Caribilus Vatar the Great

Information about Caribil Vatar was preserved in its lengthy inscriptions RES 3945 ( G1 1000 A ) and RES 3946 ( G1 1000 B ), which have survived to our time. In addition, in one of the cuneiform texts of the Assyrian king Sinaheherib , dated between 689 and 685 BC. e., it is mentioned “Karib'il, the king (of the country) Saba '”, who presented Sinaheherib with precious stones and incense in honor of the construction of a temple in Ashshur dedicated to the celebration of the New Year. The first to propose to identify this Carib'il with Caribil Vatar was the German orientalist Fritz Hommel in the 1920s. Despite the fact that Carib'il could actually be another Sabean king of that period, who was named Caribil, in modern Sabeism, identification of Carib'il with Caribil Vatar the Great seems most probable ^[1] .

One of the main opponents of Caribil Vatar in the struggle for hegemony over the south of Arabia was the Kingdom of Ausan , which at that time was Saba's main rival in the struggle for control over the territory of eastern Yemen , rich in incense plants . The war of this ruler of Saba against Ausan is narrated by the inscription RES 3945 , according to which Caribil Vatar at the beginning of the 7th century BC. e. crushed the Ausan king Muratti '(probably the son of king Zacharil Lahayan). The loss of Ausans in this battle amounted to 16 thousand killed and 40 thousand prisoners. Caribil Vatar destroyed the Ausan royal palace of Miswar, and ordered all the inscriptions from the palace and temples of Ausan to be taken to Saba as military booty. Most likely, it was after this defeat that the Aswan kingdom ceased to exist and was subsequently absorbed by Kataban ^[2] .

According to the inscription RES 3945 , the ruler of Caribil Vatar was the ruler of Hadramaut Yadail ^[3] and the ruler of Kataban Varauel. Having defeated Ausan, the Sabaean king returned to Hadramaut and Kataban the lands previously taken from them by the Ausan rulers ^[4] . In addition, the inscription says that after the victory over Ausan, Karibil Vatar surrounded the walls of the city with a certain area called S ¹ rm , carried out irrigation work in it and settled it with the Sabais. It is currently not possible to clearly localize this region ^[5] .

As a result of the reign of Caribilus the Great, the Saberian kingdom significantly expanded its borders and established its control over most of the south of the Arabian Peninsula ^[3] . The famous French saberist Christian Robin in his works for the first time named Caribil Vatard for his services “Great” ( “le Grand” ) ^[6] .

• Sedov A.V. Ancient Hadramaut: Essays on Archeology and Numismatics. - M .: Eastern literature , 2005 .-- 528 p. - (Proceedings of the Russian Archaeological Mission in the Republic of Yemen. T. III). - ISBN 5-02-018450-0 .
• Frantsuzov S. A. History of Hadramaut in the era of antiquity. - SPb. : Petersburg Linguistic Society, 2014 .-- 336 p. - (The history of Hadramaut from ancient times to the end of British rule). - ISBN 978-5-4318-0015-3 .
• Nebes, Norbert. Der Tatenbericht des Karibʾil Watar in Ṣirwāḥ (German) // Herausgegeben von W. Seipel. Jemen. Kunst und Archäologie im Land der Königin von Saba`. - Wien, 1999 .-- S. 165-167 .