History Ethiopia

After the land and the Habasha people of Punt the earliest historically known land and people of North-East Africa were the people and state of Daamat during the last five centuries B.C. This state was located in the present Southern Eritrea and Northern Tigrai.

Documentary evidence on the ancient Ethiopian land, people, and state of Daamat have come to us mainly from the archaeological inscriptions discovered at the historical sites of Kaskase, Matara, Yeha, Adi Gelemo, Enda Cherkos, Melazo and Hawlti, in these two northern regions.

From these historical sites have come some 13 royal inscriptions containing the names of four different kings, one queen, and six state deities.

These rulers of ancient Ethiopia identified their country and state by the name of Daamat. The national symbol of the Daamatites was the ibex, that is, the Ethiopian Walia. Among many other things, the Daamatites had their own script and language.

Whereas their Puntites ancestors had relationships mainly with the Egyptians, the Daamatites also appeared to have had close commercial and cultural acquaintances with the neighbouring people of Asia and particularly with the state of Saba in Arabia.

During the first centuries A.D., the Aksumite state and civilization of Ethiopia emerged as the historical and cultural extension and geographical expansion of the Daamat people, society, and state.

According to Schneider, the leading living authority on the Daamatite period of Ethiopian history, it seems that the Daamtite system of evolutionary script and language developed into the system of Geez script and language of Ethiopia during the Aksumite period.

Keywords: Habasha, daamatite state, Punt, Daamat, Kaskase, Matara, Yeha, Adi Gelemo, Enda Cherkos, Melazo and Hawlti,

Report This Post