Dat Himyam (goddess of the Dʿmt pentad)

Dat Himyam ('she of Ḥimyam') is a South Arabian deity, probably astral in character, who became one of the four imported gods genuinely worshipped in the Dʿmt polity, with Astar, Hawbas and Almaqah. In the standard liturgical sequence of the Sabaic and Ethio-Sabaic dedications she occupies the fourth place, after Almaqah. Her older identification as a sun-goddess rested on Ditlef Nielsen's now-rejected model of a South Arabian divine triad; an astral nature for her nonetheless cannot be excluded. On the territory of the Old Sabaean kingdom only a single temple of Dat Himyam has been localised.

Domains

• astral celestial

Powers

• to be invoked among the supreme gods of the dedicatory formulae

Relations

• ally: Almaqah (chief god of the Dʿmt polity, lord of the Yeha temple)Dat Himyam follows Almaqah directly in the fixed pentad of deities invoked in the dedicatory formulae of Dʿmt.Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'Dat Himyam'. (secondary)

Sources

• Dat Himyam is a South Arabian astral goddess and one of the four imported deities genuinely worshipped in Dʿmt, standing fourth in the pentad of its dedicatory formulae.: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'Dat Himyam'. (secondary); David W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the Northern Horn, 1000 BC–AD 1300, Woodbridge: James Currey, 2012. (secondary)