Over 1 oo gods and many temples are named but next to nothing is known about them. Certain deities are com mon to the whole land. Sams, the sun, is feminine and perhaps all goddesses are forms of it. 'Attar, the star Venus, is masculine but corresponds philologically with the Babylonian Ishtar and the Canaanite Ashtoreth. The moon, Warah, Bahr or Sin, occurs occasionally and Il or Ilan is the name of a god as well as a com mon noun. Each country had its own god; Ma'in had Wadd, Kataban had 'Amm, Saba had Ilmukah and the clan of Hamdan had Ta'lab Riyam. Perhaps these tribal gods are all forms of the moon. There are indications that the moon, sun and Venus formed a divine family. Others are Anbai, Du Samawi, the enigmatic Nakrah and Atirat (the Hebrew Ashera). Other di vine names are clearly descriptive ; Hawbas "the drier" is the moon according to Hamdani, Kahil "the old," Sa'd "luck" the giver of good fortune and Hukm "judgment" the judge. At times kings seem to have been worshipped (after death?). Springs and water courses were inhabited by spirits. The bull, the bull's horns and the crescent were symbols of the moon and a disc stood for both the sun and Venus. Often one cannot decide which of the two is meant. The people were the offspring and the king the first-born of the god, so the formula runs "god, king and people." There were no images of the gods. To obtain success in one's undertakings it was the custom to dedicate to the god a statue of oneself in stone or figures of men or animals in gold (? gilt). Sacrifices and incense were offered to them. The names for altar
and sacrifice are the common Semitic terms, and the altar of incense has among other names that of mikteir as in Hebrew. A variety of spices (the wealth of the land) are named on these altars, as rand, ladanum, costus, tarum, frankincense and others not yet interpreted. Pilgrimages were made at certain seasons and the pilgrim month was named Du Hijjatan or Du Mabajjat. There are many names for the months, some of which refer to agriculture. The name for priest is r4-w (which may mean giver) and in the El 'Ola texts comes the word 1-w-', both mascu line and feminine, which looks very like Levite. In later times the name Rahman for God suggests Jewish influence. Chris tianity was introduced into South Arabia but it was not favoured because of its association with Abyssinia and the famous church in Sanaa was looked on as a sign of foreign domination. The massacre of Christians in Nejran had political causes as well as religious.
The ruins of the temple at Marib are an open space surrounded by an elliptical wall with the main door at one end of the shorter axis and a smaller at one end of the longer axis. Columns flanked the main door. Outside are several groups of pillars and a set of four may have held a canopy over a throne. The temple at Sirwah is an oblong building with two sets of pillars inside it. One set held up the roof of the sanctuary and the other sur rounded a light well. Another at Yeha in Abyssinia is an oblong building with the door at one end. It seems to have been of three storeys.