Gudit
Gudit () is the Classical Ethiopic name for a personage also known as Yodit in Tigrinya, and Amharic, but also Isato in Amharic, and Ga'wa in Ţilţal. The person behind these various alternative names is portrayed as a powerful female ruler, probably identical to Māsobā Wārq, the daughter of the last Aksumite king, Dil Na'ad, mentioned in an early Arabic source. She is said to have been responsible for laying waste the Kingdom of Aksum and its countryside, and the destruction of its churches and monuments in the 10th century AD. If she is the same as the ''Tirda' Gābāz'' in other Ethiopian sources, she is also said to have attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty. The deeds attributed to her are recorded in oral tradition and in a variety of historical narratives. Name The name "Gudit" in the Geʽez narrative associates her positively with the Biblical Judith. It has been conjectured that the form Gudit is connected etymologically with the Amh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 from the earlier Dʿmt civilization, the kingdom was founded in the first century. The city of Axum served as the kingdom's capital for many centuries until it relocated to Kubar in the ninth century due to declining trade connections and recurring invasions. The Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the four great powers of the third century by the Persian prophet Mani, alongside Persia, Rome, and China. Aksum continued to expand under the reign of Gedara (), who was the first king to be involved in South Arabian affairs. His reign resulted in the control of much of western Yemen, such as the Tihama, Najran, al-Ma'afir, Zafar (until ), and parts of Hashid territory around Hamir in the northern highlands until a joint Himyarit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kingdom Of Simien
The Kingdom of Simien (), also known as the Kingdom of Beta Israel (), also referred to as "Land of the Gideons" by Rabbi Abraham ben Eliezer Halevi in the 14th century named after the dynasty's first ruler. This refers to a semi-legendary Jewish kingdom said to have been located in the northwestern part of the Ethiopian Empire. The existence of such a kingdom somewhere in the Horn of Africa was first mentioned by the traveller Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century CE. A late Ethiopian-Jewish legend dates the establishment of a Kingdom of Simien to the 4th century CE, right after the Kingdom of Aksum turned to Christianity during the reign of Ezana. Local history holds that, around 960, a Jewish Queen named Gudit defeated the empire and burned its churches and literature. While there is evidence of churches being burned and an invasion around this time, her existence has been questioned by some western authors, and it is unclear whether Aksum continued to exist. According to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mara Takla Haymanot
Mara Takla Haymanot () was King and the founder of the Zagwe dynasty. Some king lists give his name simply as "Mararah", and other King Lists as "Takla Haymanot". Regnal controversy According to one tradition, Mara was born in the province of Lasta, which was his power base. Originally a general of Dil Na'od, whose daughter ''Masoba Warq'' became his wife, Mara overthrew his father-in-law to found the new dynasty.Taddesse Tamrat. "The Legacy of Aksum and Adafa" in ''Church and State in Ethiopia''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, pp. 53–64. James Bruce, on the other hand, presents another tradition that Dil Na'od was overthrown by Gudit, and that Mara Takla Haymanot (whom Bruce calls "Takla Haymanot") was a cousin of Gudit who succeeded her after several of her own family. There is some disagreement over the exact time when he came to the throne: there are two different traditions for how long the Zagwe dynasty ruled: the more common tradition states that it was for 333 years, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dil Na'od
Dil Na'od was the last King of Aksum before the Zagwe dynasty. He lived in either the 9th or 10th century. Dil Na'od was the younger son of Ged'a Jan (or Degna Djan), and succeeded his older brother 'Anbasa Wedem as ''negus''. According to E. A. Wallis Budge, "The reign of Delna'ad was short, perhaps about ten years." However, James Bruce has recorded another tradition, that Dil Na'od was an infant when Gudit slaughtered the princes imprisoned at Debre Damo, his relatives, and forced some of his nobles to take him out of his kingdom to save his life. Dil Na'od is recorded as both campaigning in the Ethiopian Highlands south of Axum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), 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. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Re ..., and sending missionaries into that region. With Abuna Salama I, he helped to build the chur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ga'ewa
Ga'ewa or Ga‘ǝwa ( Ge'ez: ጋዕዋ), pp. 348–49. was a Muslim regent in the north of the Horn of Africa in the sixteenth century. Her kingdom stretched from Metemma in the west to the area south of the Mareb river in the Ethiopian province of Tigray.. According to the '' Chronicle of King Gälawdewos'', an account of the reign of the Ethiopian emperor Gälawdewos (1540–59), Ga'ewa was the queen of Säläwa, a region in central Tigray. According to the Yemeni Arabic '' Futūḥ al-Ḥabasha'' (Conquest of Abyssinia), an account of the campaigns of Aḥmad Grāñ (died 1543), she was the queen of Mäzäga, a region that has not been conclusively identified. It has been located north of the Tekezé river and bordering the Funj Sultanate in the west. After the death of her brother, Mäkättar, sultan of Mäzäga, she took over the regency on behalf of her nephew Nafî. The ''Futūḥ al-Ḥabasha'' describes her as "a woman of good counsel, intelligent and wise". She repo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shewa
Shewa (; ; Somali: Shawa; , ), formerly romanized as Shua, Shoa, Showa, Shuwa, is a historical region of Ethiopia which was formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire. The modern Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is located at its center. The towns of Debre Berhan, Antsokia, Ankober, Entoto and, after Shewa became a province of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa have all served as the capital of Shewa at various times. Most of northern Shewa, made up of the districts of Menz, Tegulet, Yifat, Menjar and Bulga, is populated by Christian Amharas, while southern Shewa is inhabited by the Gurages and eastern Shewa has large Oromo and Argobba Muslim populations. The monastery of Debre Libanos, founded by Saint Tekle Haymanot, is located in the district of Selale, Oromia Modern Shewa includes the historical Endagabatan province. History Shewa first appears in the historical record as part of a Muslim state ( Makhzumi dynasty), which G. W. B. Huntingford believed was fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lasta
Lasta (Amharic: ላስታ ''lāstā'') is a historic province in northern Ethiopia located in the Amhara Region. It is the province in which Lalibela is situated, the former capital of Ethiopia during the Zagwe dynasty and home to 11 medieval rock-hewn churches. Its original name in the Middle Ages was Bewegna now known as Bugna. History Lasta and Wag were the ancestral homelands of the Central-Cushitic-speaking Agaw people. Christianity is believed to have reached the region as early as the 6th century, during the reigns of Kaleb and Gebre Meskel. Kaleb is traditionally credited with the construction of the rock-hewn churches of Balbala Kirkos and Balbala Giyorgis, while Gebre Meskel is said to have founded the churches of Ledata Maryam and Madoane Alam. Between approximately 1150 and 1270, Lasta served as the power base of the Zagwe dynasty, which administered the country from its political court in Roha, now known as Lalibela—named after one of the dynasty’s most ren ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Bruce
James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the first European to trace and document the course of the Nile by following it upstream from Egypt through Sudan to its origins in the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Early life James Bruce was born at the family seat of Kinnaird, Stirlingshire, and educated at Harrow School and Edinburgh University. He began to study for the bar, but his marriage to the daughter of a wine importer and merchant resulted in him entering that business instead. His wife died in October 1754, within nine months of marriage, and Bruce thereafter travelled in Portugal and Spain as part of the wine trade. The examination of oriental manuscripts at the Escorial in Spain led him to the study of Arabic and Geʽez and determined his future career. In 1758, his father's death ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Amba Geshen
Amba Geshen is the name of a mountain in northern Ethiopia. It is in Ambassel, South Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, northwest of Dessie, at a latitude and a longitude of . Part of Ambassel woreda, Amba Geshen is one of the mountains of Ethiopia where most of the male heirs to the Emperor of Ethiopia were interned, usually for life. Also known as Gishen Mariam, it was the second of the three such mountains, or '' amba'', said to have been used for this purpose, the other two being Debre Damo and Wehni. History From some undetermined time, it was the practice that when the Ethiopian emperor assumed the throne, his brothers and other male relatives would be taken to a royal prison, where they would henceforth live until either they were called forth to become the new emperor or they died. Some traditions state this began during the Zagwe dynasty, others even earlier; the first certain mention of the practice was during the reign of Jin Asgad, who confined his brothers and his ow ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |