Kharid, the ancient Caminacum, and Kharibat el Beda, the Nesca of Pliny, where the Sabaean army was defeated by the Romans under Aelius Gallus in 24 B.C. From El Jail Halevy travelled northward, passing the oasis of Khab, and skirting the great desert, reached the fertile district of Nejran, where he found a colony of Jews, with whom he spent several weeks in the oasis of Makhlaf.
The road is a mere camel track across the desert, the chief places passed are Ma`an on the Syrian border, a station on the old Sabaean trade route to Petra, and Medain Salih, the site of the rock-cut tombs and inscriptions first brought to notice by Doughty.
These are the kingdoms of Ma t in (Minaean), of Saba (Sabaean), of Hadramaut (Hadramut) and of Katabania (Katabanu).
As to the Sabaean kingdom there is fair agreement among scholars.
An Assyrian inscription mentions Ith`amara the Sabaean who paid tribute to Sargon in 715 B.C. At this time the Sabaeans must have been in north Arabia unless the inscription refers to a northern colony of the southern Sabaeans.
