Dʿmt
Dʿmt (ESA: 
) was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia that existed during the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom exist, as very little archaeological work has taken place. As a result, it is not known whether Dʿmt ended as a civilization before Aksum's early stages, evolved into the Aksumite state, or was one of the smaller states united in the Aksumite kingdom possibly around the beginning of the Common Era.[1]
The capital is thought to have been Yeha, although recent archeologists such as Peter Schmidt believe the site is insufficient to qualify as a capital site. He states, "It may have been a major ritual center and, without question, was an important necropolis. But certainly not a capital."
The kingdom developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons.
Some modern historians like 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 view Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaeans and indigenous peoples.[2][3] The most recent research, however, shows that Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language spoken in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea in ancient times, is not derived from Sabaean [4]. There is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC.[3][5]It continues to be debated whether Sabaean influence was 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.[6] After the fall of Dʿmt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms, until the rise of one of these kingdoms, the Aksumite Kingdom, ancestor of medieval and modern Eritrea and northern Ethiopia during the first century, which was able to reunite the area.[7]
Known rulers
List of four known rulers in chronological order[3]
| 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 [=Agʿazi, cognate to Ge'ez], 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'" |
See also
References
- ^ Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 185.
- ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, p. 57.
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ Kitchen, Andrew, Christopher Ehret, et al. 2009. "Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276 no. 1665 (June 22)
- ^ Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, "Ge'ez". Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, pp. 732.
- ^ Munro-Hay, Aksum, p. 57.
- ^ Pankhurst, Richard K.P. Addis Tribune, "Let's Look Across the Red Sea I", January 17, 2003 (archive.org mirror copy)