The Amran Tablets or ''ʿAmrān Tablets'' are a series of ancient bronze plaques written in the

Sabaean language Sabaic, sometimes referred to as Sabaean, was a Sayhadic language that was spoken between c. 1000 BC and the 6th century AD by the Sabaeans. It was used as a written language by some other peoples of the ancient civilization of South Arabia, inc ...

found in the town of 'Amran, Yemen. Now part of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

's ancient

Middle Eastern The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

collection, they form an important

corpus Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

of information on religious and military practices in

South Arabia South Arabia (), or Greater Yemen, is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it has also historically included Najran, Jazan, ...

between the 1st Century BC and 3rd Century AD.

Discovery

The Amran Tablets seem to have been discovered in the mid nineteenth century during the construction of a house in the town of ʿAmrān, which lies just to the north of the city of

Sana'a Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. 28 different panels were unearthed at the time (although more may have been melted down and destroyed) which were subsequently presented to the

in 1862 by Brigadier-Colonel William Coghlan and Captain Robert Playfair of the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

regiment. Coghlan had been appointed

Political Resident In the British Empire a Political Resident or Political Agent was the incumbent of an official diplomatic position involving both consular duties and liaison function. A Consul or Consul-General has largely consular functions, such as looking aft ...

and Commandment in

Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...

in 1854, 15 years after the Colony of Aden had become part of the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

Description

All the plaques were cast in bronze through the lost-wax casting process and inscribed in the Sabaean script. They probably would have been attached to the walls of a temple as

votive A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...

offerings to the gods. In the panel illustrated on this page, the inscription identifies the god Almaqah, who was the principle deity in the kingdom of

Saba Saba may refer to: Places * Saba (island), an island of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea * Sabá, a municipality in the department of Colón, Honduras * Șaba or Șaba-Târg, the Romanian name for Shabo, a village in Ukraine * Saba, ...

. The tablet records that it was dedicated in the name of Riyan and his brothers, the grandsons of Marthad from the tribe of Dhu Amran. The top of the plaque shows a pair of sphinxes flanking a lotus blossom and framed by two date palms. At the bottom of the plaque are floral patterns including two rosettes. Other plaques in the series highlight the uneasy relationship between the rival kingdoms of

and the Arabs of the Jawf. The text of the panels refers to a number of military conflicts and battles that raged between them, which were often about controlling the trade of

frankincense Frankincense, also known as olibanum (), is an Aroma compound, aromatic resin used in incense and perfumes, obtained from trees of the genus ''Boswellia'' in the family (biology), family Burseraceae. The word is from Old French ('high-quality in ...

and

myrrh Myrrh (; from an unidentified ancient Semitic language, see '' § Etymology'') is a gum-resin extracted from a few small, thorny tree species of the '' Commiphora'' genus, belonging to the Burseraceae family. Myrrh resin has been used ...

, two

aromatic In organic chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property describing the way in which a conjugated system, conjugated ring of unsaturated bonds, lone pairs, or empty orbitals exhibits a stabilization stronger than would be expected from conjugati ...

products exclusive to the region of South Arabia that generated considerable wealth for the local population.

References

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Discovery

Description

References

Further reading