D'mt and the Horn of Africa
A kingdom in Eritrea and Ethiopia builds temples and trades across the Red Sea.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 480 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
The kingdom of D'mt flourishes from around 980 BCE in the northern Ethiopian highlands, with monumental stone temples at Yeha, irrigation, plough agriculture and an alphabetic script related to South Arabian. Its relationship to Saba across the Red Sea is argued — colonisation, trade contact, or parallel development from a shared culture. It is the predecessor of Aksum, and the ancestor of the Ge'ez script still used liturgically in Ethiopia.