The Anthroponomy of Raybun: Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis
Frantsouzoff Sergei A.
In this article all the personal names discovered at Raybun (western part of inland Hadramawt) by the Soviet Yemenite Joint Complex Expedition and by the Russian Arachaeological Mission in the Republic of Yemen are examined for the first time and their distribution among the temples of Raybun is studied in detail. Besides that, the anthroponymes of Raybun are compared with the proper nouns found in the inscriptions of other South Arabian cultural and political areas (Saba', Ma'In and Qataban), with a special attention to the Old Sabaean kingdom, in the North Arabian epigraphic documentation as well as in the medieval Yemenite genealogies and even in the Ethio-Sabaean and Ethiopian onomastics. Some conclusions obtained in the course of the thorough many-sided analysis of the anthroponomy of Raybun prove to be of considerable value for solving the problem of the origin of its inhabitants. For instance, their ethnic relationship to some groups of pre-Islamic North Arabian population is now established with certainty.