Dʿmt (
South Arabian alphabet:
; Unvocalized
Ge'ez: ደዐመተ,
DʿMT theoretically vocalized as ዳዓማት
Daʿamat[2] or ዳዕማት Daʿəmat
[3]) was a
kingdom located in
Eritrea and northern
Ethiopia that existed during the 10th to 5th centuries BC.
Given the presence of a large temple complex and fertile surroundings, the capital of Dʿmt may have been present day
Yeha, in Tigray,
Ethiopia.
[1]
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.
[5][6] 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.
[7] There is evidence of a Semitic-speaking presence in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia at least as early as 2000 BC.
[6][8] 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.
[9][10]
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. The ancestor of medieval and modern Eritrea and Ethiopia, Aksum was able to reunite the area.
[11]