Dhat-Badan

Also Known As: Sabaic dhat Ba’dan, most often read as “she who is far off”, or by an older reading “lady of Ba’dan”; also Dhat-Ba’dan, Dhat Ba’dan, Dhat-Ba’dhanum
Region/Culture: West Asia/Middle East
Mythos: Arabic Mythology, Ethiopian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: She is the sun in its distant aspect, one of two named faces of the solar goddess of ancient South Arabia.
Role in Mythos: She closes the official list of five gods that Sabaean kings and builders called on to guard their temples, altars and offerings, in Yemen and across the Red Sea in highland Ethiopia.
Relation to Humans: People placed buildings and gifts under her protection by cutting her name into the stone. One votive text says she would not be called on at all unless a seeress was present in her sanctuary.

Somewhere in the highlands of Tigray, twenty-five or so centuries ago, a stonecutter squared off a block of limestone into an incense burner and began cutting a line of angular letters around its face. The donor’s name went first, then what was being given. Then came the part the cutter could have done in the dark, because it never changed: five divine names in a fixed order, the same five and the same order used by masons on the far side of the Red Sea. The fifth name was always hers.

Dhat-Badan is one of the best attested goddesses of ancient South Arabia and one of the least known. Her home was the kingdom of Saba, in what is now Yemen, where irrigation from a great dam made the edge of the desert rich and the incense trade made it richer. The Sabaeans left thousands of inscriptions, and they tell a reader a great deal about canals, wars, debts and dedications. They tell almost nothing about what anyone believed. The gods appear as names at the end of a contract.

Her name is a description. The first word means something like “she of” or “she who has”, a common way of building a goddess’s title in that language. The second has been read two ways. Early students of the inscriptions took Ba’dan for a place and called her the lady of it. The reading that has held up better takes the word to mean distance: she who is far off. That reading makes sense of the company she keeps, because the name that stands directly before hers in the formula is Dhat-Himyam, the blazing one. The two are usually understood as a single goddess seen at two times of year. One is the sun close and fierce, standing over the fields at the height of the hot season. The other is the sun when it draws away, low in the south, its light thin and pale on cold mornings. In neighbouring Hadramawt the same goddess was called simply Shams, which is the word for sun.

In the Sabaean order of things she was not the head of the household. That place belonged to Almaqah, the great god of the Sabaean state, and before him in the list stood Athtar, the god of the morning star, and Hawbas. The two sun names came last. Kings invoked all five when they recorded a victory or repaired a wall, and private people did the same on a smaller scale.

Then the formula crossed the water. In the first half of the first millennium BCE a kingdom called D’mt rose in the highlands of what are now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with a great temple at Yeha and a script, a building style and a pantheon shared with Saba. The inscriptions there name the same gods, with Athtar spelled Astar. A text from Seglamen recording the restoration of a temple calls on her. Two incense burners from Addi Akaweh do the same, and so does an altar found in the temple of Almaqah at Meqaber Ga’ewa, near Wuqro. That is the whole of her Ethiopian career as it survives: a name in a list, on four pieces of worked stone. It is also the reason she is counted among the old gods of Ethiopia as well as those of Arabia.

No story about her survives. Nobody recorded a birth, a marriage, a quarrel or a journey, and no source describes a face, a crown or an animal at her side. The Sabaeans did not carve their gods as people, and what the stones give in place of a portrait is light: a disc, a season, a quality of heat or the lack of it.

One inscription lets a little more through. It is a votive text addressed to the sun goddess under this name, and it preserves a rule of her house. She would not be invoked when no seeress was in the sanctuary. The woman who held that post had a title built on the root for dreaming, which suggests how the goddess was thought to answer. A petitioner who climbed to the shrine on the wrong day, with an offering in hand and smoke already rising from the burner, would have found the place open and the goddess unavailable. The rule is a small thing. It is also nearly the only moment in two thousand years of evidence when she is seen wanting something.

Much more is said about her in modern books than the stones will bear. She is described as a goddess of oases and the rainy season, worshipped beside pools ringed with trees. Her name is turned into “she of the wild goats”, and a Red Sea island of ibex is placed in her keeping. None of this can be traced to an inscription. It appears in compendiums and popular goddess handbooks of the last century or so and has been copied from one to the next. The goddess in the record is plainer and stranger: a sun that has gone a long way off and is still asked to stand guard.

Her power, as far as the record shows it, was the power of a guarantor. A temple, an altar or a gift placed under the five names was protected, and anyone who damaged it answered to all of them. The dreaming seeress hints that she could also speak, and give answers to those who asked properly.

Her limits are written into the same evidence. She never appears as the leader of the list and seldom outside it. She could not be reached without her seeress. And she lasted exactly as long as the formula did. In Ethiopia the Sabaean gods faded with D’mt, and the later kings of Aksum called on a different set. In Yemen the rulers of Himyar stopped naming the old gods in their inscriptions toward the end of the fourth century CE and addressed a single lord of heaven. After that the faraway one was not called on again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Dhat-Badan?

Dhat-Badan is a goddess of ancient South Arabia, worshipped in the kingdom of Saba in what is now Yemen. She is one of two named aspects of the Sabaean sun goddess, and her name is usually read as “she who is far off”. She is known almost entirely from inscriptions that call on her to protect buildings and offerings.

What is Dhat-Badan the goddess of?

Dhat-Badan is the goddess of the sun in its distant aspect. She is paired with Dhat-Himyam, the blazing one, and the two are usually understood as the same sun goddess at two times of year. Modern descriptions of Dhat-Badan as a goddess of oases, pools and wild goats cannot be traced to any ancient inscription.

Was Dhat-Badan worshipped in Ethiopia?

Yes. Inscriptions from the kingdom of D’mt in northern Ethiopia name Dhat-Badan alongside Astar, Hawbas, Almaqah and Dhat-Himyam. She appears on a temple text from Seglamen, two incense burners from Addi Akaweh, and an altar from the temple at Meqaber Ga’ewa near Wuqro.

Are there any myths about Dhat-Badan?

No myth about Dhat-Badan survives. The Sabaean inscriptions record her name in dedications and say nothing of her family or deeds. The one personal detail is a votive text saying Dhat-Badan would not be invoked unless a seeress was present in her sanctuary.

What did Dhat-Badan look like?

No ancient source describes Dhat-Badan or shows her in human form. The Sabaeans did not carve their gods as people. The only shape the record gives her is the sun itself.