Abyssinia (; also known as Abyssinie, Abissinia, Habessinien, or Al-Habash) was an ancient region in the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

situated in the northern highlands of modern-day

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

and

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

.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 The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' (''EAe'') is a basic English-language encyclopaedia for Ethiopian and Eritrean studies. The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' provides information in all fields of the discipline, i.e. anthropology, archaeology, ethn ...

'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948.

Philology

The origin of the term might be found in

Egyptian hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

ic as the designation of a southern region near the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

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. ''

'': D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 948. In South Arabian texts the name ḤBS²T appears in various inscriptions.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''

'': 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, and shortly after the first attestation in

late Latin Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in ...

in the form ''Abissensis''. The 6th-century author

Stephanus of Byzantium Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

used the term "Αβασηνοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi) to refer to "an Arabian people living next to the

Sabaeans Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree th ...

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 Zabid () (also spelled Zabīd, Zabeed and Zebid) is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 people, located on Yemen's western coastal plain. It is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. Ho ...

on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital Ẓafār. Abasēnoi was located by Hermann von Wissmann as a region in the ''Jabal Ḥubaysh''

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

Ibb Governorate Ibb ( ') is a governorate of Yemen. It is located in the inland south of the country with Ta'izz Governorate to the southwest, Ad Dali' Governorate to the southeast, Dhamar Governorate to the north, and short borders with Al Bayda' Governorate t ...

, perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš

Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. ''

;: 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 Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic culture, Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many lite ...

as a Christian kingdom, guaranteeing its a historical

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

for the Aksumites of antiquity. In the modern day, variations of the term are used in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, and the

Arab World The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...

in reference to

and as a pan-ethnic word in the west by the Amhara,

Tigray The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

, and Biher-Tigrinya of

and

(see:

Habesha peoples Habesha peoples (; ; ; commonly used exonym: Abyssinians) is an ethnic or pan-ethnic identifier that has historically been applied to Semitic-speaking, predominantly Oriental Orthodox Christian peoples native to the highlands of Ethiopia and ...

). The Turks created the province of Habesh when the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

conquered parts of the coastline of present-day

starting in 1557. During this, Özdemir Pasha took the port city of

Massawa Massawa or Mitsiwa ( ) is a port city in the Northern Red Sea Region, Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahlak Archipelago. It has been a historically important port for ...

and the adjacent city of

Arqiqo Arkiko (, Afar language, Afar and Saho language, Saho: ''Hirg-Higo'', alternately Archigo, Arqiqo, Ercoco, Hirgigo, Hargigo or Harkiko) historically known as Dokono is a town in the Northern Red Sea Region, Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea. Situa ...

References

Historical regions Horn of Africa Historical geography of Ethiopia History of the Amhara Region History of the Tigray Region History of Eritrea {{coord missing, Ethiopia

Philology

See also

References