Ḥaḍramawt (Ḥaḑramitic: , romanized: ; Sabaic, Minaic, Qatabānic: , romanized: ) was an ancient South Semitic-speaking kingdom of South Arabia (ancient Yemen) which existed from the early 1st millennium BCE till the late 3rd century CE in the area currently named after it in the region of the Ṣayhad desert.
The kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaʾ, Maʿīn, Qatabān, Ḥimyar, and Awsān. Little is known about Ḥaḍramawt compared to the other early South Arabian states.
Geography
The kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt was the easternmost of the ancient South Arabian kingdoms, with its core being centred around the Wādī Ḥaḍramawt and the Wādī al-Masīla, and in the east and the south it was bordered by the Indian Ocean. Its capital was the city of Šabwat.
History
Prehistory
The earliest human activities in the region date from the Middle Palaeolithic, with the local population using a Levallois technique for flake preparation until the appearance of tools produced by a desert-dwelling pre-agricultural population. From this latter period, or perhaps the succeeding one, can be dated several megalithic structures, large stone circles, and four dolmen-like strictures whose inner surfaces were decorated with repetitive rows of pecked meander or crenellated design.
Kingdom
In the late 7th century BCE, Ḥaḍramawt and the nearby kingdom of Qatabān were initially allies of the king Karibʾil Watar of the neighbouring kingdom of Sabaʾ, but by the 6th century BCE, Ḥaḍramawt and Qatabān had come under the control of Sabaʾ.
After Ḥaḍramawt and Qatabān regained their independence from Sabaʾ in the early or late 5th century BCE, the Ḥaḍramites, Qatabānians and Minaeans together rejected the hegemony of Sabaʾ to instead became the dominant states of the South Arabian region, and the names of the rulers of Ḥaḍramawt are first attested by name beginning in the 5th century BCE.
Qatabān soon embarked on a successful expansionist policy against Sabaʾ and was challenging the supremacy of Sabaʾ in South Arabia, and at one point in the 1st century BCE, Ḥaḍramawt joined a coalition formed by Qatabān, Radman, Maḏay, and the Arab nomads against the Sabaeans.
The Ḥaḍramite king Īlʿazz Yaliṭ II, who reigned around is recorded as having organised a royal hunt during which were present two Palmyrene delegates, two Chaldaean delegates, and two South Asian delegates.
Like Sabaʾ, Ḥaḍramawt often imposed its overlordship over the Arab tribes living to the north of the South Arabian kingdoms.
During this period, from the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, Ḥaḍramawt experienced a period of prosperity, and several fortifications and both secular and religious buildings were built in its territory.
The Ḥaḍramite king Yadʿʾil Bayan rebuilt the state's capital city of Šabwat.
With the establishment of direct maritime trade links between the Mediterranean and South Asia via the Red Sea in the late Hellenistic period, the tribes of the South Arabian highland became ascendant at the expense of the kingdoms of the Sayhad. To participate in the new commercial developments, Ḥaḍramawt established two sea ports on the Indian Ocean, one at Qanīʾ and the second at Sumhuram.
Ḥaḍramawt and Ḥimyar divided the territories of Qatabān among themselves and annexed them in the late 1st or 2nd century CE.
Ḥaḍramawt itself was soon ceased to exist as an independent polity when it was annexed around by the Ḥimyarite king Šammar Yuharʿiš, who styled himself as in an inscription from 299 CE.
Legacy
Ḥaḍramawt is mentioned in the Table of Nations of the Hebrew Bible under the name of Hazarmaveth (), as one of the thirteen sons of Yoqṭān descended from Šēm through ʿĒḇer.
The Graeco-Roman author Strabo referred to Ḥaḍramawt under the name of ().
Society and culture
Culture
Like the other neighbouring states of Qatabān, Sabaʾ, Maʿīn, and Ḥimyar, the kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt belonged to the ancient South Arabian culture and developed as part of it, albeit with its own minor iterations of this culture.
Language
The people of Ḥaḍramawt spoke the Hadramautic language, which belonged to the Old South Arabian branch of the Semitic languages.
Social organisation
Ḥaḍramawt was a monarchical state. The various other offices of the kingdom included that of the (), a senior official who could head a tribe or a professional group or be the king's agent.