Dhat Ḥimyam

Dhat Ḥimyam is an ancient South Arabian goddess. She was one of the major deities of the Sabaean pantheon, attested since the earliest written documentation in Arabia and in the Ethio-Sabaean settlements. She was also worshipped in Ḥaḍramawt, where she was the patron goddess of two major temples at Raybūn. Her cult is sporadically attested in Qatabān as a protector of sanctuaries, while the few mentions in the Minaic corpus are all related to a Sabaean influence.

Dhat Ḥimyam (ḏt Ḥmym) is an ancient South Arabian goddess, attested in all the linguistic corpora of the region. Her identification with a solar deity – a manifestation of Shams – suggested by certain scholars, on the basis of the notion of “heat” conveyed by the root ḤMM, has been criticized. Other scholars suggest that the name of the goddess is associated rather with the root ḤMY “to protect”, which is well attested in ancient South Arabian (Beeston 1991: 4). However, although such etymological exercises were rather popular until the end of the 20th cent. CE, they now seem unreliable (Robin 1996: col. 1161).

The relevance of Dhat Ḥimyam in the ancient South Arabian religion is apparent from the number of occurrences of her name in the inscriptions. Since the early documentation, she appears to be one of the main deities of the Sabaean pantheon. She received dedications in the heart of the Sabaean kingdom as well as in peripheral areas, such as the Tihāma (e.g., Ja 2896 from al-Ḥāmid) and the Sabaean settlements in the Jawf valley. In the town of Kharibat Saʿūd, ancient Kutalum, a temple was erected in her name (e.g., CIH 496). All the mentions of Dhat Ḥimyam in inscriptions in the local kingdoms of the Jawf appear to be related to some kind of local allegiance with Sabaʾ rather than to an indigenous cult (e.g., Haram 12, Kamna 30 A and 30 B, Maʿīn 109). The goddess was also worshipped in the Sabaean settlements in Ethiopia/Eritrea (RIÉth 53 A), where her name was also locally spelled ḏt Ḥmn, not only in graffiti from the sites of Fəqya and Dakhanamo, but even in a royal inscription from the strongly Sabaean-influenced Ethiopian kingdom of Daʿamat (RIÉth 9). Some correspondences between Dhat Ḥimyam and the Aksumite deity of earth are attested in pre-Christian texts from ʿEzana, such as Mdr (RIÉth 185 II/21), Mədr (RIÉth 188/26) and Γῆ (RIÉth 270bis/30).

The constant invocation of Dhat Ḥimyam in the closing sections of the Sabaic inscriptions — in third or fourth position after ʿAthtar, Hawbas and Almaqah — attest to the survival of her cult throughout polytheistic times, until at least the end of the 2nd cent. CE (e.g., RES 4138). In the first half of the same century, a second temple of the goddess, named Raydān, is mentioned in an inscription from the site of Ḍāf on the highlands (CIH 41).

The archaeologically identifiable sanctuaries of Dhat Ḥimyam are both located in the territory of the Ḥaḍramawt, at Raybūn. They consist of two huge complexes, made up of several buildings and located on opposite sides of the same wādī: the temple of Dhat Ḥimyam Dhat Kafas/Naʿmān (the two epithets of the goddess attested in the local inscriptions; e.g., Raybūn-Kafas/Naʿmān 35 and Raybūn-Kafas/Naʿmān 148; Figs. 1–2), and the temple of Dhat Ḥimyam Dhat Raḥbān (e.g., Rb I/88 no. 132a-b). Devotion to the goddess at the site is attested by the monumentality of the temples and by about 500 epigraphic mentions of her name, reflecting her outstanding role in the Ḥaḍramitic pantheon, even though evidence of her cult in other sites of the kingdom is scarce — mainly restricted to the capital Shabwa and the eastern part of the Wādī Ḥaḍramawt (Sedov 2005: 24–25, 93–100, 102–107; Frantsouzoff 2007). The analysis of the dedications to Dhāt Ḥimyam discovered at Raybūn demonstrates that this goddess was responsible for regulating conjugal relations and probably for land ownership rights. The existence of some secondary subservient deities (like ʾšms or mnḍḥt) called rʿbt Ḏt Ḥmym (sing.) and ṣrʿy Ḏt Ḥ[mym] (pl.) is also confirmed. In the divine hierarchy of Raybūn, her position was lower than that of Syn. She had her own festival designated with the same term (mʿd) as the feast of Syn. One of her priests bore the title mḥmd Rḥbn (SOYCE 601; Fig. 3), which may be interpreted as “celebrated at (the temple) Raḥbān” and is to be compared with the name (or probably nickname) of the prophet Muḥammad.

The limited number of Dhat Ḥimyam’s attestations in the Qatabānic corpus, mainly concentrated in the last quarter of the first millennium BCE, suggests that she was a secondary deity. She is rarely the recipient of dedications (cf. CSAI I, 125; Fig. 4) and when she is listed in the final invocations of inscriptions, she is in a terminal position (e.g., al-ʿĀdī 22). However, her cult seemed to extend over a long distance (Hajar Kuḥlān, Ḥinū al-Zurayr, Maryamat, wādī Ḍuraʾ, region of al-Bayḍāʾ). In the Qatabānic corpus, Dhat Ḥimyam sometimes holds the epithet ʿṯtr (ʿithtar?) in a construct state with the name of a temple (e.g., ḏt Ḥmym ʿṯtr Yġl, in the inscription CSAI II, 4). It has been suggested that this epithet is a substantivized feminine theonym from the name of the god ʿAthtar, designating a category of minor goddesses, to be compared to the Mesopotamian ishtarātu (Robin 2012a: 351–352). They were probably endowed with the function of protectors of sacred places. J. Pirenne’s identification of the goddess with the feminine representations on some Qatabānian funerary stelae is probably to be disregarded, as those sculptures are more likely to be the portrait of the deceased in a blessing attitude (Robin 2012b: 90–92). According to the expiatory inscription Raybūn-Kafas/Naʿmān 148 (Fig. 5) and two fragmentary texts from the temple Raḥbān, a certain aniconism existed in ancient Raybūn, since it was prohibited to make any image of Dhāt Ḥimyam there (see: Multhoff 2009; Multhoff 2010: 22–34; Frantsouzoff 2010: 163-166; in any case, the attempt of A. Multhoff to interpret mṯl ms³l in Minaic and Hadramitic as mithla(-hu) “like (that)” in Arabic is to be rejected as a result of a thorough contextual analysis).

Serge Frantsouzoff & Irene Rossi

References and suggested readings

Sources

• RIÉth: Bernand, É., A.J. Drewes, R. Schneider & F. Anfray 1991. Recueil des inscriptions de l’Ethiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite. Tome I. Les documents. Tome II. Les planches. Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, De Boccard.

Studies

• Beeston, A.F.L. 1991. Sayhadic Divine Designations. PSAS 21: 1–5.
• Bron, F. 2008. Les dieux et les cultes de l’Arabie du Sud préislamique, in G. del Olmo Lete (ed.) Mythologie et religion des Sémites occidentaux. Vol. II: Émar, Ougarit, Israël, Phénicie, Aram, Arabie. Leuven, Paris, Dudley, MA.: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oosterse Studies.
• Frantsouzoff, S.A. 2005. Ḏāt Ḥimyam, in S. Uhlig (ed.) Encyclopaedia Aethioipica, vol. 2: 107–108. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Frantsouzoff, S.A. 2007. Raybūn. Kafas Naʿmān, temple de la déesse dhāt-Ḥimyam. Fasc. A: Les documents. Fasc. B: Les planches. Avec une contribution archéologique d’A.V. Sedov et Ju.A. Vinogradov (Inventaire des Inscriptions Sudarabiques, 6). Paris, Rome: De Boccard, Herder.
• Frantsouzoff, S.A. 2010. Once more on the interpretation of mṯl in Epigraphic South Arabian (a new expiatory inscription on irrigation from Kamna). PSAS 40: 161–170.
• Frantsouzoff, S.A. 2012. К востоку от Адена. Оазис Райбун в I тысячелетии до н.э. (эпиграфические памятники, религиозная жизнь и социальное устройство культового центра древнего Хадрамаута) [East of Aden. Oasis of Raybūn in the 1st Millennium BC (epigraphic documentation, religious life and social structure of a cult center of ancient Hadramawt)]. St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philology, Nestor-Historia.
• Frantsouzoff, S.A. 2014. История Хадрамаута с древнейших времен до конца британского владычества, т. I: История Хадрамаута в эпоху древности [History of Hadramawt from the Earliest Time up to the End of the British Rule, vol. I: History of Hadramawt in Antiquity]. St. Petersburg: Linguistic Society of St. Petersburg.
• Multhoff, A. 2009. “A parallel to the Second Commandment…” revisited. PSAS 39: 295–302.
• Multhoff, A. 2010. Phalluskult und Bilderverbot? Beiträge zur ḥaḍramitischen Sprache und Kultur. ZDMG 160: 7–40.
• Robin, C.J. 1996. Sheba. II. Dans les inscriptions d’Arabie du Sud. Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, fasc. 70: 1047–1254. Paris: Letouzey et Ané.
• Robin, C.J. 2012 a. ʿAthtar au féminin en Arabie méridionale, in A.V. Sedov (ed.) New Research in Archaeology and Epigraphy of South Arabia and its Neighbors, Proceedings of the ‘Rencontres sabéennes 15’ held in Moscow May 25th-27th, 2011: 333–366. Moscow: The State Museum of Oriental Art and Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Robin, C.J. 2012 b. Matériaux pour une typologie des divinités arabiques et de leurs représentations, in I. Sachet & C.J. Robin (eds) Dieux et déesses d’Arabie, images et représentations. Actes de la table ronde tenue au Collège de France (Paris) les 1er et 2 octobre 2007 (Orient et Méditerranée, 7): 7–118. Paris: De Boccard.
• Sedov, A.V. 2005. Temples of Ancient Ḥaḍramawt (Arabia Antica, 3). Pisa: Pisa University Press.

_{Alternate spellings: Dhāt Ḥimyam, Dhât Ḥimyam, Dhat Ḥimyām, Dhāt Ḥimyām, Dhât Ḥimyâm, Dhāt Ḥamīm, Dhât Ḥamîm, Dhat Hamim, Dhat Himyam, Dhāt Himyam, Dhât Himyam, Dhat Himyām, Dhāt Himyām, Dhât Himyâm, Dhāt Hamīm, Dhât Hamîm, Dhat Hamim, ḏt Ḥmym, ḏt-Ḥmym, ḏt Ḥmm, ḏt-Ḥmm, ḏt Ḥmn, ḏt-Ḥmn, dt-Hmn, dt Hmn, dt hmym, dt-Hmym, dt-Hmm, dt Hmm}