Dʿmt

For the medieval kingdom located in Ethiopia, see Damot.
Dʿmt
ዳሞት
c. 700 BC–c. 400 BC →
Capital Yeha[1]
Government Monarchy
History
 - Established c. 700 BC
 - Disestablished c. 400 BC

Dʿmt (Proto-Ge'ez: ; Ge'ez: ዳሞት, Dmt), variously reconstructed as Damot, Diamat, and Diʿamat, was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia that existed during the 8th to 5th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom exist but 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 1st century.[2]

Contents

History

The capital of Dʿmt is thought to have been Yeha,[1] although some archeologists like 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 have viewed Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaeans and indigenous peoples.[3][4] The most recent research, however, shows that Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language spoken in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in ancient times, is not derived from Sabaean.[5] There is evidence of a Semitic-speaking presence in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia at least as early as 2000 BC.[4][6] It is now believed that 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.[7][8]

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 kingdoms during the first century, the Aksumite Kingdom, the ancestor of medieval and modern Eritrea and Ethiopia, which was able to reunite the area.[9]

Known rulers

List of four known rulers in chronological order[4]

Term Name Ruler 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

  1. ^ a b Shaw, Thurstan (1995), The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, Routledge, p. 612, ISBN 9780415115858, http://books.google.com/books?id=TmUwjhQX-rcC&pg=PA612 
  2. ^ Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 185.
  3. ^ Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, p. 57.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, "Ge'ez". Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, pp. 732.
  7. ^ Munro-Hay, Aksum, p. 57.
  8. ^ Phillipson. "The First Millennium BC in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia and South–Central Eritrea: A Reassessment of Cultural and Political Development". African Archaeological Review (2009) 26:257–274
  9. ^ Pankhurst, Richard K.P. Addis Tribune, "Let's Look Across the Red Sea I", January 17, 2003 (archive.org mirror copy)