Dahs

Region and tribe in the southern highlands of Yemen (modern Yāfiʿ) and name of a small kingdom in the 8th-7th cent. BCE.

In the 8th cent. BCE, the name Dahs (Sab. Dhs¹^m) refers to a small autonomous kingdom. The Sabaic inscription DAI Ṣirwāḥ 2005-50 reports a Sabaean military expedition on its territory, ending with the execution of its king Yaqum and 6000 men (Nebes 2016). The contemporaneous inscription RES 3916 refers to the assignment of Dahs to Almaqah, the tutelary deity of Sabaʾ. In the early 7th cent. BCE, the Sabaean ruler Karibʾīl Watār, son of Dhamarʿalī Dhāriḥ, led another expedition against Dahs and the neighbouring territory of Tubnà. Both cities were burned and 2000 men were killed and 5000 taken prisoner. Dahs was incorporated into the Sabaean orbit and was granted the territories of ʿAwd (RES 3945/7, 10). In the early 6th cent. BCE, Dahs, then allied to the kingdom of Qatabān, was once again the target of a Sabaean military expedition (RES 3943).

From the 5th-4th cent. BCE, Dahs lost all political autonomy, and became a tribe under the authority of the kingdom of Qatabān, as evidenced by the title borne by its rulers from the reign of Shahr Ghaylān, son of Abīshibām (CSAI I, 5): ‘king/mukarrib of Qatabān, of the descendants of ʿAmm, of Awsān, Kaḥad, Dahs, Tubnà. In the 2nd cent. BCE, the name Dahs disappears from the royal titulary of Qatabān (RES 3854) and from the epigraphic record.

Mounir Arbach

References and suggested reading

• Arbach, M. 2006. Tamnaʿ : histoire et chronologie d’après les inscriptions. Arabia 3 (2005-2006): 115–134.
• Nebes, N. 2016. Der Tatenbericht des Yiṯaʿʾamar Watar bin Yakrubmalik aus Ṣirwāḥ (Jemen). Zur Geschichte Südarabiens im frühen 1. Jahrtausend vor Christus (EFAH, 7). Tübingen: E. Wasmuth.
• Robin, C.J. 2016. Tamnaʿ et Qatabān. L’état des lieux, in A. de Maigret & C.J. Robin (eds) Tamnaʿ (Yémen). Les fouilles italo-françaises. Rapport final (O&M, 20): 17–105. Paris: De Boccard.

_{Alternate spellings: Dahasum, Dahs, Dahsum, Dhs¹m, Dhsm}