on the throne.
31
AD 521 Maʿdīkarib Yaʿfur leads an expedition into central
Arabia against the Iranians and their Arab allies.
He receives the support of the Banū Thaʿlaba
(called in the commemorative inscription, ‘the
Arabs of the Romans’) and the tribe of Muḍar.
AD 522 Following the death of Maʿdīkarib Yaʿfur, Yūsuf
Ashʿar (Dhū Nuwās), a follower of Judaism,
seizes the Himyarite throne.
AD 522–523 The Himyarite king Yūsuf attacks the South
Arabian Christians and their Abyssinian allies in
the capital Ẓafār and on the western coast. With
the help of the Arab tribe of Kinda, he besieges
Najrān, and after its surrender he massacres the
Christian inhabitants.
AD 524 (January-February) The emperor Justin I (AD
518–527) sends an emissary, Abraham father of
Nonnosus, to the Nasrid king al-Mundhir III, to
negotiate the release of the Byzantine
commanders he captured in about AD 519.
Negotiations take place at the Conference of
Ramla (south-east of al-Ḥīra, in southern
Mesopotamia), at which the participants also
receive reports of the massacre of the Christians
of Najrān.
AD 525 An Abyssinian expedition, under Kālēb Ella
Aṣbeḥa, defeats and kills Yūsuf and installs
Simyafaʿ Ashwaʿ on the throne, bringing South
Arabia under Abyssinian (and thus Christian)
control. Gregentius, bishop of Ẓafār, rebuilds the
cathedral there which had been destroyed by
Yūsuf.
c. AD 525–528 The Nasrid al-Mundhir III is expelled from his
capital al-Ḥīra, and is replaced by al-Ḥārith
(Arethas) of Kinda, who eventually gives his
daughter Hind in marriage to al-Mundhir. She
remains a devout Christian, while al-Mundhir
remains a pagan.
AD 526 A great earthquake in Syria in which 250,000
people are said to have died in Antioch alone.
AD 527 Al-Mundhir III invades the vicinity of Emesa and
Apamaea in central Syria carrying off many

32
 captives including, it is said, 400 virgins whom
he sacrificed to the goddess al-ʿUzzā.
AD 528 Following the accession of the emperor Justinian
I (AD 527) the Jafnids return to Byzantine
service and participate in a punitive expedition
against al-Mundhir III, as well as in the battle of
Thannuris (528, where the Byzantines were
defeated and Jabala the Jafnid phylarch was
killed), the suppression of the Samaritan revolt
(529), and the battle of Callinicum on the
Euphrates (531), at which al-Mundhir III was
victorious.
AD 528/529 One of the two earliest documents in the Arabic
script, a graffito at Jabal Usays, southern Syria,
records that the author, Ruqaym son of Muʿarrif
of the tribe of Aws, was sent there by the Jafnid
king al-Ḥārith (died AD 559), presumably during
the campaign against al-Mundhir III.
c. AD 530 Justinian I installs members of the tribe of Kinda
in Palestine.
AD 530/531 Justinian I (AD 527–565) sends an embassy to
Hellēstheaios, king of the Abyssinians, at Aksum,
and the latter's vassal, Esimiphaios the Christian
king of Ḥimyar, to try to forge an alliance against
the Iranians.
after AD 531 An Abyssinian, Abraha, makes himself king of
Ḥimyar, independent of the king in Aksum, and
under him and his sons, the country remains
officially Christian until AD 575.
AD 536 A massive volcanic explosion, probably that of
Rabaul near Papua New Guinea, resulted in the
Middle East in 18 months during which the sun
shone weakly for no more than 4 hours per day
and the massive loss of crops.1 Drought in the
Arabian Peninsula drives some 15,000 Saracens
into the Byzantine province of Euphratensis, after
they had been refused help by the Nasrid al-
Mundhir III.

1See Korotayev, A., Klimenko, V., and Proussakov, D., Origins of Islam: Political-anthropological
and environmental context. Acta Orientalia Academicae Scientiarum Hungaricae 52, 1999: 243–
276, at pp. 266–268.
33
AD 537/539 A ‘border dispute’ between the Nasrids and the
Jafnids ends in the second war with Iran (540–
545) of Justinian I’s reign.
AD 541 The ‘Plague of Justinian’ of plague raged
throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle
East, and South Asia and continued to ebb and
flow until the middle of the 8th century.
AD 548 Another breach of the Mārib dam. It is renovated
by Abraha
AD 552 Abraha’s fourth campaign in Central Arabia
AD 546–561 Spasmodic warfare between the Jafnids and the
Nasrids.
AD 554 The Nasrid al-Mundhir III is killed in a battle
against the Jafnid al-Ḥārith at Qinnasrīn (north
central Syria).
AD 559–560 The last dated South Arabian monumental
inscription so far discovered. [Note that the most
recent dated everyday document, on a stick, dates
to AD 522]
AD 569 The Jafnid leader al-Ḥārith dies and is succeeded
by his son al-Mundhir.
AD 569 The Nasrid king ʿAmrw son of Hind is killed by
the poet ʿAmrw son of Kulthūm.
AD 569–570 The Nasrid king Qabūs invades Jafnid territory
but is driven back and crushingly defeated by al-
Mundhir near the Nasrid capital al-Ḥīra.
AD 569/570 A Syriac letter is ‘subscribed’ by 137
Archimandrites (abbots of monasteries) who
identify themselves as coming from the Province
of Arabia.
c. AD 570 The birth of the Prophet Muḥammad in Mecca.
AD 572–575 The Jafnid al-Mundhir withdraws from Byzantine
service after Justin II (AD 565–578), on the verge
of insanity, tries to have him overthrown. The
Nasrids and the Iranians take the opportunity to
ravage the Byzantine eastern provinces.
AD 575 The Jafnid al-Mundhir restores relations with the
Byzantines and, shortly after, attacks the Nasrids.
AD 575 The Sasanians conquer South Arabia. Yemen
becomes an Iranian province.
34
c. AD 578 Al-Mundhir again defeats the Nasrids.
AD 580 Al-Mundhir travels to Constantinople where he is
crowned by the emperor Tiberius II (AD 578–
582).
AD 580/581 Al-Mundhir and a Jafnid army participate in a
Byzantine attempt to attack the Sasanian capital
Ctesiphon, under the leadership of the future
emperor Maurice. The expedition is a failure, but
al-Mundhir defeats a Nasrid army.
AD 581 Al-Mundhir is captured and taken to
Constantinople where he is held under house-
arrest until the accession of the emperor Maurice
in 582, after which he is exiled to Sicily.
AD 581–582 In anger at the treatment of al-Mundhir, his son,
al-Nuʿmān, leads a Jafnid army in rebellion
against the Byzantines, repeatedly overrunning
and plundering towns and districts in the
provinces of Syria and Arabia, and retiring to the
inner desert with the spoils. Eventually, he
overpowers and kills the dux of Boṣrā who had
refused to hand over al-Mundhir’s property in the
city. However, when the citizens produce it the
Jafnids refrain from looting the city.
AD 582 Shortly after the accession of the emperor
Maurice (AD 582–602), al-Nuʿmān travels to
Constantinople to attempt to negotiate the release
of his father, al-Mundhir. Maurice tries
unsuccessfully to make him renounce
Miaphysitism and accept the Chalcedonian
doctrine. Al-Nuʿmān refuses and leaves in anger
but is arrested on his way home and kept prisoner
in Constantinople.
End of the 6th century AD
The final bursting of the Mārib Dam and the
desertion of the oasis.
AD 602 With the accession of the emperor Phocas (AD
602–610), al-Mundhir is allowed to return home
from exile.
c. AD 602 The Nasrid king, al-Nuʿmān III is murdered on
the orders of the Iranian King of Kings, Khusraw
II Parviz, and this brings to an end Nasrid rule in
al-Ḥīra.
35
AD 604 The Arab tribe of Bakr defeats Iranian forces at
the battle of Dhū Qār.
AD 613 The Jafnid army is defeated by the Iranian army
during the Sasanian invasion of the eastern
Byzantine provinces.
AD 622 The Hijra, the Prophet Muḥammad’s emigration
from Mecca to the oasis of Yathrib (later al-
Madīna). The theoretical beginning of the
Muslim era, though it does not come into use
until AH 17 (AD 638).
AD 622/623 ‘Long-haired Saracens’ fighting for the Iranians,
probably in Armenia, are captured by the
Byzantine emperor Heraclius.
AD 628 Saracens form part of the emperor Heraclius’
army at his victory over the Iranians at Nineveh.
AD 629 The Prophet Muḥammad returns to Mecca.
AD 632 The death of the Prophet Muḥammad and the
election of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr.
AD 632 The Iranian governor of Ṣanʿāʾ, the capital of
Yemen, converts to Islam and sends troops to
augment the armies of the nascent Islamic state in
the wars of conquest, but the conversion of the
whole of Yemen takes much longer.
!
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Sections 1 and 2 by Michael Macdonald
Section 3 by Norbert Nebes (translated by Konstantin Klein)
Sections 4 and 5 by Michael Macdonald (with help from Greg Fisher)
and Norbert Nebes (translated by Konstantin Klein).
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