ABSTRACT
Whatever be their racial composition, the people of this part of Arabia have an age-long history and an ancient culture dating from centuries before Islam or Christianity, and far anterior to the times when their country was included in the classical Arabia Felix. But when it is attempted to give a historical outline of the earlier centuries, the evidence is still extremely defective. Assertions based on the slenderest original evidence have been repeated till they have assumed almost the complexion of established facts. There is the further difficulty of sifting what is historically true from what is purely legendary in the ancient traditions of the country itself. It has been remarked that modern exploration, especially the deciphering of inscriptions, has abundantly confirmed the few Biblical texts bearing on South Arabian history, and the Greek and Latin authors; but has seriously challenged the truth of Arab traditions. II
A wonderful field of study was, indeed, opened up for archreologists by the deciphering of South Arabian inscriptions, the first copies of
Pre-Islamic Kingdoms 205 which reached Europe over a century ago. These were not, however, deciphered till much later, and the discovery of additional ones continues. Several thousand of these inscribed texts, in the ancient South Arabian alphabet, related to Phrenician,l are now known, chiefly from the Yemen. Mainly votive and commemorative, they apparently fall into two principal dialectic groups, Minrean and Sabrean. But though they tell the names of many rulers of these vanished states, the chronology before the Christian era remains vague.
