DʿMT & early highlandsAddi Akaweh 1

Rdʾm and the people of DʿMT

Early 1st millennium–5th/4th c. BCEAddi Akaweh, Ethiopia

A better-preserved parallel to RIÉ 9 confirms and refines the reading of Rdʾm’s DʿMT formula.

Side A of the three-sided Addi Akaweh 1 incense burner, with its carved Old South Arabian inscription — Iwona Gajda and Yohannes Gebre Selassie, ‘A Pre-Aksumite Inscribed Incense Burner and Some Architectural Ornaments from Addi Akaweh (Tigrai, Ethiopia)’, Annales d’Éthiopie 24 (2009), p. 56, fig. 1. Resized and converted to WebP.Reproduced with permission for Habesha History. No onward reuse licence.Enlarge image ↗

Other faces of the inscription

Side B of the Addi Akaweh 1 incense burner — Gajda and Yohannes Gebre Selassie 2009, p. 57, fig. 2. Resized and converted to WebP.Reproduced with permission for Habesha History. No onward reuse licence.

Side C of the Addi Akaweh 1 incense burner — Gajda and Yohannes Gebre Selassie 2009, p. 58, fig. 3. Resized and converted to WebP.Reproduced with permission for Habesha History. No onward reuse licence.

Early Sabaic

Surviving text

𐩧𐩵𐩱𐩣 𐩣𐩡𐩫𐩬 𐩮𐩧𐩲𐩬 𐩪𐩧𐩺𐩩 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 𐩵𐩲𐩣𐩩 𐩨𐩬 𐩨𐩬 𐩪𐩡𐩣𐩣 𐩰𐩷𐩧𐩬 𐩥𐩮𐩧𐩲𐩩 𐩲𐩧𐩫𐩩𐩬 𐩠𐩢𐩵𐩪𐩥 𐩣𐩤𐩷𐩧𐩩𐩬 𐩡𐩧𐩨 𐩨𐩲𐩡 𐩱𐩥[.]𐩢 𐩺𐩥𐩣 𐩣𐩡𐩫𐩥 𐩵𐩲𐩣𐩩 𐩣𐩦𐩧𐩤𐩠𐩺 𐩥𐩣𐩲𐩧𐩨𐩠𐩺 𐩪𐩨𐩱𐩠𐩺 𐩥𐩲𐩨𐩧𐩠𐩺 𐩱𐩵𐩣𐩠𐩺 𐩥𐩮𐩡𐩣𐩠𐩺 𐩨𐩪𐩤𐩩 𐩲𐩪𐩩𐩧 𐩥𐩠𐩨𐩪 𐩥𐩱𐩡𐩣𐩤𐩺 𐩥𐩹𐩩𐩢𐩣𐩬 𐩥𐩹𐩩𐩨𐩲𐩵𐩬 𐩥𐩱𐩨𐩫 𐩥𐩵𐩣 𐩨𐩬 𐩲𐩩𐩫𐩣

Normalized script from the cited reading; brackets mark restored or missing text.

Transliteration

Rdʾm mlkn ṣrʿn S¹ryt mkrb Dʿmt bn bn S¹lmm Fṭrn w-Ṣrʿt ʿrktn hḥds¹w mqṭrtn l-Rb bʿl ʾw[.]ḥ ywm mlkw Dʿmt ms²rq-hy w-mʿrb-hy S¹bʾ-hy w-ʿbr-hy ʾdm-hy w-ṣlm-hy b-s¹qt ʿs¹tr w-Hbs¹ w-ʾlmqy w-ḏt-Ḥmn w-ḏt-Bʿdn w-ʾb-k Wdm bn ʿtkm

English translation

Rdʾm, victorious king of S¹ryt and mukarrib of DʿMT, descendant of S¹lmm Fṭrn and Ṣrʿt the wife, restored two incense burners for Rb, Lord of ʾw[.]ḥ, when he became king of DʿMT—its east and west, its Sabaeans and settlers, its Red and Black—under the protection of ʿs¹tr, Hbs¹, ʾlmqy, ḏt-Ḥmn and ḏt-Bʿdn; may your father Wdm save you from any opponent (?).

DASI CSAI English translation, joined and lightly punctuated; data CC BY 4.0

Sources & references

Addi Akaweh 1 / DASI 7551
Giulia Buono, ‘Addi Akaweh 1’, DASI, first published 2015-01-05

Habesha History corpus

Iwona Gajda and Yohannes Gebre Selassie (2009), p. 49

HYohannes, The Kingdom of DʿMT (2025)