iv. Trade and Commerce. — The chief import- ance of A. to the ancients lay in its exports, of which the most renowned was incense, a gum obtaaied from a certain tree by incisions made in the bark. The countiy where this product is culti- vated is a narrow strip of the S. coast from about 53-55° long. E. of Greenwich, its headquarters being the ancient city of Dafar (probably the teo of Gn 10*'). After doubts had been cast even on the possibility of A. producing incense (see the excursus on this in Ritter, Erdkunae von Arabien), this region was visited by Mr. Theodore Bent in 1895, who described the industry in the Nineteenth Century for Oct. of that year. It is uncertain whether its cidtivation ever extended over a much greater area th.in now.
Sprenger (Geoff, p. 299) regards the incense country as ' the heart of the commerce of the ancient world,' owing to the vast amount of it required for religious rites, and terms the Arabs, or, more nearly, the inhabitants of the incense country, ' the founders of commerce as it existed in the ancient world.' It is perhaps noteworthy that the verb 'Arab' and its derivatives are used in Heb. to signify 'commerce.' The incense traffic of A. is alluded to by all the ancient \vTiters who speak of that country, and it formed the basis of the proverbial wealtli of the Sabajans, who regu- lated it with the utmost precision and severity (see Sprenger, I.e. pp. 2ti9-303). Reference is made to this in tlie lonis classicus for ancient commerce, Ezk 27^. Other scents and spices are also men- tioned as Arabian exports ; but we notice as interest- ing the observation of Glaser (I.e. p. 426), that the particular spices mentioned in Ezk 27" as exported from a place we have grounds for locating in South A. do not really grow there. Almost as famous as the incense was the Arabian gold. The gold used by Solomon for gilding the temple is stated (2 Ch 3') to have come from Parvvaim, which is plausibly
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identitied by Glaser (I.e. 347) with Sak-el-Fanvain, a place mentioned by the Arabian geo^apher Hanidani, who has preserved many notices of gold mines at one time worked in Central A. (see Spren^'er, pp. 49-03, and Glaser, p. 347 U'.). And since in On 10^ 0|>liir, which by the time of the composition of the lik of Job has become a sj'nonym for gold, is called a son of Joktan, various scholars have attempted to localise that famous gold-pro- ducing region somewhere in Arabia ; and there are still more forcible reasons for placing there the land of Havilah, ' where is gold, and the gold of that land is };ood' (On 2"), which Glaser has en- deavoured to identify with the province Yemamah. Precious stones, as well as gold and spices, were brought by the S. Arabian queen to Solomon ( 1 K 10') ; and these are mentioned by Ezk (27^^) as the merchandise of Saba. The exportation of iron from Uzal, if that be the right reading, and if the tradition which identities Uzal with Sana be cor- rect (Ezk 27'"), would agree with the fact that the steel of Sana is still in high repute ; moreover, Mr. Doughty found [daces in Central A. where iron might be worked with profit. In the same passage of Ezk, Ked.'ir and North A. are made to deal in cattle, anil Dedan in horse-cloths. There is further mention in 27**, if the text be correct, of embroidered textures 'in well-.secured chests' from Eden (and perhaps other S. Arabian ports). This would correspond with the high state of civilisation which from the inscriptions we know the S. Arabians at early times to have attained. Sprenger, ZDMG xlii. 332, states that before the time of Islam leather was the chief export of Arabia.
U. S. Margoliouth. ARABIAN. — This word is used in ditl'erent senses. 1. In Is 13-" and Jer 3' it stands for ' an inhabitant of the desert or steppe ' (Heb. ■;•!;,■ from 'i^TH), with- out any indication of nationality.
2. In the pre-exilic a\ilhors we read occa- sionally of a tribe called collectively 2-ff, ren- dered in the EV 'Arabia' (1 K 10'», Jer 25-\ Ezk 27")- As the consonants of this word are the same as those of the word rendered 'mingled people' (Jer 25'" etc.), and also of the word rendered ' evening,' it is not always certain which should be read. Thus in Is 21" the word rendered in EV 'Arabia' should more probably be tr. 'evening'; while in 2 Ch O" the punctuation which signifies A. is substituted for the ' mixed trilies' intended by the punctuators of 1 K 10". These ' Arabians ' are also mentioned in the Assjt. inscriptions (see Akabia), where the name of one of their kings is given. Herodotus (iii. 5) also speaks of an Arabian king through whose territories the I'ers. king Canibyses had to obtain a pass before he could cross the desert to Egypt ; and the same historian gives us the name of a port on the Mediterranean Delonging to the Arabs, of which the name (lenysus) can be easily interpreted from the Arabic (cf. anisn), but of the existence of which we possess no other notice. The Arabian territory, according to this author, was wedged in between lands belonging to the 'Syrians.' In the Bible this tribe is connected with t)cdan and Kedar, and is probably therefore to be located in N. Arabia ; the fact that it had a king makes it probable that it possessed some fixed habitations or towns, since that word is ordinarily associated with a royal residence. The etj'mology of the name, like most names of nations, is hidden in obscurity.