Qatabanian jars in the port of Sumhuram: notes on the trade by sea in South Arabia

Very little information regarding sea-trade is present within the corpus of Ancient South Arabian inscriptions. Sources do not mention it, but as sea-trade grew stronger than land trade, it changed the balance that characterized this area for centuries. The political and cultural centre moved from the area along the desert to the southern plateau. There are no references regarding sea-trade in the Qatabanian documentation, where we cannot fi nd any noun relating to ships and not even the word for “sea”. However, in my opinion, this fact does not at all mean that the Qatabanians were not protagonists on this scene. Since the beginning of the Qatabanian history, the coastal zone has represented an area of economic and political interest; in the very long title of the mukarrib of Qatabān several areas along the coast of the Indian ocean are present. At Sumhuram today we have evidence demonstrating the involvement of Qatabanians in sea contacts. Fragments of a jar produced in Timnaʿ have been discovered in the port. The Qatabanian jar, in an archaeological context that can be dated to the reconstruction of the city, during the reign of Yashhurʾīl, suggests a date for the contact by sea between Qatabān and the Hadrami port in the second half of the 1st century BC.