Chapter I · c. 980 – 400 BC

D'mt & the Temple of Yeha

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On the highlands of today's Tigray and Eritrea, the kingdom of D'mt raised monumental stone temples, worked iron and traded across the Red Sea with southern Arabia.

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The Great Temple of Yeha, built around the 7th century BC, still stands roofless but intact — the oldest standing building in Ethiopia.

Inscriptions in an early South Arabian script and ibex friezes link D'mt to the Sabaean world across the water.

D'mt (also written Da'amat) is the earliest known kingdom of the northern Ethiopian highlands. Its rulers styled themselves kings of D'mt and Saba, and its inscriptions show close cultural ties with the Sabaean kingdom of Yemen.

Its centre was Yeha, where a great temple of finely dressed, mortarless ashlar blocks rises about fourteen metres. Nearby lie the Grat Beal Gebri palace ruins and rock-cut tombs.

The people of D'mt developed irrigation, grew grain with ox-drawn ploughs and smelted iron. After the kingdom faded, around the 4th century BC, smaller polities filled the gap until the rise of Aksum.