It was also a “queen of the south,” it will be remembered, who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.  Sheba, the Saba of classical antiquity, was an important kingdom of south-western Arabia, which had grown wealthy through its trade in spicery.  From time immemorial Egypt had imported frankincense from the southern coasts of the Arabian peninsula, and the precious spices had been carried by merchants to the far north.  The caravan-road of trade ran northward to Midian and Edom, touching on the one side on the frontier of Egypt, on the other on that of Palestine.  The road and the country through which it passed were in the hands of the south Arabian kings.  Their inscriptions have been discovered at Teima, the Tema of the Old Testament, not far inland from El-Wej, and in the days of Tiglath-pileser the kings of Saba claimed rule as far as the Euphrates.  It was no strange thing, therefore, for a queen of Sheba to have heard of the power of Solomon, or to have sought alliance with so wealthy and luxurious a neighbour.  His province of Edom adjoined her own possessions; his ports on the Gulf of Aqaba were open to her merchants, and the frankincense which grew in her dominions was needed for the temple at Jerusalem.

The people of Sheba belonged to the south Arabian stock.  In both blood and language they differed considerably from the Semites of the north.  Physically they bore some resemblance to the Egyptians, and it has been suggested that the Egyptians were originally emigrants from their shores.  They lived in lofty castles, and terraced the slopes of the mountains for the purpose of cultivation, as they still do to-day.  Civilisation among them was old; it was derived, at least in part, from Babylonia, and the dynasty which reigned over Babylon in the age of Abraham was of south Arabian descent.  Some of them crossed the Red Sea and founded colonies in Africa, in the modern Abyssinia, where they built cities and introduced the culture of their former homes.  Like the Egyptians and the Babylonians, they were a literary people; their inscriptions are still scattered thickly among the ruins of their towns, written in the letters of the alphabet which is usually termed Phoenician.  But it is becoming a question whether it was not from south Arabia that Phoenicia first borrowed it, and whether it would not be more truthfully called Arabian.

The religion of southern Arabia was highly polytheistic.  Each district and tribe had its special god or gods, and the goddesses were almost as numerous as the gods.  Along with Babylonian culture had come the adoption of several Babylonian divinities;—­Sin, the Moon-god, for instance, or Atthar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan.  How far westward the worship of Sin was carried may be judged from the fact that Sinai, the sacred mountain whereon the law of Israel was promulgated, took its name from that of the old Babylonian god.