Some Recent Views on the Public Institutions of Saba (Ancient South Arabia)

Abstract

A G Lundin has recently shorn that in the first centuries of the Christian era, the office of eponymous kabir of Saba was held by the respective hereditary representative of three clans, each of which belonged to a great Sabaean tribe. The eponymate lasted probably 7 years, so that every 21 years the office returned to the same clan, where it was held by the son of the preceding eponym. According to the much older ‘List of the eponyms of the tribe Khalil’, there was a similar system of rotation within each of these clans for the fulfilment of the kabirate of this tribe; A similar hierarchy within the tribal groups appears at another level. Three tribes, apparently those within which a certain clan held the office of eponymous kabir of Saba, had a privileged representation in the supreme legislative body, the ‘council’ (mswd) of Saba, where the king sat along with six tribal groups, representing the whole nation. A hierarchy of the gods corresponded to that of the tribes: the privileged tribes worshipped ‘Athtar (the masculine Venus-god), the others, ‘Athtar and Almaqah (the hypostasis of the moon-god, which served as the national god of Saba).