Dʿmt
- Dʿmt was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia that existed during the 10th to 5th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom survive and very little archaeological work has taken place.
- Given the presence of a large temple complex and fertile surroundings, the capital of Dʿmt may have been present day Yeha, in Tigray, 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.
- Most modern historians consider this civilization to be native African, although Sabaean-influenced due to the latter's dominance of the Red Sea, while others have viewed Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaeans and indigenous peoples. 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. There is evidence of a Semitic-speaking presence in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia at least as early as 2000 BC. 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. However other sources hold that D'mt, though having indigenous roots, was under strong South Arabian economic and cultural influence.
- 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.
Yeha
The oldest standing structure in Ethiopia, the Temple of Yeha, is located in Yeha. This is a tower built in the Sabaean style, and dated through comparison with ancient structures in South Arabia to around 700 BC. Additionally, Yeha is the location of an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church monastery.
Almaqah
Almaqah is considered a moon god, but Garbini and Pirenne have shown that the bull's head and the vine motif associated with him may have solar and dionysiac attributes. He was therefore a priest of Ra, the male counterpart of the sun goddess Shamash/Ishtar/Isis, who was also venerated in Saba, but as a tutelary goddess of the royal Egyptian dynasty. The ruling dynasty of Saba' regarded themselves as his seed. Almaqah is represented on monuments by a cluster of lightning bolts surrounding a curved, sickle-like weapon. Bulls were sacred to him.
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