Agʿazi is the name of a region of the

Aksumite Empire The Kingdom of Aksum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan. Emerging ...

in what consists today of Eastern

Tigray The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

and central-south

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

History

The earliest attestation of this name can be found in the determined ''nisba''-form yg'ḏyn in three pre-Aksumite Royal inscriptions: '' b/mlkn/sr'n/yg'ḏyn/mkrb/d'mt/web''' 'RBH, the victorious king, he of (the tribe?) YG'Ḏ, ''mukarrib'' of D'MT and SB' (RIE 8:1-2); ''lmn/mlkn/sr'n/yg/ḏyn/mkrb/d'mt/wsb'/bn/rbb'' 'LMN, the victorious king he of (the tribe?) YG'Ḏ, ''mukarrib'' of D'MT and SB', son of RBH' (RIE 5 A:1-2, the same formula in RIE 10:1-5). YG'Ḏ seems to be the name of the leading tribe or royal family settled in the region of Akele Guzai. In the Greek Monumentum Adulitanum (RIE 277), the author (an Aksumite king of the 2nd-3rd century AD) states: Γάζη έθνος έπολέμηα ("I fought the Gaze-people"). This people's name has been connected with the term Ge'ez. The Sinaiticus and Laurentianus manuscripts (both 11th century) explain in margin: "Gaze means the Aksumites. Until now they are called Agaze". The reconstruction '' g�zә ān' in RIE 264 from Zafār (Yemen) (late 5th-early 6th century AD) has been proposed by Müller, but the fragment is too badly damaged to provide any help as to who could be meant by this name. Another attestation is found in Abraha's Sabaean dam-inscription CIH 541 from Mārib (dated 543/548 AD), where he calls himself ''mlkn gzyn'' ("The Ag'azyan King"). A connection between ''agāzī'' and the people Agēzāt, mentioned in two of Ezana's inscriptions seems questionable. An Ethiopian regnal list from 1922 claimed that an "Ag'azyan" dynasty had reigned from 1985 to 982 BC. The dynasty was allegedly founded by

Sheba Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdoms in pre-Islamic Arabia, South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen (region), Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself f ...

, son of the Biblical figure

Joktan Joktan (also written as Yoktan; ; ) was the second of the two sons of Eber (Book of Genesis 10:25; 1 Chronicles 1:19) mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He descends from Shem, son of Noah. In the Book of Genesis 10:25 it reads: "And unto Eber were bo ...

, and the last ruler of this line was Makeda, the Biblical

queen of Sheba The Queen of Sheba, also known as Bilqis in Arabic and as Makeda in Geʽez, is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for Solomon, the fourth King of Israel and Judah. This a ...

. This regnal list, however, is not considered historically accurate and has been treated by historians as little more than a vague notion of historical tradition in

Northeast Africa Northeast Africa, or Northeastern Africa, or Northern East Africa as it was known in the past, encompasses the countries of Africa situated in and around the Red Sea. The region is intermediate between North Africa and East Africa, and encompasses ...

References

{{Authority control Historical geography of Ethiopia History of the Tigray Region History of Eritrea Kingdom of Aksum Aksumite cities