DʿMT & early highlandsRIÉ 9

Rdʾm’s Addi Akaweh incense burner

A royal incense burner defines Rdʾm’s DʿMT in territorial and social formulae—east/west, Sabaeans/settlers, Red/Black—and names its protective gods.

Date
Early 1st millennium–5th/4th c. BCE (DASI Period A)
Place
ʿAddi ʾAkawǝḥ, Wuqro area, Ethiopia; preserved at Abba Garima church
Language
Ethiopian Early Sabaic
Script
Ancient South Arabian

01 · Original text

Ethiopian Early Sabaic

Ancient South ArabianSurviving text; DASI lineation retained

𐩧𐩵𐩱𐩣[ 𐩣𐩡𐩫𐩬 𐩮]←𐩧𐩲𐩬 𐩪𐩧𐩺𐩩 𐩣←[𐩫𐩧𐩨 ]𐩵𐩲𐩣𐩩 𐩨𐩬
𐩨𐩬 𐩪𐩡𐩣(𐩣) (𐩰𐩷)→[𐩧](𐩬) 𐩥-(𐩮)𐩧𐩲𐩩 𐩲𐩧→[𐩫𐩩𐩬] 𐩠𐩢𐩵𐩪𐩥 [𐩣]—
𐩤𐩷𐩧𐩩𐩬 𐩡-𐩧𐩨← 𐩨𐩲𐩡 𐩱𐩥←[.]𐩢 𐩺𐩥𐩣 𐩣𐩡—
𐩫𐩥 𐩵𐩲𐩣𐩩 [𐩣]→𐩦𐩧𐩤-𐩠𐩺 𐩥-→(𐩣)𐩲𐩧𐩨-𐩠𐩺 𐩪𐩨—
𐩱-𐩠𐩺 𐩥-𐩲𐩨𐩧-(𐩠)←𐩺 𐩱𐩵𐩣-𐩠𐩺[ ←𐩥-]𐩮𐩡𐩣-𐩠𐩺 𐩨-𐩪—
𐩤𐩩 𐩲𐩪𐩩𐩧 𐩥-[𐩠]→𐩥𐩨𐩪 𐩥-𐩱𐩡𐩣→𐩤𐩺 𐩥-𐩹𐩩 𐩢𐩣—
𐩬 𐩥-𐩹𐩩 𐩨𐩲𐩵𐩬 ←𐩥-𐩱𐩨-𐩫 𐩥𐩵←𐩣 [𐩨]𐩬 𐩲(𐩩)𐩫𐩣|

Normalized Old South Arabian letters follow the DASI reading, including its line breaks and editorial brackets. See the image for the engraved letter forms.

Scholarly transliteration

Rdʾm[ mlkn ṣ]←rʿn S¹ryt m←[krb ]Dʿmt bn bn S¹lm(m) (Fṭ)→[r](n) w-(Ṣ)rʿt ʿr→[ktn] hḥds¹w [m]— qṭrtn l-Rb← bʿl ʾw←[.]ḥ ywm ml— kw Dʿmt [m]→s²rq-hy w-→(m)ʿrb-hy S¹b— ʾ-hy w-ʿbr-(h)←y ʾdm-hy[ ←w-]ṣlm-hy b-s¹— qt ʿs¹tr w-[H]→wbs¹ w-ʾlm→qy w-ḏt Ḥm— n w-ḏt Bʿdn ←w-ʾb-k Wd←m [b]n ʿ(t)km|

02 · Translation

English translation

Rdʿm, the victorious king of S¹ryt, mukarrib of Dʿmt, descendant of S¹lmm Fṭrn and of Ṣrʿt, the wife, restored two incense burners for Rb, Lord of ʾw[.]ḥ, when he became the king of Dʿmt its east and its west, its Sabaeans and its settlers, its Red and its Black. With the protection of ʿs¹tr and Hwbs¹ and ʾlmqy and ḏt-Ḥmn and ḏt-Bʿdn and may your father Wdm (save you) from any opponent (?).

CSAI/DASI English translation; DASI record data licensed CC BY 4.0.

Joined across DASI display lines; editorial brackets and uncertainty marks are retained.

Sources

Editions & references

Edition, catalogue, and image records used for this entry.

  1. RIÉ 9 / Abuna Garimā I / DASI 7554

    Giulia Buono (ed.), ‘RIÉ 9’, DASI, first published 2015-01-05.

Habesha History corpus

HYohannes, The Kingdom of DʿMT (2025)

David W. Phillipson (2012), p. 38