Sabeans
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of the ancient inhabitants of Yemen in southern Arabia. They are the people called Sheba in Gen. x. 28, xxv. 3; 3; Job vi. 19; and other passages in the prophets; and it was 164 Publishers' Photo Service A RUBBER TREE, TAPPED FOR GATHERING RUBBER, ISLAND OF TRINIDAD Enc. Vol. 8-p. 64 Publishers' Photo Service A RUBBER TREE IN CEYLON, SHOWING THE SPIRAL CUT USED IN TAPPING Underwood & Underwood Press Illustrating Service A VIEW IN THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS, RUMANIA Keystone View Company THE GREAT BELL MARKET AT THE NIZHNI NOVGOROD FAIR, RUSSIA Press Iliustrating Service TRINITY CHURCH IN THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW, RUSSIA ST. LOUIS, MO., LOOKING UP OLIVE STREET. THE FIRST INTERSECTING STREET IS BROADWAY Ewing Galloway Keystone View Company AIR VIEW OF SAN FRANCISCO, WITH THE CITY HALL IN THE FOREGROUND probably the sovereign of this people who paid the celebrated visit to Solomon. The Sabæans were a powerful and wealthy people, who from long before the days of Solomon down to the beginning of the Christian era controlled the sea and caravan traffic in gold, sweet spices, ivory, ebony, and valuable tissues that came from India and Africa and were dispatched N. to Syria . To protect and watch over this trade they had stations or colonies in northern Arabia and in Ethiopia. The capital of their country was Mariaba ( Marib), the ruins of which, including vast dams, lie N. E. of Sanaa. Their religion included the worship of the sun and moon, and a number of other deities. Their language is intermediate between Arabic and Ethiopian, but nearer akin to the former.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921, Saba was known almost entirely from the Bible and classical writers; the ruins at Marib had barely been dug. Excavation since — the American Foundation for the Study of Man at the Awwam temple (Mahram Bilqis) in 1951–52, then decades of German work at Marib — plus thousands of catalogued Old South Arabian inscriptions have given the kingdom a documented history, with securely attested rulers from about the 8th century BC and the collapse of the great dam usually placed around AD 570. No Sabaean text has ever named the queen who visited Solomon, so that identification remains a tradition rather than a finding. Collier's called the language "intermediate between Arabic and Ethiopian"; Sabaic is now classed as one of the Old South Arabian (Sayhadic) languages, a distinct branch rather than a halfway stage. The Marib landmarks were placed on UNESCO's World Heritage in Danger list in 2023 after damage in Yemen's war.
Written for this edition, 2026.