The Sabaeans, like the other Yemenite kingdoms of their time, were involved in the extremely lucrative spice trade, especially including frankincense and myrrh.

While the story is of debatable historicity, knowledge of the Sabaeans as merchant peoples indicates that some level of trade between the regions was underway in this time.

After the campaigns of Alexander the Great, South Arabia became a hub of trade routes linking the broader geopolitical realm with India.

There is some debate as to the degree to which the movement out of the formative phase was channeled by endogenous processes, or the transfer or technologies from other centers, perhaps via trade and immigration.

Very early, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, the political leaders of this tribal community managed to create a huge commonwealth of shaʿbs occupying most of South Arabian territory and took on the title "Mukarrib of the Sabaeans".

In particular, the great conquests of Karib'il Watar extended their territory to Najran in the north, the Gulf of Aden in the southwest, and eastward from that point along the coast until the western foothills of the Hadhramaut plateau.

Saba reigned supreme over South Arabia, and Karib'il established diplomatic contacts with the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib.

[35] After the 6th century BCE, Saba was unable to maintain its supremacy over South Arabia in the face of the expanding adjacent powers of Qataban and Hadhramaut militarily, and Ma'in economically, leading it contract back to its core territory around Marib and Sirwah.

While Karib'il established hegemony over the Jawf, his immediate successors only consolidated their power over some of its former city-states (including Nashq and Manhayat) whereas others (like Yathill and the towns of Wadhi Raghwan) were absorbed into Ma'in.

The Romans then attempted to conquer Saba around 26/25 BCE with an army sent out under the command of the governor Aelius Gallus, setting Marib to siege.

However, after conquering Egypt, the overland trade network was redirected to maritime routes, with an intermediary port chosen with Bir Ali (then called Qani).

[41] The most significant change with the earlier Sabaean period is that local power dynamics had shifted from the oasis cities on the desert margin, like Marib, to the highland tribes.

Saba inaugurated a new coinage and the remarkable Ghumdan Palace was built at Sanaa which, in this period, had its status elevated to that of a secondary capital next to Marib.

Sabaean populations migrated to maintain the new polity, and link it with the mother country, including through managing trade between the two (ivory might have especially been a driver of the expansion).

The exact timing of the collapse of Di'amat is not known: it happened around the mid-1st millennium BCE and involved a destruction of Yeha along with a number of adjacent sites.

The city lies 135 km east of Sanaa, which is the capital of Yemen today, found in the Wadi Dana delta, in the northwestern central Yemeni highlands.

The oasis is about 10,000 hectares and the course of the wadi divides it into two: a northern and a southern half, which was already spoken of in records from the 8th century BCE, and this prominent feature may have been remembered as late as in the time of the Quran (34:15).

Hundreds of inscriptions are known from the Awwam Temple, and these documents form the basis from which the political history of South Arabia thus far reconstructable from in the first few centuries of the Christian era.

The exact cause is unknown, but it may have been linked to an (ultimately unsuccessful) siege of South Arabia by the Romans, under the leadership of the governor Aelius Gallus in 25/24 BCE.

The dam successfully delegates and distributes water from the biannual monsoon rains into two main channels, which move away from the wadi and into fields through a highly dispersive system.

The description in these records begins with comments on sacrifices made to the Sabaean deities, and then mostly delve into military campaigns in meticulous detail.

[62] Anthropomorphic representations of the gods are lacking entirely from the Old Sabaean period, and only begin to appear with the onset of Hellenistic and Roman influences at the turn of the Christian era.

[63][64] Ancient South Arabian kings built great public works, had special ties with the gods legitimated through rites only they could perform, and led their armies during battle.

[65] Only late in Sabaean history, from the second half of the 2nd century CE, did a real dynastic succession from father to son appear, and it only lasted for two generations.

When Saba declined after the 6th centuries BCE and Sabaean territory contracted to what it was prior to the conquests of Karib'il Watar, the title mukarrib is replaced by that of malik.

All titles were chosen from a combination of six possible names (Dhamar'ali, Karib'il, Sumhu'alay, Yada"il, Yakrubmalik and Yitha'amar) and four possible epithets (Bayan, Dharih, Watar and Yanu).

[68] In the centuries leading up to the Christian era, this changed, kings began identifying with their real name, and reconstructions of Sabaean chronology become simpler.

Most famously, Saba is presented as, through its female monarch the Queen of Sheba, engaging in trade with Solomon in goods of aromatics and gold.

[80] Although the Quran and its commentators have preserved the earliest literary reflection of the complete Bilqis legend, there is little doubt among scholars that the narrative is derived from a Jewish Midrash.

[81] There is a Muslim tradition that the first Jews arrived in Yemen at the time of King Solomon, following the politico-economic alliance between him and the Queen of Sheba.