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D mt ( Ge'ez: ደዐመተ, ''DʿMT'' theoretically vocalized as ዳዓማት, ''Daʿamat'' or ዳዕማት, Daʿəmat) was a
kingdom Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia that 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 The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wha ...
's early stages, evolved into the Aksumite state, or was one of the smaller states united in the Kingdom of Aksum possibly around the beginning of the 1st century.


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 Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets also ...
, and made iron tools and weapons. Some modern historians including Stuart Munro-Hay, Rodolfo Fattovich, Ayele Bekerie, Cain Felder, and
Ephraim Isaac Ephraim Isaac (born 29 May 1936) is an Ethiopian scholar of ancient Ethiopian Semitic languages and of African and Ethiopian civilizations. He is the director of the Institute of Semitic Studies at Princeton University and the chair of the boar ...
consider this civilization to be indigenous, although
Sabaean Sabean or Sabaean may refer to: *Sabaeans, ancient people in South Arabia **Sabaean language, Old South Arabian language *Sabians, name of a religious group mentioned in the Quran, historically adopted by: **Mandaeans, Gnostic sect from the marshl ...
-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.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. 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 indegenious 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.Pankhurst, Richard K.P. ''Addis Tribune'',
Let's Look Across the Red Sea I
, January 17, 2003 (archive.org mirror copy)


Name

Due to the similarity of the name of Dʿmt and Damot when transcribed into Latin characters, these two kingdoms are often confused or conflated with one another, but there is no evidence of any relationship to Damot, a kingdom far to the south and existing a millennium and a half later.


Known rulers

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


Regions

* Barka *
Bur A bur (also spelled burr) is a seed or dry fruit or infructescence that has hooks or teeth. The main function of the bur is to spread the seeds of the bur plant, often through epizoochory. The hooks of the bur are used to catch on to for exa ...
*
Hamasien The Provinces of Eritrea existed between Eritrea's incorporation as a colony of Italy until the conversion of the provinces into administrative regions. Overview In Italian Eritrea, the Italian colonial administration had divided the colony into e ...
* Marya * Seraye * Yeha


See also

* History of Eritrea * History of Ethiopia *
Kingdom of Aksum The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wha ...
*
Land of Punt The Land of Punt ( Egyptian: '' pwnt''; alternate Egyptological readings ''Pwene''(''t'') /pu:nt/) was an ancient kingdom known from Ancient Egyptian trade records. It produced and exported gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory a ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dmt Countries in ancient Africa 5th-century BC disestablishments States and territories established in the 8th century BC States and territories disestablished in the 5th century BC 8th-century BC establishments Former kingdoms