Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

730 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
The Mineo-Sabean writing was derived from the same
alphabet as that of Canaan (the so-called Phenician, the oldest
monument dating from about iooo b. a). Since ac-
the Phenicians (compare Herod-
cording to native tradition
otus) came from East Arabia, we have another reason for
believing that this original alphabet of all the western Semitic
forms of writing (Phenician, Canaanean, and Aramaic
on the one hand, the South Arabian on the other) originated
in the country of Magan (= Ma'an), not later than
in the first half of the second millennium before Christ. In
palaeography the Minean royal inscriptions are most closely
related to the oldest Sabean — as is quite natural, since the
Minean kingdom, according to the Sirwah inscription (discovered
bv Glaser, but still unedited), was indeed finally
conquered bv the priest-kings of Saba (Sheba) not later
than about 550 b. c. The inscriptions of the " kings" of
Saba (Sheba) exhibit letters of a somewhat later form.
Moreover, the alphabet of the Christian Abessinians (the socalled
Ethiopians), the oldest forms of which are found in
inscriptions of the fourth centurv of our era, is derived from
the South Arabian, or rather from a variety of it, that must
have been used in the southern and western parts of Hadhramot.
Its origin in this region, in which the so-called
Mahra dialect is now spoken, is indicated by the linguistic
relation of the Ethiopic in phonology and morphology as
well as in vocabularv. From this quarter the ancestors of
the Semitic Abessinians, perhaps even before the time of
Christ, emigrated to Habesh.
The most important facts concerning the discovery ot the
South Arabian inscriptions have been given in Part I. (Exploring
Expeditions). Arnaud, Halevy, Euting, 1 and
above all, Eduard Glaser, are the men who procured most
of the inscriptions proving at the same time the most inter-
1
Contributed only few inscriptions, but the more important because they
came from El-'Ola in Northwest Arabia.