An Unpublished Inscription From the ʾAwām Sanctuary of ʾAlmaqah: New Evidence for a Royal mqtwy and Sabaean Campaigns in the ‘Land of the Abyssinians’

Abstract

This article presents an unpublished Sabaic inscription from the ʾAwām sanctuary of ʾAlmaqah, near Maʾrib. The inscription sheds new light on the mid-third century ad adventures of a mqtwy (‘officer’) of the Sabaean kings already known from epigraphic evidence: Whbʾwm Yʾḏf. It attests to him waging previously unknown campaigns in ‘the land of the Abyssinians’ (ʾrḍ Ḥbs²t) alongside his own mqtwy, who subsequently dedicated the inscription, with a bronze statue, in thanksgiving to the deity. This is the only military, rather than diplomatic, Sabaean mission abroad to the land (ʾrḍ) of the Abyssinians so far attested. Wider evidence invites us to reconstruct Whbʾwm's extraordinary career and identify an overlooked religious dimension to the mqtwy's function. The inscription shows that divine thanksgiving from mqtwy for monarch took identical form lower down the social hierarchy, adumbrating not only the reciprocity and ritual that underpinned Sabaean elite society, but also the impact of Abyssinian hostilities at a pivotal moment in the twilight of Sabaean history.