Abstract: Latter-day Saint scholars generally agree that “the place called… Nahom,” where Ishmael was buried (1 Nephi 16:34) is identified as the Nihm tribal region in Yemen. Significantly, a funerary stela with the name y s1mʿʾl — the South Arabian equivalent of Ishmael — was found near the Nihm region and dated to ca. 6th century bc. Although it cannot be determined with certainty that this is the Ishmael from the Book of Mormon, circumstantial evidence suggests that such is a possibility worth considering.

In recent decades, Latter-day Saint scholars have come to identify Nahom — the burial place of Ishmael, Nephi’s father-in-law (1 Nephi 16:34) — with the Nihm tribal region in Yemen.1 The exact borders of the Nihm tribal area have fluctuated over time, but it has been located near the Wadi Jawf since the early Islamic era.2 Several inscriptions referring to individuals as nhmyn (“Nihmite”) confirm the tribe existed at least by the seventh century bc,3 and based on these texts scholars generally believe the Nihm tribe were in a region near the Jawf in antiquity.4

It is noteworthy, therefore, that in 2008 a corpus of over 400 crudely carved funerary stelae recovered from the Wadi Jawf were published by the Sanaʿa National Museum.5 These stelae have anthropomorphic facial features carved above an inscription of the name of the deceased. This is a pan-Arabian style of funerary stela,