Kingdom of Saba

Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom in the highlands of what is now Yemen, centred on Marib and Sirwah and generally counted among the oldest states of the peninsula. Its beginnings are placed between about 1000 and 800 BC, and for much of the first millennium BC its people, the Sabaeans, were practically identical with the kingdom itself. In the early period the ruler bore the title mukarrib, a priest-king who claimed supremacy over the other South Arabian peoples; later the monarchy took the title king, and the realm entered a long decline as the neighbouring kingdoms of Ma'in, Qataban and Hadhramaut grew stronger. Sabaean wealth came from the incense trade: caravans carried frankincense and myrrh north along the desert routes to the Mediterranean, and the great dam at Marib, repaired over centuries, supported intensive agriculture in an arid valley. The kingdom revived between the first and third centuries AD, when a second capital was founded at Sanaa, but around 275 it was finally annexed by Himyar, ending the Sabaean state. Its language, Sabaic, and its monuments, above all the dam and the temples of Marib, left a deep mark on later Yemeni identity.