[3] The facts of this section are taken mainly from two articles by Professor Sayce in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled "Ancient Arabia" and "Results of Oriental Archæology." The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon affords one of the first glimpses into this past history. It is evident that she either was, or was supposed to be by the compiler of the Book of Kings not many centuries later, the queen of a well-known, civilized, and powerful country, which, from the description of her offerings, could hardly be other than Arabia Felix, the spice country of Southern Arabia, the Sabæa or Saba of the ancient world, though her kingdom, or commercial relations, may have extended over the opposite coast of Abyssinia and Somali-land, and probably far down the east coast of Africa. Assyrian inscriptions show that Saba was a great kingdom in the eighth century B.C., when its frontiers extended so far to the north as to bring it in contact with those of the Empire of Nineveh under Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon II. It was then an ancient kingdom, and, as the inscriptions show, had long since undergone the same transformation as Egypt and Chaldæa, from the rule of priest-kings of independent cities into an unified empire. These priest-kings were called "Makârib," or high-priests of Saba, showing that the original state must have been a theocracy, and the name Saba like Assur that of a god. But the inscriptions reveal this unexpected fact, that old as the kingdom of Saba may be, it was not the oldest in this district, but rose to power on the decay of a still older nation, whose name of Ma'in has come down to us in dim traditions under the classical form of Minæans. We are already acquainted with the names of thirty-two Minæan kings, and as comparatively few inscriptions have as yet been discovered, many more will doubtless be found. Among those known, however, are some which show that the authority of the Minæan kings was not confined to their original seat in the south, but extended over all Arabia and up to the frontiers of Syria and of Egypt. Three names of these kings have been found at Teima, the Tema of the Old Testament, on the road to Damascus and Sinai; and a votive tablet from Southern Arabia is inscribed by its authors, "in gratitude to Athtar (Istar or Astarte), for their rescue in the war between the ruler of the South and the ruler of the North, and in the conflict between Madhi and Egypt, and for their safe return to their own city of Quarnu." The authors of this inscription describe themselves as being under the Minæan King "Abi-yadá Yathi," and being "governors of Tsar and Ashur and the further bank of the river."