Ḥaá¸Âramawt (; Sabaic, Minaic, QatabÃÂnic: , <small>romanized:</small> ) 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 á¹¢ayhad desert.
The kingdom of Ḥaá¸Âramawt was one of the six ancient South Arabian kingdoms of ancient Yemen, along with Sabaþ, Maÿën, QatabÃÂn, Ḥimyar, and AwsÃÂn. Little is known about Ḥaá¸Âramawt compared to the other early South Arabian states.
The kingdom of Ḥaá¸Âramawt was the easternmost of the ancient South Arabian kingdoms, with its core being centred around the WÃÂdë Ḥaá¸Âramawt and the WÃÂdë al-Masëla, and in the east and the south it was bordered by the Indian Ocean. Its capital was the city of à  abwat.
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.
In the late 7th century BCE, Ḥaá¸Âramawt and the nearby kingdom of QatabÃÂn were initially allies of the king Karibþil Watar of the neighbouring kingdom of Sabaþ, but by the 6th century BCE, Ḥaá¸Âramawt and QatabÃÂn had come under the control of Sabaþ.
After Ḥaá¸Âramawt and QatabÃÂn regained their independence from Sabaþ in the early or late 5th century BCE, the Ḥaá¸Âramites, QatabÃÂnians and Minaeans together rejected the hegemony of Sabaþ to instead became the dominant states of the South Arabian region, and the names of the rulers of Ḥaá¸Âramawt are first attested by name beginning in the 5th century BCE.
QatabÃÂn soon embarked on a successful expansionist policy against Sabaþ and was challenging the supremacy of Sabaþ in South Arabia, and at one point in the 1st century BCE, Ḥaá¸Âramawt joined a coalition formed by QatabÃÂn, Radman, Maá¸Âay, and the Arab nomads against the Sabaeans.
The Ḥaá¸Âramite king êlÿazz Yaliá¹ 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 Sabaþ, Ḥaá¸Âramawt 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, Ḥaá¸Âramawt experienced a period of prosperity, and several fortifications and both secular and religious buildings were built in its territory.
The Ḥaá¸Âramite king Yadÿþil Bayan rebuilt the state's capital city of à  abwat.
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, Ḥaá¸Âramawt established two sea ports on the Indian Ocean, one at Qanëþ and the second at Sumhuram.
Ḥaá¸Âramawt and Ḥimyar divided the territories of QatabÃÂn among themselves and annexed them in the late 1st or 2nd century CE.
Ḥaá¸Âramawt itself was soon ceased to exist as an independent polity when it was annexed around by the Ḥimyarite king à  ammar Yuharÿià ¡, who styled himself as in an inscription from 299 CE.
Ḥaá¸Âramawt is mentioned in the Table of Nations of the Hebrew Bible under the name of Hazarmaveth (), as one of the thirteen sons of Yoqá¹ÂÃÂn descended from à  ÃÂm through ÿÃÂá¸Âer.
The Graeco-Roman author Strabo referred to Ḥaá¸Âramawt under the name of ().
Like the other neighbouring states of QatabÃÂn, Sabaþ, Maÿën, and Ḥimyar, the kingdom of Ḥaá¸Âramawt belonged to the ancient South Arabian culture and developed as part of it, albeit with its own minor iterations of this culture.
The people of Ḥaá¸Âramawt spoke the Hadramautic language, which belonged to the Old South Arabian branch of the Semitic languages.
Ḥaá¸Âramawt 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.
The Ḥaá¸Âramites practised South Arabian polytheism, and the god (), who held a supreme position within the cosmology of the ancient South Arabians as the god presiding over the whole world, always appeared first in lists, and had various manifestations with their own epithets, also held this primacy within the religion of Ḥaá¸Âramawt. And, like in the other South Arabian states, the rulers of Ḥaá¸Âramawt would offer ritual banquets in honour of ÿAṯtar, with the banquet being paid for from the tithe offered to the god by the populace.
The patron deity of the Ḥaá¸Âramites, however, was the Moon-god (), who was seen as being closer to the people compared to the more distant figure of ÿAṯtar, and the people of Ḥaá¸Âramawt consequently called themselves the "children of Sayën." Other deities known to have been worshipped in Ḥaá¸Âramawt include the Sun-goddess ().
The religious practises of the people of Ḥaá¸Âramawt made use of similar cult equipment as the other ancient South Arabian states, and professional priestesses are recorded to have existed in Ḥaá¸Âramawt, where they participated in the social life of the community, such as arbitrating marital dispute cases.
The Ḥaá¸Âramites followed the South Arabian custom of dedicating themselves and their close family members to the deities, and especially to Sayën, as a way of showing their allegiance to the religious community and to receive the deities' protections.
The people of Ḥaá¸Âramawt performed ritual hunts dedicated to their deities, the faithful accomplishment of which was believed to bring divine blessings, and the king Yadÿþil Bayan is recorded as having gone on hunts where he killed oryxes, gazelles, cheetahs, panthers, and ibexes. This tradition lasted even after the end of the kingdom of Ḥaá¸Âramawt, with the inhabitants of the region believing until recently that hunting was a prerequisite for bringing rainfall, and consequently avoiding drought and resulting famine.
The architecture of Ḥaá¸Âramawt was similar to that of the other ancient South Arabian states, although unique to its capital of à  abwat were several tall multi-storey buildings, with the structure of a six-stories high palace in the city consisting of a post-and-beam framework similar to modern-day steel frameworks made of massive wooden beams which had been assembled with tongue and groove and pegs, as well as of brick curtain walls.
Like the other South Arabian states, Ḥaá¸Âramawt practised agriculture which required flash-flood and well irrigation techniques. Ḥaá¸Âramawt produced aromatics, especially frankincense, which were cultivated in the áºÂufÃÂr region which formed part of its territory; the Graeco-Roman author Pliny the Elder mentioned (Ḥaá¸Âramawtic) as a variety of myrrh.
Once harvested, these aromatics were brought to the port of Sumhuram, from where they were shipped to Qanëþ, where the tradesmen of the Incense trade route picked them and brought them north to à  abwat, and then through QatabÃÂn, Sabaþ and Maÿën, before heading north towards the oases where lived the Arabs; Ḥaá¸Âramawt's capital of à  abwat thus formed the beginning of the Incense Route which ran through the western border of the Arabian Desert until the Mediterranean port of Gaza, as well as of another incense trading route which ran to the north-east until Gerrha, due to which Ḥaá¸Âramawt also derived significant revenue from the transit through its territory of merchant caravans trading incense produced in áºÂufÃÂr and luxuries imported from South Asia, which allowed it to act as a mediator in this trade route, thus bringing significant wealth and exotic displays to its ruling classes and institutions.
Trade in South Arabia was initially done by barter in goods against standards of gold or silver or bronze by weight, but in the 4th or 3rd century BCE the kingdoms of the region started minting their own coinage, which were based on Athenian Greek ones. In the 1st century BCE, Ḥaá¸Âramawt replaced these with its own Roman-inspired coinage which were struck with its royal mint's name of .
Known rulers of Ḥaá¸Âramawt include: