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Author: Nadia Durrani
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 192
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSociety for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 4 Series editors D. Kennett & St J. Simpson
Author: G. Rex Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-05-15
Total Pages: 494
ISBN-13: 1317186303
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the first English translation of the Tarikh al-Mustabsir, written in the early quarter of the thirteenth century by Ibn al-Mujawir. The text is a fascinating account of the western and southern areas of the Arabian Peninsula by a man from the east of the Islamic world, probably from Khurasan in Iran. Ibn al-Mujawir was a man who in all probability followed the age-old Islamic practice of making the pilgrimage to Mecca and thereafter travelling in the area to further his business interests. His route began in Mecca and essentially ran south through the Red Sea coastal plain, Tihamah, down into the Yemen and along the southern coast of the peninsula. He paused long in Aden, where he observed closely the activities of the port to report at some length on its administration, its taxes, its markets, its currency, its weights and measures, and the like. His route then continued along the southern coast of Arabia into the Gulf, and he presumably returned home to the east via Iraq. The author is a wonderful observer of people: their buildings, their dress, their customs, their agriculture, their food and their history. This book is a unique source for the social and economic history of thirteenth-century south Arabia, written with a humour and wit otherwise unknown in the writings of medieval Islam. The text is of major linguistic importance too, written as it is in a far from classical Arabic. This translation is fully annotated with an introduction, appendices, glossary and full index, and contains maps and illustrations.
Author: Michael D. Petraglia
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2009-11-27
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13: 904812719X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe romantic landscapes and exotic cultures of Arabia have long captured the int- ests of both academics and the general public alike. The wide array and incredible variety of environments found across the Arabian peninsula are truly dramatic; tro- cal coastal plains are found bordering up against barren sandy deserts, high mountain plateaus are deeply incised by ancient river courses. As the birthplace of Islam, the recent history of the region is well documented and thoroughly studied. However, legendary explorers such as T.E. Lawrence, Wilfred Thesiger, and St. John Philby discovered hints of a much deeper past during their travels across the subcontinent. Drawn to Arabia by the magnifcent solitude of its vast sand seas, these intrepid adventurers learned from the Bedouin how to penetrate its deserts and returned with stirring accounts of lost civilizations among the wind-swept dunes. We now know that, prior to recorded history, Arabia housed countless peoples living a variety of lifestyles, including some of the world’s earliest pastoralists, c- munities of incipient farmers, fshermen dubbed the “Ichthyophagi” by ancient Greek geographers, and Paleolithic big-game hunters who were among the frst humans to depart their ancestral homeland in Africa. In fact, some archaeological investigations indicate that Arabia was inhabited by early hominins extending far back into the Early Pleistocene, perhaps even into the Late Pliocene.
Author: Alessandra Avanzini
Publisher: L'Erma di Bretschneider
Published: 2016
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9788891311108
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn our collective memory there still lies the Queen of Sheba, her journey to Jerusalem to meet the wise King Salomon, or the Arabia Felix with its fame associated in the classical world with frankincense and other precious aromas. Nevertheless the history of the Arabia Felix, the country of the Queen of Sheba, is not well known to a wider public. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, in south-western Arabia, in the region that today corresponds to the Republic of Yemen, some kingdoms were formed. Their history deserves to be better known. Its desert and ocean protected Arabia Felix from the invasions of hostile armies. Its inhabitants did not remain isolated on their mountains and in their valleys. Their caravans crossed the desert, their ports hosted foreign ships, they had commercial and cultural contacts, by land and by sea, with the whole world. The history of this culture was very long; from the 8th century BC to the 6th century AD: from the Assyrian expansion into the Levant to the Roman empire, from the expedition only planned before his death by Alexander the Great to the failed expedition of Augustus, from Hellenism to the wars between Byzantium and the Persia, and from polytheism to Judaism and Christianity. The events, the characters, the history of art, together with the beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of South Arabia, will be recounted in this book starting from direct written sources: the wealthy corpus of ancient South Arabian epigraphic public texts.
Author: Jean-François Breton
Publisher:
Published: 2020-12
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780268201739
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSheba, or Saba, is a region of high mountains and vast deserts situated in the southwest of the Arabian peninsula, in what is known today as Yemen. The mysteries and riches of Sheba and its people enticed the likes of Alexander the Great, the Emperor Augustus, and the kings of Ethiopia and Byzantium. From the 8th century to the 1st century BC, the kingdom of Sheba dominated other realms in Southern Arabia, imposing its language, institutions and artistic forms throughout the region. This book provides a detailed synthesis of this remote civilization, the uniqueness of the region's geography and climate, and the major events that shaped its history. It offers valuable insights into the Sabeans' daily life, their customs and religion, their relations with neighbouring civilizations, and their modes of commerce.
Author: Michel Mouton
Publisher: L'Erma Di Bretschneider
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9788891306807
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHistorically, Ancient Arabia has been pictured as a vast, empty desert. Yet, for the last 40 years, by digging buried cities out of the sand, archaeological research has challenged this image. From the second half of the 1st millennium BC to the eve of Islam in East Arabia, and as early as the 8th century BC in South Arabia, the settlement process evolved into urban societies. This study aims at reviewing this process in South and East Arabia, highlighting the environmental constraints, the geographical disparities and the responses of the human communities to ensure their subsistence and to provide for their needs. Evolution was endogenous, far from the main corridors of migrations and invasions. Influences from the periphery did not cause any prominent change in the remarkably stable communities of inner Arabia in antiquity. The settlement process and the way of life was primarily dictated by access to water sources and to the elaboration of ever-spreading irrigation systems. Beyond common traits, two models characterise the ancient settlement pattern on the arid margins of eastern and southern Arabia. In South Arabia, the settlement model for the lowland valleys and highland plateaus results from a long-term evolution of communities whose territorial roots go back to the Bronze Age. It grew out of major communal works to harness water. Into a territory of irrigated farmland, the south-Arabian town appeared as a central place. Settlements constituted networks spread across the valleys and the plateaus. Each network was dominated by a main town, the centre of a sedentary tribe, the capital of a kingdom. In East Arabia, the settlement pattern followed a different model which emerged in the last centuries BC along the routes crossing the empty spaces of the steppe, in a nomadic environment. Each community spread over no more than one, two or three settlements. These settlements never grew very large and the region was not urbanised to the same degree as in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula. Permanent settlements were places for exchanges and meetings, for craft productions, for worship, where the political elites resided, where the wealth from long-distance trading was gathered, and where surplus from the regional economy was held. Each town was isolated, like an island in an empty space.
Author: George Hatke
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published: 2019-06
Total Pages: 326
ISBN-13: 9781527530553
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSouth Arabia, an area encompassing all of today's Yemen and neighboring regions in Saudi Arabia and Oman, is one of the least-known parts of the Near East. However, it is primarily due to its remoteness, coupled with the difficulty of access, that South Arabia remains under-researched, for this region was, in fact, very important during pre-Islamic times. By virtue of its location at the crossroads of caravan and maritime routes, pre-Islamic South Arabia linked the Near East with Africa and the Mediterranean with India. The region is also unique in that it has a written history extending as far back as the early first millennium BCE a far longer history, indeed, than any other part of the Arabian Peninsula. The papers collected in this volume make a number of important contributions to the study of the history and languages of ancient South Arabia, as well as the history of the modern study of South Arabia's past, which will be of interest to scholars and laypeople alike.
Author: André Gingrich
Publisher:
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9783700176039
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSouthwest Arabia across History honors the legacy of Walter Dostal as one of Continental Europe's most eminent scholars in these fields, by offering innovative contributions in the interdisciplinary fields of South Arabian studies. These texts are presented by experts in pre-Islamic epigraphy and archeology, regional geography and Islamic historical studies, as well as contemporary history and socio-cultural anthropology. They discuss central riddles and key issues in South Arabian studies, such as interrelations between texts and contexts, environment and economy, water management and law, conflict and mediation for peace, or tribalism and state constellations. Beyond its relevance for regional historical and contemporary expertise, this volume also represents a lively and fresh contribution to methods and practices of interdisciplinarity in the humanities and the social sciences.
