The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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| 51 established themselves in what is today the Yemen, some in succession to others, some contemporaneously. The first people to make their mark seem to have been the Minaeans, with their capital at Ma'in, whose king lists probably go back to the thirteenth century BC,(1) followed by the Sabaeans who, in the eighth century BC, coming from the north of the Arabian peninsula, settled around their capital at Marib to the east of present-day Sanaa. The Sabaeans are mentioned in the Book of Job (1:15) in the context of nomads who add to his afflictions, and it was from their country that the Queen of Sheba has been supposed to have originated - notwithstanding the chronological disparity, since Solomon lived several centuries earlier than they attained any significance. Another country in this area, the independent kingdom of Qataban (Joktan of the genealogy of Noah mentioned in Genesis), was roughly contemporary with Saba. Subsequently, at a period approaching the Christian era, arose the kingdom of the Himyarites. The Sabaeans have left behind a rich legacy of archaeological and palaeographic material and doubtless much still remains to be excavated. They established colonies on the western side of the Red Sea and, from about 450 to nearly 300 BC, when the settlements came to an end, Sabaean culture had a marked influence on Axumite civilisation, but the notion, propagated by Conti Rossini and others, that Abyssinian history virtually began with these south Arabian colonies is now being strongly challenged. So, too, is the theory that the ancient Ethiopic language, Ge' ez, owes its origin to the Sabaean tongue and that the migration of a so-called Habashi tribe from Arabia formed the nucleus of the Abyssinian people. A. K. Irvine has pointed out that there is no evidence either for the existence of such a tribe in Arabia or 'for all that has been attributed to it'. (2) The states of south-west Arabia owed their prosperity chiefly to two factors. They occupied the fertile highlands watered by the monsoon rains and they lay athwart the land routes which carried the highly profitable trade in frankincense from the Hadhramaut to all parts of the Roman world. Thus the land not only acquired the name of Arabia Felix but also attracted the envious attention of the Roman authorities. In 24 BC, a year before the sack of Napata, Emperor Augustus dispatched an expedition from Egypt under Aelius Gallus to conquer the land of the Sabaeans. (1) F. Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia, p. 6. |