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The ''Book of Axum'' ( Ge'ez መጽሐፈ ፡ አክሱም ''maṣḥafa aksūm'', am, meṣhafe aksūm, ti, meṣḥafe aksūm, la, Liber Axumae) is the name accepted since the time of
James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North Africa and Ethiopia and in 1770 became the first Europ ...
in the latter part of the 18th century CE for a collection of documents from Saint Mary's Cathedral of
Axum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...
providing information on
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the no ...
n
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
. The earliest parts of the collection date to the mid-15th century during the reign of Zar'a Ya`qob (r. 1434-1468). The book's editor
Carlo Conti Rossini Carlo Conti Rossini (1872–1949) was an Italian orientalist. He was director of the State Treasury from 1917 to 1925, a member of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1921 and Royal Academy of Italy from 1939. He wrote various works on the historical g ...
classified the book into three parts: the first, earlier, section describes the Church Maryam Seyon in Axum prior to it being damaged in the mid-16th century, the topography of Axum and its history, and contains a list of services and the like regarding Maryam Seyon and its clergy. The second part is dated to the early 17th century and contains 104 historical and legal texts, many dealing with land grants, along with their protocols, while the third text dates to the late 17th century and contains 14 miscellaneous legal and historical texts regarding Axum's history. The book was also supplemented in the mid-19th century with further later documents. The book derives the name
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the no ...
from Itiyopp'is, an (otherwise unmentioned) son of the
Biblical Cush Cush or Kush ( he, כּוּשׁ , ''Kūš''; gez, ኩሽ), according to the Hebrew Bible, was the oldest son of Ham and a grandson of Noah. He was the brother of Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. Cush was the father of Nimrod, a king called the "first ...
. According to the ''Book of Axum'' Itiyopp'is built Mazaber, the
Kingdom of Axum The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wh ...
's first capital.Stuart Munro-Hay, "Aksumawi," in Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: A-C'' (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003), p. 186.


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Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion The Church of Our Lady, Mary of Zion is an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church which is claimed to contain the Ark of the Covenant. The church is located in the town of Axum, Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, near the grounds of Obelisks of ...
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Ethiopian historiography Ethiopian historiography includes the ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern disciplines of recording the history of Ethiopia, including both native and foreign sources. The roots of Ethiopian historical writing can be traced back to the a ...
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History of Ethiopia Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in Africa, the emergence of Ethiopian civilization dates back thousands of years. Due to migration and imperial expansion, it grew to include many other primarily Afro-Asiatic-speaking communities, includ ...
Texts in Ge'ez Ethiopian studies {{Semitic-lang-stub