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

Aksumite · deity · dʿmt pre aksumite · deity

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.

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