The people who call themselves Saba' (biblical Sheba)" are both the earliest and the most abundantly attested in the surviving written records of Arabia.

The Sabaeans are a Semitic people who, at an unknown date, had entered southern Arabia from the north, imposing their Semitic culture on an aboriginal population.

Excavations in central Yemen suggest that the Sabaean civilization began as early as the tenth century BCE. (The Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon's court at the head of a camel caravan bearing gold, jewels, and spices in the Biblical account of his reign.)

Camels were evidently not in regular use as pack animals in caravans until the seventh century, but the story does provide evidence for the existence of important commercial relations between ancient Israel and Arabia.)

The Sabaean Kingdom establishes power in the early first millennium BCE.

Controlling a vital southern terminus for trade routes originating as far north as Mesopotamia, the Sabaeans trade with nations in the northern zones of Arabia, Canaan, and Syria.