Na'akueto La'ab () was the King of
Zagwe dynasty
The Zagwe dynasty () was a medieval Agaw monarchy that ruled the northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the ...
. According to
Taddesse Tamrat, he was the son of
Kedus Harbe.
Richard Pankhurst credits him with the creation of the church located in a cave a half-day's journey from the town of
Lalibela. According to a manuscript
Pedro Páez and
Manuel de Almeida saw at
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 ...
, Na'akueto La'ab ruled for 40 years, a suspiciously round number.
Reign
A ''Gadla'' or
hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...
of Na'akueto La'ab exists, in a manuscript written in the 17th century. According to Huntingford, it documents that Zagwe power had extended into
Gojjam
Gojjam ( ''gōjjām'', originally ጐዛም ''gʷazzam'', later ጐዣም ''gʷažžām'', ጎዣም ''gōžžām'') is a historical provincial kingdom in northwestern Ethiopia, with its capital city at Debre Markos.
During the 18th century, G ...
, and credits the king with building two churches: one at Sewa'a "which is said to have been called Wagra Sehin ('mountain of incense') 'among Celestrial', and Ashetan or Asheten 'among Terrestrials'", which Huntingford identifies with an existing church named
Ashetan Maryam, a
monolithic
A monolith is a monument or natural feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock.
Monolith or monolithic may also refer to:
Architecture
* Monolithic architecture, a style of construction in which a building is carved, cast or excavated f ...
structure located a few kilometers east of
Lalibela; the other in the land of Qoqhena, which was given a ''
tabot'' from a desecrated church dedicated to Istifanos.
Tradition states that queen Masqal Kibra convinced her husband, King
Lalibela, to abdicate in favor of Na'akueto La'ab, but 18 months later when the young king's soldiers appropriated a poor farmer's only cow for the king's dinner table, she convinced Lalibela to resume the throne. Taddesse Tamrat suspects that the end of Lalibela's rule was not in truth this peaceful. He argues that this tradition masks a brief period when Na'akueto La'ab "was no doubt a rallying point for disaffected elements in the country, and although kept under close watch managed to usurp the throne for a brief period until
Yetbarak managed to take his father's throne."
[Taddesse Tamrat, pp. 62ff]
References
External links
''The Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography'': Nä'akweto-Lä-'Ab
13th-century monarchs in Africa
Emperors of Ethiopia
Zagwe dynasty
13th-century Ethiopian people
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