Wadd

Wadd is a male Ancient South Arabian divinity, symbolised by a snake. His cult is attested since the earliest written sources, mainly in the Minaean, Sabaean and Qatabanian areas, including the Minaean settlements of Dadan and Qaryat al-Fāw, and the Sabaean sites in Ethiopia. The propitiatory formula “Wadd is father” was widespread and long lasting, and survived the adoption of monotheism.

Wadd or Waddum (Wd/Wd^m) is a major South Arabian god, whose name is related to the Semitic root WDD “to love, to agree”. The cult of Wadd was mainly practised in the Minaean and Sabaean regions, and to a lesser extent in Qatabān. This distribution is consistently mirrored by anthroponymy, which counts a variety of theo-phoric names composed with the element Wadd. However, forms of devotion to the god are attested across the whole of South Arabia, and sporadically even beyond, mainly in the propi-tiatory formula “Wadd is father” (Wd ʾb, or Wdm ʾbm).

As far as external sources are concerned, Wadd is mentioned in the Qurʾān in a speech by Noah (LXXI, 23):

“And they have said: «You shall not abandon your gods. You shall not abandon Wadd, nor Suwāʿ, nor Yaġūṯ, or Yaʿūq or Nasr»”.

Ibn al-Kalbī in the Book of Idols states that Wadd was a god of the Kalb tribe in the north-western Arabian oasis of Dūmat al-Jandal and describes his statue as representing an armed man; however, there is no first-hand evidence that Wadd was venerated in this site (Robin 2007).

Distribution of the cult

The Jawf and Maʿīn

The earliest attestations of the cult of Wadd are found in north-western Yemen, in the inscrip-tions produced by the different kingdoms that inhabited the al-Jawf valley during the 1st mill. BCE (Nashshān, Kamna, Maʿīn, Haram). At least one temple of the god, with the epithet dhu-Niṣāb (as-Sawdāʾ 4, cf. also as-Sawdāʾ 92, YM 29827), was in operation in Nashshān in the 8th/7th c. BCE. The inscription Shaqab 1 in the 7th c. BCE mentions a god’s temple – probably named Ṣrḥm (Maʿīn 7) – in Qarnā, the capital of Maʿīn. An earlier text from the same kingdom, dating back to the end of the 8th century BCE, attests the epithet of the god dhu-ʿAmad (YM 2009). In Yathill (Barāqish), the second city of the kingdom, a temple of Wadd mentioned in the inscription M 244 has been hypothetically identified with a structure neighbouring the excavated temple of ʿAthtar dhu-Qabḍ (Agostini 2011: 56-57, figs 4-5).

The cult of the god in the Jawf lasted for the whole existence of the kingdom of Maʿīn, i.e., un-til the end of the 1st millennium BCE. The Minaeans exported the cult of Wadd to their com-mercial settlements on the incense routes up to central and northwest Arabia – Najrān, Qaryat al-Faʾw and Dadān. In the latter city, where the Minaeans seemed to identify themselves as the “children of Wadd” (ʾwldh Wd, M 291), there was a temple of the god (e.g., M 323). Wadd is attested as far as on the island of Delos, on a cylindrical altar erected by two Minaean men for “Wadd and the gods of Maʿīn in Delos” in the local sanctuary (M 349); the text is accompanied by Greek glosses and by the symbols of the invoked gods (Sørensen & Geus 2023).

Sabaʾ and Ḥimyar

In the Sabaean sanctuary on the Jabal Balaq al-Qiblī (Samsara) near Maʾrib, the worship of Wadd dhu-Masmaʿim is attested since the end of the 8th-beginning of the 7th c. BCE (cf. Schm/Samsara 1). A stela exceptionally dedicated in this Sabaean temple by a king of Maʿīn in the 7th c. BCE (Schm/Samsara 3) attests to the importance of this sacred place, and of the cult of the god Wadd, in the relation-ship between the two kingdoms.

Since ancient times, Wadd’s cult also flourished on the Sabaean highlands. In the north, the god was mainly worshipped by the Sihmān and Maʾdhin tribes in the region around Ṣanaʿāʾ, where he also received a dedication of an altar by a local king in the 6th-5th cent. BCE (YM 8872). The many epithets recorded for the god – also called with the appellation s²ym “patron” – witness the diffusion of his cult (among others, ḏ-Tʾlb, ḏ-Mrrt, ḏ-S¹mʿn w-S²ʿbm, ḏ-Yfʿn; cf. Ja 496, Ja 411, Gar Ḍulaʿ 2). The southern Sabaean highlands have yielded a corpus of bronze pendants and miniaturized situlae dating to the ancient period and bearing the name of the god (e.g., DhM 349). His cult continued in the first centuries of the current era in the area of Dhamār, where he had a sanctuary on the Jabal Bishār (e.g. az-Zubayrī-Bishār 2).

In the Ḥimyarite period, the Yazʾan lineage, which controlled the Ḥaḍramawt, was devoted to “Wadd lord of Mayfaʿat”, as attested in an inscription form the Wādī ʿAbadān (ʿAbadān 1, dated to around 360 CE). The epithet of the god refers to the site of modern Naqab al-Hajar, and it is plausible that this town was the seat of a cult of the god shortly before the adoption of monotheism as the offi-cial religion of the kingdom.

Qatabān and Awsān

The Qatabanic corpus comprises few attestations of Wadd’s worship, among which the most interesting ones are the dedications of an incense burner to Wadd dhu-Marabum (Moussaieff 17) and two bronze leg miniatures attached to inscribed plaquettes (al-Ṣalwī 1, al-Ṣalwī 2). Moreover, the presence of a temple of Wadd and Athirat – built by the mukarrib of Qatabān Yadʿʾab Dhubyān Yuhanʿim son of Shahr in the second half of the 1st mill. BCE – is stated by the inscriptions CSAI I, 21 and CSAI I, 33. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of the location of those cults.

At the turn of the Common Era, the sovereign Yaṣduqʾīl Fariʿum Sharḥʿat of the kingdom of Awsān, which was at that time independent from Qatabān, exceptionally proclaimed himself to be the son of the god Wadd (CSAI III, 6).

Representations and symbols

The low reliefs decorating the pillars of an intra muros temple on the site of Nashshān, dating back at least to the 8th cent. BCE, comprise an exceptional representation of Wadd. Various di-vinities are represented in pairs in superimposed panels, and are identified by captions recording their names. The anthropomorphic masculine figure of Wadd is represented facing the main god of Nashshān, Aranyadaʿ (as-Sawdāʾ TA 1A 2a and as-Sawdāʾ TA 1A 2b; Audouin and Arbach 2004). He is standing, armed with arch and quiver, wearing a short skirt and horned headgear.

The symbol of Wadd is a snake, which suggests that the god was connected to the chthonic world. This iconographic associa-tion is undoubtedly exemplified (among other examples such as A-50-1028, DhM 349) by the Minaic inscription M 244 from Yathill, celebrating the construction of a temple of Wadd: at the side of the inscription, an incised ser-pent surrounds the god’s name. Representations of snakes are also found on inscriptions from the Sabaean sanctuary of Wadd dhu-Masmaʿim (e.g., Schm/Samsara 2).

Documentation from this latter temple shows that the snake is not the only symbol related to Wadd: the crescent with disc is also found on incense burners dedicated to the god (e.g., Schm/Samsara 6). Although this iconography is frequent on such typology of ritual objects – regardless of the di-vinity invoked – it is interesting to note that the crescent with disc also accompanies the Wd ʾb formula on different kinds of objects in the Sabaean and Qatabanian areas (see below).

Cult practice

Sabaic and Minaic inscriptions provide many attestations of the priests of Wadd (cf. Schm/Samsara 2, YM 2009, Maʿīn 101, M 339, M 333).

Most of the information on the cult practices related to Wadd come from the Minaic texts. He was the recipient of dedications, libations and sacrifices, also during feasts (e.g. Maʿīn 1). Actions were performed upon the god’s indication, such as rituals (YM 28488 B) and construction works in temples (as-Sawdāʾ 92, Kamna 28); regulations were established according to the god’s oracle, such as the prohibition on practi-tioners of prostitution entering the town’s gates (Maʿīn 3). Expiatory inscriptions were addressed to the god. One of these provides an exceptional narra-tion of Wadd’s direct intervention in human affairs (YM 26106): following a transgression operated on a watercourse by the tribe of Maʿīn and its king, Wadd restored order and irrigated the lands of Maʿīn. The special relation binding Wadd to hydric resources is indeed evident in the worship of his divinized watercourse, named Hirran (e.g., Maʿīn 1, Maʿīn 105).

The only South Arabian incantation known so far, a minuscule Sabaic text written on a wood-en stick in the second quarter of the 1st mill. BCE (Mon.script.sab. 7 A), witnesses the role of the god Wadd as a protector. The author asks the god to save him from evil and he curses an enemy. “The new moon” (s²hrn), in whose darkness the author of the text hides, is found as an epithet of the god Wadd in some Minaic (from Yathill: M 222, and Qaryat al-Faʾw: Riyāḍ 302F8, Riyāḍ 262F8) and Sabaic inscriptions. Among the latter, the text on the bronze pendant DhM 360 from the region of al-Ḥadāʾ in the Southern Highlands states that the author “dedicated (this amulet) to Waddum dhu-Śafram because He protected him. And the right hand of Waddum Shahran has prohibited from taking it away”.

The “Wadd is father” (Wd ʾb) formula

The protecting role of Wadd as a father was made explicit in the apotropaic closing phrase of some Sabaic inscriptions from Ethiopia, dating back to the first half of the 1st millennium BCE: “and your (i.e., of the engraved object) father is Wadd” (potentially integrated by the specifica-tion “against any opponent”; cf. Addi Akaweh 1, RIÉth 10).

This paternal appellation had a wide fortune in the spread of the Wd ʾb (“Wadd is father”) for-mula, even beyond the borders of South Arabia: fragments of jars inscribed with the formula have been found as far as Mleiha, Thāj, Qalʿat al-Baḥrain (cf. ML 90 L 2459, Ja 1052, QA 898 232; cf. Robin 1994: 84-85 and references therein). Strikingly, the formula is absent in Minaic (apart from a unique attestation in Dadān in RÉS 3704 A – and hypothetically in RÉS 3704 B; see Jaussen and Savignac 1914: 290-291, pl. XVII/3), but contains on the contrary the only mentions of the god in the Hadramitic corpus, written on sepulchral vases, but also on architectural stone blocks, in order to place the build-ing under the protection of the god. This latter usage was very common in the Yemeni High-lands in the Middle Sabaic times and is also attested in the Qatabanian area. Its frequent asso-ciation with the crescent-and-disc symbol was probably believed to reinforce its auspicious power (Av. Aqmar 3, Ja 873, Ry 393, ThUM 261). The Wd ʾb formula was also used on amulets, the majority of which were square, aniconic pendants, although more elaborated artefacts were also produced, like the ivory pendant with sphinxes and palm tree decorations found during the excavations of House D in the “Market Place” of Tamnaʿ (Hajar Kuḥlān) and dated to around 50 CE (T.00.B.O/17).

The fortune of the propitiatory formula was long lasting, surviving the adoption of monothe-ism. It was added to an inscription invoking the unique god Raḥmanān in a rock text from the Wādī Mayfaʿa (RÉS 5064) and was even carved above the relief of a Ḥimyarite nobleman – probably a king – from Ẓafār dated to the 5th cent. CE (cf. Buchmann et al. 2009: 69).

Irene Rossi

References and suggested readings

• Agostini, A. 2011. Two new inscriptions from the recently excavated temple of ʿAthtar dhū-Qabḍ in Barāqish (Ancient Minaean Yathill). In memoriam Alessandro de Maigret. AAE 22/1: 48–58, DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.2011.00332.x.
• Audouin, R. & M. Arbach. 2004. La découverte du temple d'Aranyadaʾ à Nashshān. Rapport préliminaire d'une opération de sauvetage franco-yéménite. CRAI 2004 (Jul.-Oct.): 1278–1304, DOI: 10.3406/crai.2004.22785.
• Buchmann, I., T. Schröder & P. Yule. 2009. Documentation and visualisation of archaeological sites in Yemen: an antique relief wall in Zafar. PSAS 39: 69–72.
• Jamme, A.W.F. 1966. Sabaean and Ḥasaean Inscriptions from Saudi Arabia. Studi Semitici 23. Rome: Istituto di studi del Vicino Oriente, Università di Roma.
• Jamme, A.W.F. 1966. New Sabaean and Ḥasaean Inscriptions from Saudi Arabia. OA 6: 181–187.
• Jaussen, A.J. & M.R. Savignac. 1914. Mission archéologique en Arabie. II. El- ʿ Ela, d'Hégra à Teima, Harrah de Tebouk. Publications de la Société française des fouilles archéologiques 2. Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner.
• Nebes, N. 2010. Eine apotropäische Segensformel in den äthio-sabäischen Königsinschriften. Aethiopica 13: 182–188, http://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/aethiopica/article/download/45/184.
• Prioletta, A. 2013. Inscriptions from the southern highlands of Yemen. The epigraphic collections of the museums of Baynūn and Dhamār. Arabia Antica 8. Rome: L'«Erma» di Bretschneider.
• Robin, Ch.J. 1982. Les hautes-terres du Nord-Yémen avant l'Islam. Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul 50. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaelogisch Instituut te Istanbul.
• Robin, Ch.J. 1994. Documents de l'Arabie antique III. Raydān, 6: 69–90.
• Robin, Ch.J. 2007. s.v. Wadd, Encyclopédie de l'Islam. Nouvelle Edition, T. XI, Suppl. Leiden: Brill, 852–853.
• Sørensen, S.L. & K. Geus. 2023. Minaeans in the Mediterranean. Reevaluating two Old South Arabian inscriptions from Delos. AAE, DOI: 10.1111/aae.12229.
• Stein, P. 2013. The first incantation from Ancient South Arabia. In F. Briquel Chatonnet, C. Fauveaud & I. Gajda (eds) Entre Carthage et l'Arabie heureuse. Mélanges offerts à François Bron: 151–160. Orient & Méditerranée 12. Paris: de Boccard.

_{Alternate spellings: Wadd, Waddum, Wd, Wdm}