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129-530: The ancient history of Yemen or South Arabia is especially important because it is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East . Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy , who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia (better known in its Latin translation, Arabia Felix ) meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia . Between

258-404: A philosophy that assumed there were innate differences between "civilized" and "uncivilized" peoples. "Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including

387-636: A state -based decision-making apparatus, a literature , professional art , architecture , organized religion and complex customs of education , coercion and control associated with maintaining the elite. The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization, a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on nearby civilizations such as Korea , Japan and Vietnam Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives

516-472: A "civilized" way of living. In the 19th century, the idea of European culture as "civilized" and superior to "uncivilized" non-European cultures was fully developed, and civilization became a core part of European identity. The idea of civilization can also be used as a justification for dominating another culture and dispossessing a people of their land. For example, in Australia , British settlers justified

645-421: A Jewish zealot, while Islamic traditions say that he marched around 20,000 Christians into trenches filled with flaming oil, burning them alive. Himyarite inscriptions attributed to Dhu Nuwas show great pride in killing 27,000, enslaving 20,500 Christians in Ẓafār and Najran and killing 570,000 beasts of burden belonging to them as a matter of imperial policy. It is reported that Byzantium Emperor Justin I sent

774-450: A characteristic of early civilizations. This " urban revolution "—a term introduced by Childe in the 1930s—from the 4th millennium BCE, marked the beginning of the accumulation of transferable economic surpluses , which helped economies and cities develop. Urban revolutions were associated with the state monopoly of violence , the appearance of a warrior , or soldier, class and endemic warfare (a state of continual or frequent warfare),

903-568: A church on its ruins. Three churches were built in Najran. Many tribes did not recognize Esimiphaios's authority. Esimiphaios was displaced in 531 by a warrior named Abraha , who refused to leave Yemen and declared himself an independent king of Himyar. Kaleb sent a fleet across the Red Sea and was able to defeat Dhū Nuwās, who was killed in battle according to an inscription from Ḥusn al-Ghurāb, while later Arab tradition has him riding his horse into

1032-404: A civilization as a complex system , i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analysed that work in concert to produce some result. Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social and cultural interactions among them. Any organization is a complex social system and a civilization

1161-537: A civilization has often been understood as a larger and "more advanced" culture , in implied contrast to smaller, supposedly less advanced cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists , Neolithic societies, or hunter-gatherers ; however, sometimes it also contrasts with the cultures found within civilizations themselves. Civilizations are organized densely-populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with

1290-443: A complex recording system consisting of knotted strings of different lengths and colors: the " Quipus ", and still functioned as a civilized society. Aided by their division of labour and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion , development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology. Assessments of what level of civilization

1419-548: A conflict between Abrahah and another Aksumite general named Aryat occurring in 525 as leading to the rebellion. Emperor Khosrow I sent troops under the command of Wahrez , who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Kingdom of Aksum out of Yemen. South Arabia became a Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sasanian Empire . Later another army

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1548-470: A critical threshold where collapse is inevitable. Politically associated with over-reach, and as a result of the environmental exhaustion and polarization of wealth between rich and poor, he concludes the current system is fast arriving at a situation where continuation of the existing system saddled with huge deficits and a hollowed-out economy is physically, socially, economically and politically impossible. Although developed in much more depth, Berman's thesis

1677-692: A dating that persisted for many years. In 1955 Jacqueline Pirenne published a comparison of Old South Arabian and Greek art and came to the conclusion that the South Arabian Civilisation first developed in the 5th century BCE under Greek influence. She also supported this new "Short Chronology" by means of paleaeographic analysis of the forms Old South Arabian letters. Based on the American excavations in Timna and Ma'rib in 1951–52 another "Intermediary Chronology" came into being at about

1806-693: A division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps during the Mesolithic Natufian culture . It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labour predates plant and animal domestication. Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization

1935-656: A great Church called "al-Qulays" at Sana'a in order to divert pilgrimage from the Ka'bah and have him die in the Year of the Elephant (570) after returning from a failed attack on Mecca (though he is thought to have died before this time). The exact chronology of the early wars are uncertain, as a 525 inscription mentions the death of a King of Ḥimyar, which could refer either to the Ḥimyarite viceroy of Aksum, Sumyafa' Ashwa', or to Yusuf Asar Yathar. The later Arabic histories also mention

2064-543: A large caravan with precious stones, spices and gold ( 1 Kings 10 ). The apocryphal Christian Arabic text Kitāb al-Magall ("Book of the Rolls"), considered part of Clementine literature , and the Syriac Cave of Treasures , mention a tradition that after being founded by the children of Saba (son of Joktan), there was a succession of 60 female rulers up until the time of Solomon . Josephus , in his Antiquities of

2193-592: A letter to the Aksumite King Kaleb , pressuring him to "...attack the abominable Hebrew." A military alliance of Byzantine, Aksumite, and Arab Christians successfully defeated Dhu Nuwas around 525–527 and a client Christian king was installed on the Himyarite throne. Esimiphaios was a local Christian lord, mentioned in an inscription celebrating the burning of an ancient Sabaean palace in Marib to build

2322-597: A modest way. In the first half of the 19th century other European travelers brought back over one hundred inscriptions. This stage of investigation reached its climax with the travels of the Frenchman Joseph Halévy 1869/70 and the Austrian Eduard Glaser 1882–1894, who together either copied or brought back to Europe some 2500 inscriptions. On the basis of this epigraphical material Glaser and Fritz Hommel especially began to analyse

2451-695: A new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche . This sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts", but a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II , Leo Strauss , having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization

2580-580: A polity has reached are based on comparisons of the relative importance of agricultural as opposed to trading or manufacturing capacities, the territorial extensions of its power, the complexity of its division of labour , and the carrying capacity of its urban centres . Secondary elements include a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and tort -based legal systems, art, architecture, mathematics, scientific understanding, metallurgy , political structures, and organized religion. The idea of civilization implies

2709-417: A progression or development from a previous "uncivilized" state. Traditionally, cultures that defined themselves as "civilized" often did so in contrast to other societies or human groupings viewed as less civilized, calling the latter barbarians , savages , and primitives . Indeed, the modern Western idea of civilization developed as a contrast to the indigenous cultures European settlers encountered during

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2838-691: A relative, but the troops defected and killed their leader, and a second attempt at reigning in the rebellious Abrahah also failed. Later Ethiopian sources state that Kaleb abdicated to live out his years in a monastery and sent his crown to be hung in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem . While uncertain, it seems to be supported by the die-links between his coins and those of his successor, Alla Amidas . An inscription of Sumyafa' Ashwa' also mentions two kings ( nagaśt ) of Aksum, indicating that

2967-533: A ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture , mining , small-scale manufacture and trade . Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The word civilization relates to the Latin civitas or ' city '. As the National Geographic Society has explained it: "This

3096-629: A slave child named Moses . In the Quran , Sheba is mentioned in surat an-Naml in a section that speaks of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon . The Quran mentions this ancient community along with other communities that were destroyed by God. According to the Quran, Solomon commanded the Queen of Sheba to come to him as a subject, whereupon she appeared before him ( an-Naml , 30–31, 45). Before

3225-455: A species of developed humanity is capable". This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume A Study of History , which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of

3354-411: A surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization , irrigation and crop rotation . It is possible but more difficult to accumulate horticultural production, and so civilizations based on horticultural gardening have been very rare. Grain surpluses have been especially important because grain can be stored for a long time. Research from

3483-477: A Ḥimyarite text notes that Ḥaḑramawt and Qatabān were also all allied against the kingdom. As a result of this, the Kingdom of Aksum was able to capture the Ḥimyarite capital of Ẓifār in the first quarter of the 3rd century. However, the alliances did not last, and Sha'ir Awtar of Saba' unexpectedly turned on Ḥadramawt, allying again with Aksum and taking its capital in 225. Ḥimyar then allied with Saba' and invaded

3612-513: Is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against superficial and misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations. Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including

3741-436: Is believed by some archaeologists to be the oldest known town in present-day Europe. The 8.2 Kiloyear Arid Event and the 5.9 Kiloyear Inter-pluvial saw the drying out of semiarid regions and a major spread of deserts . This climate change shifted the cost-benefit ratio of endemic violence between communities, which saw the abandonment of unwalled village communities and the appearance of walled cities, seen by some as

3870-458: Is concerned with the study of artifact remains of non-human civilizations to reconstruct and interpret past lives of alien societies if such get discovered and confirmed scientifically. Sheba There is no consensus on Sheba's exact location, though modern scholars have placed it in the general area spanning South Arabia and the Horn of Africa . The Encyclopædia Britannica posits that

3999-482: Is located near what is now Yemen's modern capital, Sana'a . According to Arab tradition, the eldest son of Noah , Shem , founded the city of Sana’a, which is also called the city of Sam, or also called Azal city, which means the ancient city. At the time of the earliest historical sources originating in South Arabia the territory was under the rule of the Kingdom of Saba' , the centres of which were situated to

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4128-687: Is now Tanzania . Sabaean Studies, the study of the cultures of Ancient South Arabia, belong to the younger branches of archaeology since in Europe ancient South Arabia remained unknown for much longer than other regions of the Orient. In 1504 a European, namely the Italian Lodovico di Varthema , first managed to venture into the interior. Two Danish expeditions contributed to by Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791) and Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) among others, contributed to scientific study, if only in

4257-444: Is partly conjectured. It is not yet possible to specify with any certainty when the great South Arabian Kingdoms appeared; estimates range (within the framework of the long chronology) from the 12th until the 8th century BCE. During Sabaean rule, trade and agriculture flourished generating much wealth and prosperity. The Sabaean kingdom was located in what is now the 'Asīr region in southwestern Saudi Arabia, and its capital, Ma'rib,

4386-410: Is similar in some ways to that of Urban Planner, Jane Jacobs who argues that the five pillars of United States culture are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism and

4515-409: Is sometimes defined as "living in cities". Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade. Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state . State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class , normally concentrated in the cities, has control over much of

4644-565: Is that person's broadest cultural identity. It is precisely the protection of this cultural identity that is becoming increasingly important nationally and internationally. According to international law, the United Nations and UNESCO try to set up and enforce relevant rules. The aim is to preserve the cultural heritage of humanity and also the cultural identity, especially in the case of war and armed conflict. According to Karl von Habsburg , President of Blue Shield International ,

4773-502: Is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating

4902-566: Is why the most basic definition of the word civilization is 'a society made up of cities.'" The earliest emergence of civilizations is generally connected with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia , culminating in the relatively rapid process of urban revolution and state formation , a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite. The English word civilization comes from

5031-579: The Journal of Political Economy contradicts the surplus model. It postulates that horticultural gardening was more productive than cereal farming. However, only cereal farming produced civilization because of the appropriability of yearly harvest. Rural populations that could only grow cereals could be taxed allowing for a taxing elite and urban development. This also had a negative effect on rural population, increasing relative agricultural output per farmer. Farming efficiency created food surplus and sustained

5160-563: The Book of Genesis , Sheba and Dedan are listed as names of sons of Jokshan , son of Abraham . Another Sheba is listed in the Table of Nations as a son of Joktan , another descendant of Noah's son Shem . There are several possible reasons for this confusion. One theory is that the Sabaeans established many colonies to control the trade routes and the variety of their caravan stations confused

5289-515: The Ma'rib Dam was built c. 700 BCE, provided irrigation for about 25,000 acres (101 km²) of land and stood for over a millennium, finally collapsing in 570 CE after centuries of neglect. The final destruction of the dam is noted in the Qur'an and the consequent failure of the irrigation system provoked the migration of up to 50,000 people. The Sabaean kingdom, with its capital at Ma'rib where

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5418-824: The Neolithic and Mesolithic stage of the cultures of many of the peoples they encountered. Nonetheless, developments in the Neolithic stage, such as agriculture and sedentary settlement, were critical to the development of modern conceptions of civilization. The Natufian culture in the Levantine corridor provides the earliest case of a Neolithic Revolution, with the planting of cereal crops attested from c. 11,000 BCE. The earliest neolithic technology and lifestyle were established first in Western Asia (for example at Göbekli Tepe , from about 9,130 BCE), later in

5547-631: The Qahtanites . The Qahṭānites began building simple earth dams and canals in the Marib area in the Ramlat al-Sab'atayn. This area would later become the site of the Marib Dam . A trade route began to flourish along the Red Sea coasts of Tihāmah . This period witnessed the reign of the legendary Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Bible, called Bilqīs by Muslim scholars. At the end of this period, in

5676-573: The Royal Cemetery at Ur is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique. Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single " world system ", a process known as globalization . Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic –

5805-658: The Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire , Persian Empire , India and China, were well established 2000 years ago when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations. The first evidence of such long-distance trade is in the ancient world . During the Uruk period , Guillermo Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan. Resin found later in

5934-567: The Yellow River and Yangtze basins in China (for example the Peiligang and Pengtoushan cultures), and from these cores spread across Eurasia. Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest civilizations developing from 7,400 years ago. This area has been evaluated by Beverley Milton-Edwards as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of

6063-677: The silurian hypothesis , however, considers whether it would "be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record" given the paucity of geological information about eras before the quaternary . Astronomers speculate about the existence of communicating with intelligent civilizations within and beyond the Milky Way galaxy, usually using variants of the Drake equation . They conduct searches for such intelligences – such as for technological traces, called " technosignatures ". The proposed proto-scientific field " xenoarchaeology "

6192-646: The "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a difference in political ideology, although they note that this lack of tolerance is likely to lead to an eventual rejection of (true) democracy. In Identity and Violence Sen questions if people should be divided along the lines of a supposed "civilization", defined by religion and culture only. He argues that this ignores

6321-581: The 1760s, again from French. The first known use in French is in 1757, by Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau , and the first use in English is attributed to Adam Ferguson , who in his 1767 Essay on the History of Civil Society wrote, "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation". The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in

6450-503: The 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau , particularly his work about education, Emile . Here, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accord with human nature , and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original discursive or pre-rational natural unity" (see noble savage ). From this,

6579-460: The 19th century were taller than their "civilized" American and European counterparts. The average stature of a population is a good measurement of the adequacy of its access to necessities, especially food, and its freedom from disease. Writing , developed first by people in Sumer , is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or

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6708-585: The 7th century BCE by the king and mukarrib of Saba Karib'il Watar , according to a Sabaean text that reports the victory in terms that attest to its significance for the Sabaeans. Between 700 and 680 BC, the Kingdom of Awsan dominated Aden and its surroundings and challenged the Sabaean supremacy in South Arabia . Sabaean Mukarrib Karib'il Watar I conquered Awsan, and expanded Sabaean rule and territory to include much of South Arabia. Lack of water in

6837-483: The 9th century BCE, writing was introduced; this now meant that South Arabian history could be written down. The study of South Arabian prehistory is still at the beginning, although sites are known going back to the Palaeolithic . There are tumuli and megalithic enclosures dating back to the Neolithic . Immediately before the historical kingdoms in 2500, two Bronze Age cultures go out of North Yemen and from

6966-656: The Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusading movement as

7095-516: The Arabian Peninsula prevented the Sabaeans from unifying the entire peninsula. Instead, they established various colonies to control trade routes. Qatabān was one of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms which thrived in the Bayḥān valley. Like the other Southern Arabian kingdoms it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh incense which were burned at altars. The capital of Qatabān

7224-593: The Bedouins of the Kinda and Madh'hij tribes, eventually wiping out the Christian community in Najran by means of execution and forced conversion to Judaism. Blady speculates that he was likely motivated by stories about Byzantine violence against Byzantine Jewish communities in his decision to begin his campaign of state violence against Christians existing within his territory. Christian sources portray Dhu Nuwas as

7353-515: The European colonization of the Americas and Australia. The term "primitive," though once used in anthropology , has now been largely condemned by anthropologists because of its derogatory connotations and because it implies that the cultures it refers to are relics of a past time that do not change or progress. Because of this, societies regarding themselves as "civilized" have sometimes sought to dominate and assimilate "uncivilized" cultures into

7482-423: The French civilisé ('civilized'), from Latin : civilis ('civil'), related to civis ('citizen') and civitas ('city'). The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias 's The Civilizing Process (1939), which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the early modern period . In The Philosophy of Civilization (1923), Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions: one purely material and

7611-497: The German word Kultur , "culture", for what many call a "civilization". Spengler believed a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Cultures experience cycles of birth, life, decline, and death, often supplanted by a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol. Spengler states civilization is the beginning of the decline of a culture as "the most external and artificial states of which

7740-589: The Hebraised pilegesh , "concubine". According to some he then married the Queen, while other traditions assert that he gave her in marriage to a tubba of Hamdan . According to the Islamic tradition as represented by al-Hamdani , the queen of Sheba was the daughter of Ilsharah Yahdib, the Himyarite king of Najran . Although the Quran and its commentators have preserved the earliest literary reflection of

7869-808: The Italian investigations of Paleolithic remains and the work of the German Archaeological Institute in the Ma'rib area are particularly noteworthy. The body of source material for Old South Arabia is sparse. Apart from a few mentions in Assyrian, Persian, Roman and Arabic sources, as well as in the Old Testament, which date back to the 8th century BCE right up to the Islamic period, the Old South Arabian inscriptions are

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7998-554: The Jews , describes a place called Saba as a walled, royal city of Ethiopia that Cambyses II renamed as Meroë . He writes that "it was both encompassed by the Nile quite round, and the other rivers, Astapus and Astaboras ", offering protection from both foreign armies and river floods. According to Josephus it was the conquering of Saba that brought great fame to a young Egyptian prince, simultaneously exposing his personal background as

8127-455: The Kingdom of Saba' already appears in Assyrian sources in the 8th century BCE, this benchmark is not sufficient to date the early history of ancient South Arabia, because the first absolutely reliable dating starts with the military campaign of Aelius Gallus in 25 BCE, and the mention of the king Ilasaros. For earlier times the chronology must be established on the basis of a comparison of

8256-579: The Kingdom reached the peak of its power under Karib'il Watar I , who probably reigned some time around the first half of the 7th century BCE, and ruled all the region from Najrān in the south of modern South Arabia right up to Bāb al-Mandab , on the Red Sea. The formation of the Minaean Kingdom in the river oasis of al-Jawf, north-west of Saba' in the 6th century BCE, actually posed a danger for Sabaean hegemony, but Yitha'amar Bayyin II, who had completed

8385-410: The Kingdom was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh . These were exported to the Mediterranean, India, and Abyssinia where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea. Evidence of Sabaean influence is found in northern Ethiopia , where the South Arabian alphabet , religion and pantheon, and

8514-445: The Minaeans took control of the caravan routes in the 4th century BCE, however, Ḥaḑramawt became one of its confederates, probably because of commercial interests. It later became independent and was invaded by the growing kingdom of Ḥimyar toward the end of the 1st century BCE, but it was able to repel the attack. Ḥaḑramawt annexed Qatabān in the second half of the 2nd century CE, reaching its greatest size. During this period, Ḥaḑramawt

8643-424: The Old South Arabian finds with those from other regions, through palaeography , on the basis of the reconstructed sequence of kings and by radio carbon dating . Here two schools of thought have essentially evolved: the "Short Chronology" and the "Long Chronology". At the end of the 19th century Eduard Glaser and Fritz Hommel dated the beginning of the Old South Arabian Civilisation to the late 2nd millennium BCE,

8772-517: The Old South Arabian language and history. After the First World War excavations were finally carried out in Yemen. From 1926 Syrians and Egyptians also took part in the research into ancient South Arabia. The Second World War brought in a new phase of scientific preoccupation with ancient Yemen: in 1950–1952 the American Foundation for the Study of Man, founded by Wendell Phillips, undertook large-scale excavations in Timna and Ma'rib , in which William Foxwell Albright and Fr. Albert Jamme, who published

8901-448: The Red Sea as well as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden. From their capital city, the Ḥimyarite kings launched successful military campaigns, and had stretched its domain at times as far east to the Persian Gulf and as far north as the Arabian Desert. During the 3rd century CE, the South Arabian kingdoms were in continuous conflict with one another. GDRT of Aksum began to interfere in South Arabian affairs, signing an alliance with Saba', and

9030-587: The South Arabian style of art and architecture were introduced. The Sabaeans created a sense of identity through their religion. They worshipped El-Maqah and believed that they were his children. For centuries, the Sabaeans controlled outbound trade across the Bab-el-Mandeb , a strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. Agriculture in Yemen thrived during this time due to an advanced irrigation system which consisted of large water tunnels in mountains, and dams. The most impressive of these earthworks, known as

9159-419: The active pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment . In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French Revolution , "civilization" was used in the singular , never in the plural, and meant the progress of humanity as a whole. This is still the case in French. The use of "civilizations" as a countable noun was in occasional use in the 19th century, but has become much more common in

9288-458: The amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The scale is only hypothetical, but it puts energy consumption in a cosmic perspective. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist. The current scientific consensus is that human beings are the only animal species with the cognitive ability to create civilizations that has emerged on Earth. A recent thought experiment,

9417-545: The ancient Israelites , as their ethnology was based on geographical and political grounds and not necessarily racial. Another theory suggests that the Sabaeans hailed from the southern Levant and established their kingdom on the ruins of the Minaeans . The most famous claim to fame for the biblical land of Sheba was the story of the Queen of Sheba , who travelled to Jerusalem to question King Solomon , arriving in

9546-688: The beginning of the 6th century and began to massacre the Christians. Outraged, Kaleb , the Christian King of Aksum with the encouragement of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I invaded and annexed Yemen. About fifty years later, Yemen fell to Persia . Around 517/8, a Jewish king called Yūsuf Asar Yathar (also known as Dhū Nuwās) usurped the kingship of Ḥimyar from Ma'dikarib Ya'fur . Zacharias Rhetor of Mytilene (fl. late 6th century) says that Yūsuf became king because

9675-434: The biblical narrative about Sheba was based on the ancient civilization of the Sabaeans in South Arabia. This view is echoed by Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and American historian Neil Asher Silberman , both of whom write that "the Sabaean kingdom began to flourish only from the eighth century BCE onward" and that the story of Solomon and Sheba is "an anachronistic seventh-century set piece meant to legitimize

9804-708: The coast of the Indian Ocean. In the middle of the second millennium BCE, the first important urban centers appear in the coastal area, among which are the sites of Sabir and Ma'laybah. So far, it has not been adequately explained whether the Old South Arabian Civilization of Yemen was a direct continuation from the Bronze Age , or if at the beginning of the Iron Age groups of people began wandering south from Palestine or North Arabia, as

9933-591: The coastal string of watering stations known as the Hadhramaut . Though Saba' dominated in the earlier period of South Arabian history, Minaic inscriptions are of the same time period as the first Sabaean inscriptions. They pre-date the appearance of the Minaeans themselves, and, hence, are called now more appropriately as "Madhābic", after the name of the Wadi they are found in, rather than "Minaic". The Minaean Kingdom

10062-532: The collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington , the 21st century will be characterized by a clash of civilizations , which he believes will replace the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that were prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, this viewpoint been strongly challenged by others such as Edward Said , Muhammed Asadi and Amartya Sen . Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that

10191-525: The complete Bilqis legend, there is little doubt among scholars that the narrative is derived from a Jewish Midrash . Bible stories of the Queen of Sheba and the ships of Ophir served as a basis for legends about the Israelites traveling in the Queen of Sheba's entourage when she returned to her country to bring up her child by Solomon. There is a Muslim tradition that the first Jews arrived in Yemen at

10320-532: The conquest state". Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, the writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other. However, writing is not always necessary for civilization, as shown by the Inca civilization of the Andes, which did not use writing at all but except for

10449-461: The corpus of inscriptions, were involved. From 1959 Gerald Lankester Harding began the first systematic inventories of the archaeological objects in the then British Protectorate of Aden. At this time Hermann von Wissmann was particularly involved with the study of the history and geography of ancient South Arabia. In addition, the French excavations of 1975–1987 in Shabwah and in other locations,

10578-874: The death of Khosrau II in 628, then the Persian governor in Southern Arabia, Badhan , converted to Islam and Yemen followed the new religion. Civilization A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English ) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state , social stratification , urbanization , and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems and graphic arts ). Civilizations include features such as agriculture , architecture , infrastructure , technological advancement , currency , taxation , regulation , and specialization of labour . Historically,

10707-472: The desert area called Ramlat al-Sab'atayn , known to medieval Arab geographers as Ṣayhad. The southern and western Highlands and the coastal region were less influential politically. The coastal cities were however already very important from the beginning for trade. Apart from the territory of modern Yemen, the kingdoms extended into Oman , as far as the north Arabian oasis of Lihyan (also called Dedan), to Eritrea , and even along coastal East Africa to what

10836-597: The destruction of cultural assets is also part of psychological warfare. The target of the attack is often the opponent's cultural identity, which is why symbolic cultural assets become a main target. It is also intended to destroy the particularly sensitive cultural memory (museums, archives, monuments, etc.), the grown cultural diversity, and the economic basis (such as tourism) of a state, region or community. Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete units. Early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler , uses

10965-634: The development of state structures, in which power was further monopolized by an elite ruling class who practiced human sacrifice. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various "cradles" from around 3600 BCE beginning with Mesopotamia , expanding into large-scale kingdoms and empires in the course of the Bronze Age ( Akkadian Empire , Indus Valley Civilization , Old Kingdom of Egypt , Neo-Sumerian Empire , Middle Assyrian Empire , Babylonian Empire , Hittite Empire , and to some degree

11094-746: The displacement of Indigenous Australians by observing that the land appeared uncultivated and wild, which to them reflected that the inhabitants were not civilized enough to "improve" it. The behaviors and modes of subsistence that characterize civilization have been spread by colonization , invasion , religious conversion , the extension of bureaucratic control and trade , and by the introduction of new technologies to cultures that did not previously have them. Though aspects of culture associated with civilization can be freely adopted through contact between cultures, since early modern times Eurocentric ideals of "civilization" have been widely imposed upon cultures through coercion and dominance. These ideals complemented

11223-409: The early Iron Age , contemporary civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for increasingly complex transactions. In a village, the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat and

11352-419: The east of present-day Sana'a in Ṣirwāḥ and Ma'rib . The political map of South Arabia at that time consisted of several larger kingdoms, or rather tribal territories: Awsān, Qatabān and the Ḥaḑramawt; and on the other hand an uncertain number of smaller states, such as the city states of Ḥaram and Nashaq in al-Jawf . Shortly after, Yitha'amar Watar I had united Qatabān and some areas in al-Jawf with Saba',

11481-491: The eighth century BCE and the sixth century CE, it was dominated by six main states which rivaled each other, or were allied with each other and controlled the lucrative spice trade : Saba' , Ma'īn , Qatabān , Hadhramaut , Kingdom of Awsan , and the Himyarite Kingdom . Islam arrived in 630 CE and Yemen became part of the Muslim realm. The centers of the Old South Arabian kingdoms of present-day Yemen lay around

11610-482: The energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities" and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, with the possible exception of some early civilizations in Peru which may have depended upon maritime resources. The traditional "surplus model" postulates that cereal farming results in accumulated storage and

11739-438: The failure of a "creative minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere economic or environmental causes. Samuel P. Huntington defines civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species". Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory , looks at

11868-485: The first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times , and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism . The notion of human history as a succession of "civilizations" is an entirely modern one. In the European Age of Discovery , emerging Modernity was put into stark contrast with

11997-485: The food surplus through decreasing rural population growth in favour of urban growth. Suitability of highly productive roots and tubers was in fact a curse of plenty, which prevented the emergence of states and impeded economic development. A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides producing food for a living: early civilizations included soldiers , artisans , priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in

12126-464: The great reservoir dam of Ma'rib, succeeded in reconquering the northern part of South Arabia. Between the 8th and 4th centuries the state of Da'amot emerged, under Sabaean influence in Ethiopia, which survived until the beginning of the Christian era at the latest. The exact chronology of Da'amot and to what extent it was politically independent of Saba' remains in any case uncertain. The success of

12255-409: The growing gulf between rich and poor. Cultural critic and author Derrick Jensen argues that modern civilization is directed towards the domination of the environment and humanity itself in an intrinsically harmful, unsustainable, and self-destructive fashion. Defending his definition both linguistically and historically, he defines civilization as "a culture... that both leads to and emerges from

12384-671: The growth of cities", with "cities" defined as "people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life". This need for civilizations to import ever more resources, he argues, stems from their over-exploitation and diminution of their own local resources. Therefore, civilizations inherently adopt imperialist and expansionist policies and, to maintain these, highly militarized, hierarchically structured, and coercion-based cultures and lifestyles. The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by

12513-408: The land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute , redistributive taxation , tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early human cultures functioned through a gift economy supplemented by limited barter systems. By

12642-543: The later 20th century, sometimes just meaning culture (itself in origin an uncountable noun, made countable in the context of ethnography ). Only in this generalized sense does it become possible to speak of a "medieval civilization", which in Elias's sense would have been an oxymoron. Using the terms "civilization" and "culture" as equivalents are controversial and generally rejected so that for example some types of culture are not normally described as civilizations. Already in

12771-594: The living standards of the populace. For example, although the Middle Ages is often portrayed as an era of decline from the Roman Empire, studies have shown that the average stature of males in the Middle Ages (c. 500 to 1500 CE) was greater than it was for males during the preceding Roman Empire and the succeeding Early Modern Period (c. 1500 to 1800 CE). Also, the Plains Indians of North America in

12900-522: The main source. These are however largely very short and as a result limited in the information they provide. The predominant part of the inscriptions originates from Saba' and from the Sabaeo-Himyaritic Kingdom which succeeded it, the least come from Awsān, which only existed as an independent state for a short time. Most of the extant texts are building inscriptions or dedications; it is rare for historical texts to be found. Although

13029-581: The many others identities that make up people and leads to a focus on differences. Cultural Historian Morris Berman argues in Dark Ages America: the End of Empire that in the corporate consumerist United States, the very factors that once propelled it to greatness―extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth―have pushed the United States across

13158-511: The newly taken Aksumite territories, retaking Ẓifār, which had been under the control of GDRT's son BYGT, and pushing Aksum back into the Tihāmah . They established their capital at Thifar (now just a small village in the Ibb region) and gradually absorbed the Sabaean kingdom. They traded from the port of Mawza'a on the Red Sea. Dhū Nuwās , a Ḥimyarite king, changed the state religion to Judaism in

13287-475: The other material and ethical . He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress". Related words like "civility" developed in the mid-16th century. The abstract noun "civilization", meaning "civilized condition", came in

13416-629: The participation of Judah in the lucrative Arabian trade " with regard to the narrative of Solomon leading Israel to conquer Sheba. The two names Sheba (spelled in Hebrew with shin ) and Seba (spelled with samekh ) are mentioned several times in the Bible with different genealogy. For instance, in the Generations of Noah Seba, along with Dedan , is listed as a descendant of Noah 's son Ham (as sons of Raamah , son of Cush ). Later on in

13545-693: The previous king had died in winter, when the Aksumites could not cross the Red Sea and appoint another king. The truth behind such a claim is put into doubt due to Ma'dikarib Ya'fur having a long title. Upon gaining power, Yusuf attacked the Aksumite garrison in Zafar , the Himyarite capital, killing many and destroying the church there. The Christian King Kaleb of Axum learned of Dhu Nuwas's persecutions of Christians and Aksumites, and, according to Procopius ,

13674-428: The queen had arrived, Solomon had moved her throne to his place with the help of one who had knowledge from the scripture ( Quran 27:40). She recognized the throne, which had been disguised, and finally accepted the faith of Solomon. Muslim commentators such as al-Tabari , al-Zamakhshari , al-Baydawi supplement the story at various points. The Queen's name is given as Bilqis , probably derived from Greek παλλακίς or

13803-498: The rapid development of hierarchies , and the use of human sacrifice . The civilized urban revolution in turn was dependent upon the development of sedentism , the domestication of grains, plants and animals, the permanence of settlements and development of lifestyles that facilitated economies of scale and accumulation of surplus production by particular social sectors. The transition from complex cultures to civilizations , while still disputed, seems to be associated with

13932-608: The remains of a large temple can still be seen, thrived for almost 14 centuries. This kingdom was the Sheba described in the Old Testament . The first known inscriptions of Ḥaḑramawt are known from the 8th century BCE. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an Old Sabaic inscription of Karab'il Watar from the early 7th century BCE, in which the King of Ḥaḑramawtt, Yada'il, is mentioned as being one of his allies. When

14061-577: The results of new archaeological research, such as that carried out by the Italians in Yala / Hafari and by the French in Shabwah the "Long Chronology" attracts more and more supporters. Meanwhile, the majority of experts in Sabaean studies adhere to Wissman's Long Chronology, which is why the dates in this article have been adjusted in accordance with it. According to medieval Muslim Arab historians, ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of South Arabia united as

14190-527: The same time, which merely set the beginning of Qatabān and Ma'īn at a later time than in the "Long Chronology". On the basis of the study of a rock inscription at Ma'rib ("Glaser 1703") A. G. Lundin and Hermann von Wissmann dated the beginning of Saba' back into the 12th or the 8th century BCE. Although their interpretation was later demonstrated to be partially incorrect, the "Short Chronology" has not been definitively proven, and in more recent times more arguments have been brought against it. Above all because of

14319-416: The sea. Kaleb installed a native Ḥimyarite viceroy, Samu Yafa' , who ruled from 525–27 until 531, when he was deposed by the Aksumite general (or soldier and former slave) Abrahah with the support of disgruntled Axumn soldiers. A contemporary inscription refers to Sumyafa' Ashwa' as "viceroy for the kings of Aksum. According to the later Arabic sources, Kaleb retaliated by sending a force of 3,000 men under

14448-594: The surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or bureaucracy . Morton Fried , a conflict theorist and Elman Service , an integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social inequality . This system of classification contains four categories. Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property , or private ownership of

14577-486: The tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled. From the days of the earliest monetarized civilizations, monopolistic controls of monetary systems have benefited the social and political elites. The transition from simpler to more complex economies does not necessarily mean an improvement in

14706-839: The territorial expansions of the Elamites , Hurrians , Amorites and Ebla ). Outside the Old World, development took place independently in the Pre-Columbian Americas . Urbanization in the Caral-Supe civilization in coastal Peru began about 3500 BCE. In North America, the Olmec civilization emerged about 1200 BCE; the oldest known Mayan city, located in Guatemala, dates to about 750 BCE. and Teotihuacan in Mexico

14835-462: The time of King Solomon, following the politico-economic alliance between him and the Queen of Sheba. Muslim scholars, including Ibn Kathir , related that the people of Sheba were Arabs from South Arabia . In the medieval Ethiopian cultural work called the Kebra Nagast , Sheba was located in Ethiopia. Some scholars therefore point to a region in the northern Tigray and Eritrea which

14964-565: The two may have co-ruled for a while before Kaleb abdicated in favor of Alla Amidas. Procopius notes that Abrahah later submitted to Kaleb's successor, as supported by the former's inscription in 543 stating Aksum before the territories directly under his control. During his reign, Abrahah repaired the Ma'rib Dam in 543, and received embassies from Persia and Byzantium, including a request to free some bishops who had been imprisoned at Nisibis (according to John of Ephesus 's "Life of Simeon"). Abraha ruled until at least 547, sometime after which he

15093-518: The wheel, the building of the earliest cities and the development of written cursive script". Similar pre-civilized "neolithic revolutions" also began independently from 7,000 BCE in northwestern South America (the Caral-Supe civilization ) and in Mesoamerica . The Black Sea area served as a cradle of European civilization. The site of Solnitsata – a prehistoric fortified ( walled ) stone settlement (prehistoric proto-city ) (5500–4200 BCE) –

15222-498: The world, incorporating earlier cultures into the technological and industrial society of the present. Civilizations are traditionally understood as ending in one of two ways; either through incorporation into another expanding civilization (e.g. as Ancient Egypt was incorporated into Hellenistic Greek, and subsequently Roman civilizations), or by collapsing and reverting to a simpler form of living, as happens in so-called Dark Ages. There have been many explanations put forward for

15351-506: Was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism . Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of livelihood , settlement patterns, forms of government , social stratification , economic systems, literacy and other cultural traits. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that "civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took

15480-660: Was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities lying along the Wādī Madhhāb . Minaic inscriptions have been found far afield of the Kingdom of Ma'in, as far away as al-Ūlā in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and in Egypt . It was the first of the South Arabian kingdoms to end, and the Minaean language died around 100 CE. The Ḥimyarites eventually united Southwestern Arabia, controlling

15609-523: Was continuously at war with Himyar and Saba', and the Sabaean king Sha'irum Awtar was even able to take its capital, Shabwah, in 225. During this period the Kingdom of Aksum began to interfere in South Arabian affairs. King GDRT of Aksum acted by dispatching troops under his son, BYGT, sending them from the western coast to occupy Thifar , the Ḥimyarite capital, as well as from the southern coast against Ḥaḑramawt as Sabaean allies. The kingdom of Ḥaḑramawt

15738-568: Was eventually conquered by the Ḥimyarite king Shammar Yuhar'ish around 300 CE, unifying all of the south Arabic kingdoms. The ancient Kingdom of Awsān in South Arabia with a capital at Ḥajar Yaḥirr in Wādī Markhah, to the south of the Wādī Bayḥān, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which is locally named Ḥajar Asfal in Shabwah . Once it was one of the most important small kingdoms of South Arabia. The city seems to have been destroyed in

15867-607: Was further encouraged by his ally and fellow Christian Justin I of Byzantium, who requested Aksum's help to cut off silk supplies as part of his economic war against the Persians . Yusuf marched toward the port city of Mocha, killing 14,000 and capturing 11,000. Then he settled a camp in Bab-el-Mandeb to prevent aid flowing from Aksum. At the same time, he sent an army under the command of another Jewish warlord, Sharahil Yaqbul, to Najran . Sharahil had reinforcements from

15996-494: Was named Timna and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Ḥaḑramawt, Saba' and Ma'īn. The chief deity of the Qatabānians was 'Amm, or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of 'Amm". During Minaean rule, the capital was at Qarnāwu (now known as Ma'in ). Their other important city was Yathill (Sabaean yṯl :now known as Barāqish ). Other parts of modern Yemen include Qatabā and

16125-579: Was once called Saba (later called Meroe ), as a possible link with the biblical Sheba. Donald N. Levine links Sheba with Shewa (the province where modern Addis Ababa is located) in Ethiopia. Traditional Yemenite genealogies also mention Saba, son of Qahtan ; Early Islamic historians identified Qahtan with the Yoqtan ( Joktan ) son of Eber ( Hūd ) in the Hebrew Bible (Gen. 10:25-29). James A. Montgomery finds it difficult to believe that Qahtan

16254-771: Was one of the largest cities in the world in 350 CE, with a population of about 125,000. The Bronze Age collapse was followed by the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, during which a number of new civilizations emerged, culminating in a period from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE which Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age , presented as a critical transitional phase leading to classical civilization . A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 CE in Western Europe , and from this beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around

16383-654: Was sent to Yemen, and in 597/8 Southern Arabia became a province of the Sassanid Empire under a Persian satrap . It was a Persian province by name but after the Persians assassinated Dhi Yazan, Yemen divided into a number of autonomous kingdoms. This development was a consequence of the expansionary policy pursued by the Sassanian king Khosrow II (590–628), whose aim was to secure Persian border areas such as Yemen against Roman and Byzantine incursions. Following

16512-595: Was succeeded by his son, Aksum. Aksum (called "Yaksum" in Arabic sources) was perplexingly referred to as "of Ma'afir " ( ḏū maʻāfir ), the southwestern coast of Yemen, in Abrahah's Ma'rib dam inscription, and was succeeded by his brother, Masrūq. Aksumite control in Yemen ended in 570 with the invasion of the elder Sassanid general Vahriz who, according to later legends, famously killed Masrūq with his well-aimed arrow. Later Arabic sources also say that Abrahah constructed

16641-526: Was the biblical Joktan based on etymology . Modern historians agree that the heartland of the Sabaean civilization was located in the region around Marib and Sirwah , in what is now Yemen . They later expanded their presence into parts of North Arabia and the Horn of Africa, in modern-day Ethiopia. Owing to the connection with the Queen of Sheba, the location has become closely linked with national prestige, and various royal houses claimed descent from

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