Ancient South Arabian Inscriptions on Wood

The Bavarian State Library houses the second-largest collection worldwide of written documents on wood from Ancient South Arabia (present-day Yemen). These contain everyday-life's correspondence in Sabaic and Minaic languages, such as letters, legal and business documents, writing exercises and texts from ritual practice. The texts are carved in palm-leaf stalks and wooden sticks. Historically, the documents cover the entire span of the so-called Ancient South Arabian civilisation – from the early 1st millennium BC up to the period immediately before the emergence of Islam.