Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/590

* MINJEANS. 530 MINJEANS. of JIa'in. Among classical writers, Eratosthenes (e.27o-195 B.u.), Agatliarcliides (c.120 B.C.), Strabo (died c.:i4 A.u.), i'liiiy (a.d. 23-70), the I'criidus Maris Eiythnn (C.5G-57 a.d.), and Ptolemy (second century a.d.), speak of the iliu- aans as one of many peoples in Southwest Arabia, but have no knowledge concerning the earlier his- tory of this nation. The fact that there was an extensive and flourishing Mina-an kingdom in Arabia is known only through the native inscrip- tions. These have been secured chiclly throiigli the personal efforts of IIale-y, Doughty, Eutiiig, and tila.scr. JIany of these inscriptions still r<'main unpublished. Most of them are very brief and are readily interpreted, but a few of the longer ones present considerable difficult}'. As to the period from which these inscriptions come there was practical unanimity among scholars until 1889. It seemed impossible that they could be older than the carlist Salwean inscriptions (see Sab.eans), and it was supposed that the Jlin- aeau and Sal):i'an kingdoms flourished side by side. Such eminent .scholars as D. H. Miillcr, ilordtmann, Hartmann, and Eduard Meyer still adhere to this view, granting that some may be as old as the sixth century B.C., but maintaining that the bulk of them were written nearer the era that begins in B.C. 115. They point out that while the earlier inscriptions of the Sabsean officials known as miikiirrib are written boustro- phednn, there is no Minncan inscription tlius running both ways; that in the famous inscrip- tion. ITalcvy 5.3.. there seems to be a reference to the Mcdes which woiild place it in the sixth ccnluiT; -that Eratosthenes apparently knows of Minaan kings reigning at Kama, and that the name Ptolemy occurs in a Minoean inscription on an Egyptian sarcophagus. Glascr, however, in 18S9, presented strong reasons for believing that the Miuican kingdom ])rcccded the Salxean: and Hommel, Winckler, Schmidt, Dcrenbourg, Margoliouth, and Weber have .advanced argu- ments in favor of his position. The silence of the Sabiean inscriptions concerning a Mina;an king- dom would be verv' strange, if these nations were for a long time powerful rivals; and the casual references to Sheba in Mina'an inscriptions do not seem to harmonize with the position of this power in the centuries preceding B.C. 11.5. Tliat the Assyrians make no mention of Ma'tit. while they are frequently occuiiicd with Sheba, ap- parently in<licates the decline of the former and the rising im|iortance of the latter. In its most flourishing period the Minsean kingdom extended far to the north, as is evident not only from the inscriptions foiuid at Kl-dela, Init also from the mention of the Ma'inu Muzran in Halevy 5.'}5. So extensive a kingdom with its centre in the South Arabian .Tauf. where its great cities Ma'in. Karnawu. and Vatbil were, can scarcely have existed side by side with a strong Saba?an kingdom with the neighboring ilarib for its cajiital. A long inscri|)tion found at Sirwah, nn fortunately not yet publislied. according to rom)ietent testimony, descrilws the destruction of the Mina-an kingdom by a Sabn-an makrib about B.C. .5.50. Sargon's (ii.c. 721-70.5) contem- porary Itamar is not yet designated as king. As Miiller has clearly proved that the mtiknrrib preceded the kings of Shelm. the inference seems necessary that the Minaau kingdom flourished before the SabiFan muknrrib period and fell before the rise of the Sab.xan kingdom. The Mimean system of writing shows in many re- spects a closer allinity to the earlier rather Hum the later Sab;can script; and the oldest Sabiean inscriptions indicate a long period of develop- ment of the South Arabian system of writing. Hence the fact that the earliest Sabaean in- scriptions are written boustrophedon does not show that this script has been recently introduced. A comparison of the language clearly manifests the higher age of the Mi- na^an which has preserved the s in the causa- tive and in the pronominal sulli.xes against the /t in the Sabaean. The idenlilication of the iladbay as Jle<les is extremely doubtful. That the Minaans continued to exist as a people long after their power in Arabia had passed to others is evident from the Greek writers. Whether Eratosthenes drew upon older sources accessible to him in Alexandria, was imperfectly informed, or actually knew of petty kings reigning in Karn.a in his day, no scholar would seriously maintain that the power rcllected in the ilina-an inscri]]tions could have been exercised from Kama in the third century B.C. If the sarcoph- agus inscription is really Miniuan rather than Hadramautian and Talmilli is Plolemy, its con- tent shows not more clearly the survival of ancient forms, along with some very late ones, among the Jlinieans of the period than the ab- sence of any important ilinawn kingdom at that time. It therefore seems exceedingly pr(jl)able that the twenty-si.x kinj's of Ma'in known from the inscriptions reigned before there was any Saba^an king in Marib. As it is scarcely credi- ble that diance should have given us the name of all iliniean kings or that the twenty-six names represent an unbroken succession, it would 1)8 hazardous to infer that the earliest of them cannot hae reigned more than four or five cen- turies before the last. There may have been more than one dynasty. As among the Saba-ans, so in the kingdom of Ma'in each year seems to have been named after two mukarrib or high officials, like the liiiimi in Assyria, the archons in Athens, the ephors in Sparta, or the consuls in Rome. The absolute age of the Mimcan king- dom cannot be determined. The early occurrence of numerous place-names in Southern Syria and Xorthwestem Arabia which seem to have been transferred from Yemen, the raids of Minirans upon Palestine in the period of the Judges, and the essentially YeUK'nile character of the traili- tions brought liy elans afterwards forming a part of the people of Israel, from the North Araliian Muzri (see Plagies op EfiYPT) to Canaan, ren- der it-probable that kings of Mn'in extendeil their power to the borders of Palestine as early as the thirteenth century B.C. The Mina-ans were to a large extent a settled people living in cities, cul- tivating the soil, worshiping in sanctuaries. Their chief gods were a male deity. Athtar (see IsiiiAl!). the solar goddess Shamsi. Wadd. and Ankarih. They had priests and priestesses, hiero- dulcs and sacred prostitutes, a .sacrificial cult, and many rules of tjihoo. A deeper religious sense is apparent than in the period of skepticism and syncretism preceding Mohanuued. The language of the Mina-ans is only dia- lectically difTerent from the Kntabanian, Ilailra- mautian, and Sabiean, and is closely akin to the iUliiupIc and the classical Arabic. As to the origin of the .system of writing used by the South Arabian peoples, it is supposed by Halgvy