The Ancient South Arabian script or Old South Arabian branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script. The earliest inscriptions date to the 9th century B.C., they were found in the Northern Red Sea Region, Eritrea. The script reached its mature form around the V century B.C., and in the VII century it was replaced with Arabic script. The Ancient South Arabian became the basis for  Geʽez, Classical Ethiopic language 1200–137C .