Almaqah (chief god of the Dʿmt polity, lord of the Yeha temple)

Almaqah, the national god of the South Arabian kingdom of Sabaʾ, was carried across the Red Sea by Sabaic-speaking settlers and became the principal deity of the Dʿmt polity of the northern Ethiopian highlands in the first millennium BCE. The monumental temple at Yeha and the sanctuary of Meqaber Gaʿewa near Wuqro were dedicated to him, and bulls were sacred to his cult. He is one of the small group of imported gods — with Astar, Hawbas and Dat Himyam — that the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica identifies as having been genuinely worshipped by the local population, standing third in the fixed pentad of the dedicatory formulae. The older characterisation of him as a moon-god rests on a now-discredited model of a South Arabian astral triad.

Domains

• tutelary state cult
• irrigation and fertility

Powers

• to protect the ruling community and its prosperity

Relations

• ally: Hawbas (deity of the Dʿmt pentad)Almaqah and Hawbas are invoked together in the fixed liturgical pentad of the Dʿmt dedications, Hawbas immediately preceding Almaqah in the standard order of the gods.Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'HWBS'. (secondary)
• ally: Dat Himyam (goddess of the Dʿmt pentad)Almaqah and Dat Himyam stand consecutively (third and fourth) in the fixed pentad of deities invoked in the Ethio-Sabaic dedicatory formulae of Dʿmt.Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'Dat Himyam'. (secondary)

Sources

• Almaqah is the chief god of the Dʿmt polity, lord of the temple of Yeha, one of the South Arabian deities genuinely worshipped by the population of the northern Horn.: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'Almaqah'. (secondary); David W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the Northern Horn, 1000 BC–AD 1300, Woodbridge: James Currey, 2012. (secondary)