Head from a Votive Statue

In antiquity, the most important people of the southern Arabian Peninsula were the Sabaeans. They settled on the southern plains late in the second or early in the first millennium B.C. By the middle of the eighth century B.C., they had gained control over the inland trade routes of southern Arabia, along which riches such as frankincense and myrrh traveled. By the fifth century B.C., they also ruled over the coastal states of the south and west. Although the rise of the kingdoms of Qataban and Himyar eclipsed Sabaean power, the rich traditions of Sabaean culture, including the carving of abstract alabaster human figures, continued.