Halévy and Glaser in the homes of its neighbors, the Minaeans and Sabaeans.
During the 2d and 1st centuries B. C., the greater part of the Incense-Land was held by the Incense-People, the Aethiopians or Habashat. Pressure by the Parthians on the East forced an alliance, of which Glaser found the record at Marib, between the Habashat, Hadramaut and Saba on one hand, against Himyar and Raidan on the other. This was not far from 50 B. C. Soon afterwards we find the Habashat gone into their African outposts, and Marib ruled by “ Kings of Saba and Raidan;” while after a couple of generations more the Periplus shows us a Homerite king who rules also over Saba and Raidan and the East African coast; and a king of the Hadramaut whose title is expanded to “ King of the Frankincense Country,” and whose rule extends over the islands of Kuria Muria, Socotra and Masira, all former dependencies of the Habashat.
By the 4th century A. D. the kings at Zafar had absorbed the whole, being known as “ Kings of Saba, Raidan, Hadramaut and Yemen;” while the Abyssinian kings, who regained a foothold in Arabia during that century, were known as “ Kings of Axum, Himyar, Raidan, Habashat, Saba,” etc.
The name “ Hadramaut,” the Hazarmaveth of Genesis X, means “ Enclosure of Death,” referring probably to the crater of Bir Barhut, whose rumblings were held to be the groans of lost souls (W. Robertson Smith: Religion of the Semites, p. 134, and authorities there quoted).
(See Wellsted: Narrative of a Journey to the Ruins of Nakeb el Hajar, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, VII, 20; H. von Maltzan: Reisen in Arabien, Braunschweig, 1873; L. W. C. Van den Berg: Le Hadramaut et les Colonies Arabes dans l'Archipel Indien, Batavia, 1886; J. Theodore Bent: The Hadramaut, a Journey, Nineteenth Century, 1894; Expedition to the Hadramaut, Geographical Journal, IV, 313; L. Hirsch: Reisen in Süd-Arabien, Mahra-Land und Hadhramut, Leiden, 1897; the works already cited of Glaser, Hommel, Weber, Hogarth, and Zwemer; and the Austrian Expedition Reports.)
27. Sabbatha.—The native name of this capital of the Chatramotitae was Shabwa. It lies in the Wadi Rakhiya, some distance above the Wadi Hadramaut, and about 60 miles west of the present capital, Shibam. According to Bent (Geographical Journal, IV, 413; 1894) it is now deserted, save for a few Beduins, who work the salt mines in the vicinity; while the natives are now all in the lower Hadramaut valley.
