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Akele Guzay
Akele Guzai ( Tigrinya: ምድረ ቡር) was a province in the interior of Eritrea until 1996, when the newly independent national government consolidated all provinces into the Northern Red Sea and Debub (Southern) regions. The province was bordered on the west by Seraye, Hamasien to the northwest, Tigray to the south and the Afar lowlands to the east. History Akkele Guzay is home to an inscriptional record going back to at least the 9th century BC, the earliest use of the Geʽez script. Akkele Guzay's name has been connected by some to the ''Gaze'' of the Monumentum Adulitanum (which later medieval Greek notes in the margins associate with the Aksumite people). If the note regarding the Gaze is accurate, it would connect the name of Akkele Guzay to the Ag`azyan or Agazi (i.e. Geʽez speakers). This connection has been rejected by linguists in modern times, however, due to the lack of the middle voiced pharyngeal fricative in the triliteral root, which is usually preserved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tigrinya Language
Tigrinya, sometimes romanized as Tigrigna, is an Ethio-Semitic languages, Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic languages, Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is primarily spoken by the Tigrinya people, Tigrinya and Tigrayans, Tigrayan peoples native to Eritrea and the Ethiopian state of the Tigray Region, respectively. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. History and literature Although it differs markedly from the Geʽez (Classical Ethiopic) language, for instance in having phrasal verbs, and in using a word order that places the main verb last instead of first in the sentence, there is a strong influence of Geʽez on Tigrinya literature, especially with terms relating to Christian life, Biblical names, and so on. Ge'ez, because of its status in Eritrean and Ethiopian culture, and possibly also its simple structure, acted as a literary medium until relatively recent times. The earliest written example of Tigriny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ezana Of Axum
Ezana (, ''‘Ezana'', unvocalized ዐዘነ ''‘zn''), (, ''Aezana'') was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aksum (320s – ). One of the best-documented rulers of Aksum, Ezana is important as he first adopted for his country the religion of Christianity and the name of Ethiopia. Tradition states that Ezana succeeded his father Ella Amida ( Ousanas) as king while still a child but his mother, Sofya then served as regent until he came of age. Reign Ezana was the first monarch of the Kingdom of Aksum to embrace Christianity, after his slave-teacher, Frumentius, converted him. He was the first monarch after Zoskales to be mentioned by contemporary historians, a situation that lead Stuart Munro-Hay to comment that he was "the most famous of the Aksumite kings before Kaleb." In early life he considered himself a son of Ares, but later inscriptions show a growing attachment to Christianity. His childhood tutor, the Syrian Christian Frumentius, became head of the Ethiopian Church ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debre Libanos (Eritrea)
Debre Libanos of Ham (or Däbrä Libanos of Šəmäzana, or Debre Libanos of Eritrea; ) is the second-oldest monastery in Eritrea after Debre Sina.Bausi, Alessandro. "Däbrä Libanos." Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha: Vol. 2, edited by Siegbert Uhlig, vol. 2, Harrassowitz, 2005, pp. 28–29. It is part of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It is a strict monastery, where the monks are expected to plow the fields. This monastery should not be confused with the Debre Libanos monastery of Ethiopia. Location It is located about 150 km southeast from Asmara, in the historical district of bet metäé ቤት መጣዕ in the present-day Debub region, in a part formerly known as the province of Akkälä Guzay, close to the border with and near the village of Ham (or Aham). Ham is the oldest settlement in the region.Curtis, Matthew C. and Alessandro Bausi. "Ham." Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha: Vol. 2, edited by Siegbert Uhlig, vol. 2, Harrassowitz, 2005, pp. 980–981. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gebre Meskel Lalibela
Lalibela (), regnal name Gebre Meskel (), was a king of the Zagwe dynasty, reigning from 1181 to 1221.Getachew Mekonnen Hasen, ''Wollo, Yager Dibab'' (Addis Ababa: Nigd Matemiya Bet, 1992) He was the son of Jan Seyum and the brother of Kedus Harbe. Perhaps the best-known Zagwe monarch, he is credited as the patron of the namesake monolithic rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. He is venerated as a saint by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church on 19 June. Biography The life of Lalibela is recorded in his hagiography, ''Gadla Lalibela''. According to the source, King Lalibela was born in 1162, at a town called Roha (it was later renamed Lalibela after him). He was the son of Jan Seyoum, the governor of Bugna in the province of Lasta. His mother's name was Kirwerna who was a housemaid in the service of Jan Seyoum. When she became pregnant by him, Jan Seyoum became angry and Kirwerna decided to flee to a place called Roha, where she gave birth to Lalibela. A swarm of bees was sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 forces of the Amhara King Yekuno Amlak. The Zagwe are most famous for their king Gebre Meskel Lalibela, who is credited with having ordered the construction of the rock-hewn monolithic churches of Lalibela. The name "Zagwe" is thought to derive from the ancient Ge'ez phrase ''Ze- Agaw'', meaning "of the Agaw", in reference to the Mara Tekle Haymanot, the founder of the dynasty. This term does not appear in contemporary sources, neither in indigenous documents nor in accounts of foreign observers. David Buxton has stated that the areas under the direct rule of the Zagwe kings apart from the centre of power in Lasta "probably embraced the highlands of modern Eritrea, Tigray, Wag and Bete Amhara and thence westwards towards Lake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodolfo Fattovich
Rodolfo Fattovich (1945-2018) was an Italian archaeologist specialising in African archaeology. He was born in Trieste and studied Egyptology and prehistoric archaeology at the University of Trieste. He continued his study of Predynastic Egypt at the Sapienza University of Rome, and was encouraged by a fellow academic to study the Ethiopian-Eritrean highlands. He later researched the ancient period in the northern Horn of Africa and Egypt. In 1975 Fattovich became an assistant professor of Ethiopian archaeology at University of Naples "L'Orientale". With Kassaye Begashaw he founded the first academic unit, under the Addis Ababa University, on archaeology, heritage management, and museum studies in Ethiopia. He began excavations in Ethiopia in 1972, and directed various projects. In 1989 he was awarded the Giorgio Maria Sangiorgi prize by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Throughout his career he authored over 200 papers and monographs A monograph is generally a long-form wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuart Munro-Hay
Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay (21 April 1947 – 14 October 2004) was a British archaeologist, numismatist and Ethiopianist. He studied the culture and history of ancient Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa region and South Arabia, particularly their history of coins. Born in Northern Ireland, he was initially called ''Stuart Christopher H. McIlwrath'', but took his mother's maiden name after his parents separated. Munro-Hay studied Egyptology at the University of Liverpool from 1970 to 1974. As a student and collaborator of Neville Chittick, he worked on the 1973-74 excavation project of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) in Aksum, the capital of the late-antique Aksumite Empire. The excavations had to be cancelled due to the Derg's coup d'état in 1974, but Munro-Hay continued to dedicate his work to researching the history of Aksum, and in particular compiled a large collection of Aksumite coins. He completed his doctorate in 1978 at the London School of Oriental and A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Adulis
Adulis (Sabaic, Sabaean: 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, , ) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean list of cities in Eritrea, city of Zula. It was the emporium (antiquity), emporium considered part of the D’mt and the Kingdom of Aksum. It was close to Ancient Greece, Greece and the Byzantine Empire, with its luxury goods and trade routes. Its location can be included in the area known to the ancient Egyptians as the Land of Punt, perhaps coinciding with the locality of ''Wddt'', recorded in the geographical list of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. History Archeological excavations conducted at Adulis unearthed the existence of a late prehistoric settlement beneath the town, dating from the mid-2nd to early 1st millennium BCE. Adulis may correspond to ''Wddt'', a region recorded in the geographical lists of Egypt’s 18th dynasty (ca. 1450 BCE) as part of the Land of Punt. Pliny the Elder is the earlies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yeha
Yeha ( ''yiḥa'', older ESA 𐩥𐩢 '; Old South Arabian: 𐩺𐩢𐩱 ') is a town in the northern Central Zone, Tigray in Ethiopia. It likely served as the capital of the pre- Aksumite kingdom of Dʿmt. Archeology The oldest standing structure in Ethiopia, the Temple of Yeha, is located in Tigray region. This is a tower built in the Sabaean style, and dated through comparison with ancient structures in South Arabia to around 700 BC. Although no radiocarbon dating testing has been performed on samples from site, this date for the Great Tower is supported by local inscriptions.David W. Phillipson, ''Ancient Churches of Ethiopia'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 36 David Phillipson attributes its "excellent preservation" to two factors, "the care with which its original builders ensured a level foundation, firmly placed on the uneven bedrock; and to its rededication -- perhaps as early as the sixth century AD -- for use as a Christian church." Two other arch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Region, near the base of the Adwa mountains. It has an elevation of and is surrounded by La'ilay Maychew, a separately administered woreda of the Tigray region. In 1980, UNESCO added Axum's archaeological sites to its list of World Heritage Sites due to their historic value. Prior to the beginning of the Tigray War in 2020, Axum was a leading tourist destination for foreign visitors. History Ancient Little information is available regarding the early centuries of Aksum's presumed evolution from a humble regional hub to a dominant power. Archeological findings at Gobadra (Gobo Dara) and the Anqar Baahti rock-shelters suggest Stone Age remnants in close proximity. R. Fattovich's excavations at amba 'Beta Giyorgis above Aksum validate the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shire, Ethiopia
Shire (, ; , ), also known as Shire Inda Selassie (, meaning "House of the Trinity"), is a city and separate woreda in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The city is the administrative center of the Shire Awraja, Mi erabawi Zoba and now Semien Mi'irabawi Zone. It was part of Tahtay Koraro district. History Origin An early mention of Shire is in one of the three surviving charters of Emperor Dawit I (r. 1382–1412). 16th century The metropolis was a tributary state of Adal and governed by the Christian, Diganah. 20th century As part of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Italian units under General Pietro Badoglio advanced out of Axum on 29 February 1936 to attack the Ethiopian army under ''Ras'' Imru Haile Selassie deployed around Shire in an action known as the Battle of Shire. Despite determined Ethiopian resistance, by 3 March the Italians had resumed their advance and shortly afterwards crossed the Tekezé River. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1941, Shir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
