Abyssinia (other)

Abyssinia (also known as Abyssinie, Abissinia, Habessinien or Al-Habash) was an ancient region in the Horn of Africa situated in the northern highlands of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea.Sven Rubenson, The survival of Ethiopian independence, (Tsehai, 2003), p.30. The term was widely used as a synonym for Ethiopia until the mid-20th century and primarily designates the Amhara, Tigrayan and Tigrinya inhabited highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948.

History

The origin of the term might be found in Egyptian hieroglyphic as the designation of a southern region near the Red Sea that produced incense, known as ''ḫbś.tj.w'', "the bearded ones" (i.e Punt). This etymological connection was first pointed out by Wilhelm Max Müller and Eduard Glaser in 1893.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948.

In Epigraphic South Arabian texts the name ḤBS²T in various inscriptions.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948. One of the earliest known local uses of the term dates to the second or third century Sabaean inscription recounting the nəgus ("king") GDRT, another Sabaean inscription mentions ''mlky hhst dtwns wzqrns'' (kings of Habashat DTWNS and ZQRNS) Aksum and ḤBŠT. The Ezana Stone also names King Ezana as "king of the Ethiopians", which appears in other Sabaean texts as ''ḤBS²TM'' or "Habessinien". The Hellenized name of Habessinien, ''ABACIIN'' appears in an Aksumite coin of c.400 AD, shortly after the first attestation of late Latin ''Abissensis'' is from the 6th-century author Stephanus of Byzantium later used the term "Αβασηνοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi) to refer to "an Arabian people living next to the Sabaeans together with the Ḥaḍramites." The region of the Abasēnoi produce myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivate a plant which yields a purple dye (probably ''wars'', i.e. '' Fleminga Grahamiana''). It lay on a route from Zabīd on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital Ẓafār. Abasēnoi was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the ''Jabal Ḥubaysh'' mountain in Ibb Governorate, perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš Semitic root).Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica;: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. pp. 949.'' Modern Western European languages, including English, appear to borrow this term from the post-classical form ''Abissini'' in the mid-16th century. (English ''Abyssin'' is attested from 1576, and ''Abissinia'' and ''Abyssinia'' from the 1620s.)

Al-Habash was known in Islamic literature as being rulers of a Christian kingdom, guaranteeing its a historical exonym for the Aksumites of antiquity. In the modern day, variations of the term are used in Turkey, Iran, and the Arab World in reference to Ethiopia and as a pan-ethnic word in the west by the Amhara, Tigray, and Biher-Tigrinya of Eritrea and Ethiopia (see: Habesha peoples). The Turks created the province of Habesh when the Ottoman Empire conquered parts of the coastline of present-day Eritrea starting in 1557. During this, Özdemir Pasha took the port city of Massawa and the adjacent city of Arqiqo. Along with the neighboring ''Barbaroi'' (Berbers) of Barbara, the Habash are recorded in the first century Greek travelogue the ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' as engaging in extensive commercial trade with Egypt, among other areas. The document also relates a strong connection with the "Frankincense Country" in the Mahra region of modern Yemen and a symbiotic relationship with the ancient Sabaeans, with whom the Habash were allied.Wilfred Harvey Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: travel and trade in the Indian Ocean, (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912) p.62

See also

*Ethiopian Empire
*Ethiopian Highlands
*Habesha people
* Horn of Africa

References

Historical regions
Horn of Africa
Geographic history of Ethiopia
History of the Amhara Region
History of the Tigray Region
History of Eritrea

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