Being the son of Raamah - a potential “proto-Ethiopian” - Sheba would obviously be located somewhere near these Ethiopians. While one might presume Sheba to be the Sabaeans of Ethiopia, this exact designation does not exactly fit into the ethnic or linguistic picture of Ethiopia. Obviously it would be helpful to discuss the earliest known Kingdom in the region, D’mt.
As previously discussed, D’mt was the original Kingdom later succeeded by the Aksumite Empire.1 Both of these people spoke Ge’ez, a now extinct but closely related language to modern Tigrinya and Tigre.2 Tigrinya and Tigre are closely related languages spoken by the majority of the population in Eritrea, and about 6% of people in Ethiopia, mostly contained in the northern heartland of Tigray. The lexical similarity between Ge’ez and Tigrinya is 68%, and nearly 71% with Tigre3, which indicates a close connection uniting the Trigriyans, Tigre, D’mt and Aksum. Evidence for Ge’ez shows it dates all the way back to 2000 BCE4, attesting to an extremely early presence for these people, and definitely deserving of their own listing on the Table of Nations. Helpfully the old capital of D’mt, Yeha, is located in the center of the Tigrayan heartland. Due to the loss of Ge’ez as a regional language it’s difficult to say what happened to its speakers, but cultural continuity implies either the Tigrinya or Tigre are the D’mtian Aksumites.
We can therefore easily place the Tigrinya and Tigre as the successor of D’mt, and the earliest notable ethnic group to form some sort of Kingdom in the region. Tentatively this would make Raamah and D’mt associated with the Tigray ethnic groups in the North, but as mentioned before they do not actually constitute a modern majority of Ethiopia, and like the Somali are only 6% of the nation. Constituting nearly 30% of Ethiopia each are the ethnic groups of the Amhara and Oromo. While the Oromos are actually a Cushitic people, rather than Semitic like the Tigrayans, the Amhara are also Semitic and speak a closely related Amharic which acts as the lingua franca across Ethiopia.
Many of the notable rulers and leaders of Ethiopia, both historic and modern, tend to be Amhara. However, the Amhara are a relatively modern people for our context appearing in the early 12th century in records of the Zagwe Dynasty showing them in conflict in the land of Wargin, against the so called “warjih”.5 Originally these people split off from the earlier Semitic Speakers in Tigray, moving south to present day Amhara, and becoming absorbed into the Cushitic speaking Agaw populations.6 There is linguistic evidence for a distinct ethnic group of Amhara between the Tekeze and Blue Nile around the 9th century AD lining up with what we previously discussed regarding these rivers.7
One of the major differences between Tigrayans and Amharics is this substratum of Cushitic that does not exist further north, owing to the larger Semitic admixture. Interestingly most Ethiopian Jews tend to speak Amharic, potentially showing a connection between them and Sheba. However both of these people remained in constant contact with each other, and shared many of their traditions well into the 14th century.8
Helping certify this Sheba connection to the Amharics is more than just circumstantial oral traditions, but also a major province and focal point of Ethiopian politics, Shewa. Located in the center of the country, at the crossroads for nearly the nation's entire ethnic population is the capital of Addis Ababa.
Studies of the human population have shown a genetic origin for all humans around Addis Ababa over 100,000 years ago.9 Research shows that the farther one gets from Addis Ababa, the less genetically diverse they tend to become, with the inverse relationship implying the closer one is to Addis Ababa the more likely their genetic picture becomes increasingly complex. In many ways, Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian highlands were the crossroad of early human populations and genetic diversity. However, Addis Ababa was only a major settlement in the 1800s, becoming the center of a snowballing modern conflict between the Amhara and Oromo.
Unlike the Oromia, who mostly occupy the southern half of the nation, the Northern Ethiopian highlands are the central region occupied by most Amhara today, while Addis Ababa is less critical of a city, historically, for the Amhara. These highlands are located between Addis Ababa and the Eritrean capital of Asmara. The combined term for the semitic speakers - both Ethiopian and Eritrean - has historically been the term “Habesha”. In our discussion of Havilah we brought up this term “HBST” in relation to Punt, and the term found its way into most European languages through the Latin term for the region “Abyssinia”.
“Abyssinian” and “Habesha” are thus unified ethnic designations for all of the people in this region of Africa, but specifically excluding the Nilotic peoples and Somalis further south. Tigraya, Tigre, Amhara, and Oromo, as well as other ethnic groups such as the Afar, Argobba or Harari would be considered “Abyssinians”. We could say “Abyssinia”, lead in the earliest periods by D’mtian Tigrayans, is the real designation for Raamah, and the two major descendants of Raamah would be identified as his sons. This doesn’t exactly identify Sheba as “Shewa province” since that area was multi ethnic, but it does give us a major clue helping with identification.
Obviously there are numerous locations potentially related to the name Sheba in Yemen. Among them was the economic and political center of the Saba called “Sirwah”, Jabal Sabir one of the highest mountains in Yemen near the major city of Taiz, as well as the “Shabwa Governorate” which is a battleground for the Yemeni civil war. Owing to the fact this war has ravaged Yemen, it is unlikely we will get much archeology in the near future, and actually uncovering the real origins of the Sabaeans of Yemen may take decades.
Since the name Sheba is so frequently found in Ethiopian and Yemeni traditions, it’s clear that this designation is meant to refer to these people who share origin with the Sabaeans. While the later son of Jokshan, in the line of Shem is more likely the Yemeni branch, the Ethiopian branch which has its own unique, and separate substrate would represent the “Raamah” branch of the Shebans. This lines up well with most ancient designations, as well as modern archeological, linguistic, and cultural evidence.
This week was a short section, but next week will be the start of the longest single chapter having either 3 or potentially 4 parts. Cush will get wrapped up with one part for Sabtecah, but Dedan is a bit of a beast that will take us on a winding journey down the mythical version of the Nile.
Munro-Hay, Stuart (1991). Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 69
Leslau, Wolf (1970). "Ethiopic and South Arabian". Linguistics in South West Asia and North Africa. The Hague. p. 467., and Faber, Alice (2005). "Genetic Subgrouping of the Semitic Languages". The Semitic Languages. Routledge. pp. 6–7..
Thompson, E. D. 1976. Languages of Northern Eritrea. In Bender, M. Lionel (ed.), The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, 597-603. East Lansing, Michigan: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.
Stuart, Munro-Hay (1991). Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press.
Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 81
Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. pp. 36, 87–88.
Fage, J.D.; Oliver, Roland Anthony (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa: From c. 500 B.C. to A.D. 1050. Cambridge University Press. p. 126.
Hetzron, Robert (1972). Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification. Manchester University Press. pp. 36, 87–88.
"DNA Studies Trace Migration from Ethiopia". bnd.com. St. Louis: Los Angeles Times. bnd. 22 February 2008.