Hawbas (deity of the Dʿmt pentad)

Hawbas (HWBS) is a South Arabian deity who became one of the four imported gods genuinely worshipped by the population of the Dʿmt polity of the northern Horn, alongside Astar, Almaqah and Dat Himyam. In the fixed list of five supreme deities invoked in the Ethio-Sabaic dedicatory formulae Hawbas occupies the second place, between Astar and Almaqah. In its South Arabian background the name is associated with ʿAṯtar (the deity here called Astar), and the precise gender and astral function of Hawbas remain debated in scholarship.

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)In the fixed pentad of the Dʿmt dedications Hawbas stands immediately before Almaqah, the two being invoked together among the supreme gods.Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'HWBS'. (secondary)
• consort of: Astar (celestial Venus-god, head of the Aksumite triad)In the South Arabian background Hawbas is associated with ʿAṯtar (Astar) as a paired deity; the two stand adjacent at the head of the Dʿmt pentad.Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'HWBS'. (secondary)

Sources

• Hawbas (HWBS) is one of the four South Arabian deities genuinely worshipped in the Dʿmt polity, standing second among the five supreme gods of its dedicatory formulae.: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–2014, s.v. 'HWBS'. (secondary); Stuart C. Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991. (secondary)