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Dʿmt

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c. 980–400 BCE kingdom in Eritrea and fringes of northern Ethiopia For the medieval kingdom located in western Ethiopia, see Kingdom of Damot.
Kingdom of Dʿmtደዐመተ
980 BC–c. 650 BC
Dʿmt is given as "Damot" on this map, not to be confused with the later and more southwestern Kingdom of Damot.Dʿmt is given as "Damot" on this map, not to be confused with the later and more southwestern Kingdom of Damot.
CapitalYeha
GovernmentMonarchy
Historical eraIron Age
• Established 980 BC
• Disestablished c. 650 BC
Preceded by Succeeded by
Sheba
Kingdom of Aksum

Dʿmt (Unvocalized Ge'ez: ደዐመተ, DʿMT theoretically vocalized as ዳዓማት, *Daʿamat or ዳዕማት, *Daʿəmat) was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia which existed between the 10th and 5th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom survive and very little archaeological work has taken place. As a result, it is not known whether Dʿmt ended as a civilization before the Kingdom of Aksum's early stages, evolved into the Aksumite state, or was one of the smaller states united in the Kingdom of Aksum possibly around 150 BC.

Part of a series on the
History of Eritrea
Arms of the flag of Eritrea
Pre-colonial
Prehistory
Land of Punt (c. 2500–980 BC)
Kingdom of Dəmot (c. 980–400 BC)
Aksumite Empire (c. 150 BC–AD 960)
Sultanate of Dahlak (960–1557)
Zagwe Dynasty (c. 1137–1270)
Ethiopian Empire (1270–1974)
Dankali Sultanate (c. Late 13th century–18th century)
Sultanate of Aussa (1734–1936)
Colonial
Eyalet-i Habeş (1554–1872)
Italian Eritrea (1882–1936)
Eritrea Governorate of Italian East Africa (1936–1941)
East African Campaign of World War II (1940–1941)
British Military Administration (1941–1952)
Post-Colonial
Autonomy within Ethiopia (1952–1962)
Eritrean War of Independence (1961–1991)
Annexation as the Eritrea Province (1962–1993)
Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991)
State of Eritrea
1990s in Eritrea
Eritrean–Ethiopian War (1998–2000)
2000s in Eritrea
2010s in Eritrea
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Part of a series on the
History of Ethiopia
Lion of Judah
Early history
Prehistory
Dʿmt 980 – 400 BC
Middle Ages
Aksum 100 – 940 AD
Zagwe dynasty 900–1270
Early Solomonic period 1270–1529
Amda Seyon's Expansions 1314–1344
Early modern history
Ethiopian–Adal War 1527–1543
Oromo migrations 1543 – 17th cent.
Habesh Eyalet 1557 – 17th cent.
Gondarine period 1632–1769
Zemene Mesafint 1769–1855
Ottoman border conflict 1832–1848
Modern history
Unification 1855–1913
Menelik's Invasions 1878–1904
First Italo–Ethiopian War 1895–1896
Modernization 1913–1974
World War I 1914–1918
Second Italo–Ethiopian War 1935–1936
Italian East Africa 1936–1941
World War II 1941
Italian guerrilla war 1941–1943
Federation with Eritrea 1952–1962
Eritrean Independence War 1961–1991
Ethiopian Civil War 1974–1991
Ogaden War 1977–1978
Recent history
Eritrean–Ethiopian War 1998–2000
Eritrean border conflict 1998–2018
Police massacre 2005
War in Somalia 2006–2009
East Africa drought 2011–2012
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Ethiopian civil conflict 2018–present
Tigray war 2020–2022
Topics

History

Given the presence of a large temple complex, the capital of Dʿmt may have been present-day Yeha, in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. At Yeha, the temple to the god Ilmuqah is still standing.

The kingdom developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons.

Some modern historians including Stuart Munro-Hay, Rodolfo Fattovich, Ayele Bekerie, Cain Felder, and Ephraim Isaac consider this civilization to be indigenous, although Sabaean-influenced due to the latter's dominance of the Red Sea, while others like Joseph Michels, Henri de Contenson, Tekle-Tsadik Mekouria, and Stanley Burstein have viewed Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaeans and indigenous peoples. Some sources consider the Sabaean influence to be minor, limited to a few localities, and disappeared after a few decades or a century, perhaps representing a trading or military colony in some sort of symbiosis or military alliance with the civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-Aksumite state.

Archaeologist Rodolfo Fattovich believed that there was a division in the population of Dʿmt and northern Ethiopia due to the kings ruling over the 'sb (Sabaeans) and the 'br, the 'Reds' and the 'Blacks'. Fattovich also noted that the known kings of Dʿmt worshipped both South Arabian and indigenous gods named 'str, Hbs, Dt Hmn, Rb, Šmn, Ṣdqn and Šyhn.

After the fall of Dʿmt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller unknown successor kingdoms. This lasted until the rise of one of these polities during the first century BC, the Aksumite Kingdom.

Known rulers

The following is a list of four known rulers of Dʿmt, in chronological order:

Term Name Queen Notes
Dates from ca. 700 BC to ca. 650 BC
Mlkn Wʿrn Ḥywt ʿArky(t)n contemporary of the Sabaean mukarrib Karib'il Watar
Mkrb, Mlkn Rdʿm Smʿt
Mkrb, Mlkn Ṣrʿn Rbḥ Yrʿt Son of Wʿrn Ḥywt, "King Ṣrʿn of the tribe YGʿḎ , mkrb of DʿMT and SB'"
Mkrb, Mlkn Ṣrʿn Lmn ʿAdt Son of Rbḥ, contemporary of the Sabaean mukarrib Sumuhu'alay, "King Ṣrʿn of the tribe YGʿḎ, mkrb of DʿMT and SB'"

Regions

See also

References

  1. ^ Shaw, Thurstan (1995), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, Routledge, p. 612, ISBN 978-0-415-11585-8
  2. L'Arabie préislamique et son environnement historique et culturel: actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 24–27 Juin 1987; page 264
  3. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A–C; page 174
  4. Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 185.
  5. Stuart Munro-Hay (2002). Ethiopia: The Unknown Land. I.B. Taurus. p. 18.
  6. Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, p. 57.
  7. ^ Nadia Durrani, The Tihamah Coastal Plain of South-West Arabia in its Regional context c. 6000 BC – AD 600 (Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 4) . Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005, p. 121.
  8. Munro-Hay, Aksum, p. 57.
  9. Phillipson (2009). "The First Millennium BC in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia and South–Central Eritrea: A Reassessment of Cultural and Political Development". African Archaeological Review. 26 (4): 257–274. doi:10.1007/s10437-009-9064-2. S2CID 154117777.
  10. ^ Fattovich, Rodolfo (1990). "Remarks on the Pre-Aksumite Period in Northern Ethiopia". Journal of Ethiopian Studies. 23: 17. ISSN 0304-2243. JSTOR 44324719.
  11. Pankhurst, Richard K.P. Addis Tribune, "Let's Look Across the Red Sea I", January 17, 2003 (archive.org mirror copy)
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