'The Penetration of Arabia a record of the development of Western knowledge concerning the Arabian Peninsula with illustrations from drawings, photographs, and maps by J. G. Bartholomew.' [‎145] (222/496)

10
THE UNKNOWN SOUTH 145
found Nakab al-Hajar as wonderful as report had
said. Grey marble walls of fine masonry between
thirty and forty feet high, square towers guarding
the gates, a legend in letters eight inches long, and
an oblong temple exactly orientated and choked with
ruin of its roof, rewarded their pains. The party re
turned to the ship without incident, having had, how
ever, to thank chance for their evasion of an ambush
of Diyabi robbers.
The inscription of Nakab al-Hajar, together with
two others 1 found by officers of the " Palinurus "
in the previous year on rocks at Hisn Gorab near
Makalla, furnished Europe with its first decisive proof
that Himyaritic records survived from the great
days of Arabian civilisation. Niebuhr had heard of
more than one such text in the hill country, and
apparently been shown an actual copy at Mokha in
1764; but, sick as he was then, he took it for cunei
form, and left to a later generation the fame of the
first discovery of a class of inscriptions, now num
bered by thousands, and of immense historical value.
Himyaritic studies have had most important influence
on our knowledge not only of ancient Arabia, but of
modern. The present science of no land, except per
haps Asia Minor, owes more to explorers inspired by
curiosity about the past. The officers of the " Pali
nurus " were the forerunners of Wrede, Arnaud,
1 Published first by Carter in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal for 1834, and repeated in J. R. G. S., 1837. Carless had copied
a Himyaritic graffito near Wij in 1831, but did not publish it till 1845
{Bombay A. S., 1845, p. 271).