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The Queen of the Habasha in Ethiopian history, tradition and chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

It is well known from relatively recent Ethiopic tradition that Ethiopia was once ruled by a queen called Gudit, Yodit, Isat or Gaՙwa, with both positive and negative characteristics. On the one hand she was a beautiful woman of the Ethiopian royal family, much like the Queen of Sheba, and on the other she was a despicable prostitute who, at a time of political weakness, killed the Ethiopian king, captured the throne, and as a cruel ruler destroyed Aksum, the capital, persecuted the priests, and closed the churches.

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Articles
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 2000

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References

1 Haukal, Ibn, Configuration de la terre, tr. Kramers, J.H. and Wiet, G., 2 vols. Paris, 1964, 16, 23, 66.Google Scholar

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41 Ibid., 96.

42 This tradition is taken from the ‘Life of Íyäsus Mo‘a’, a saint from the late thirteenth century who is traditionally associated with the fall of the Lastan and the rise of the Amharan dynasty. See Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 236fGoogle Scholar and Levi, , Yodit, 99ff.Google Scholar

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59 ibid., 78f.

60 See Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 231.Google Scholar

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63 ibid., 61.

64 ibid., 56.

65 See Munro-Hay, Stuart, Aksum, Edinburgh University Press, 1991: 73, 261267.Google Scholar

66 Text and translation Sergew, Ancient and medieval, 233–7. Translation, Levi, Yodit, 76.

67 Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 235, n. 116.Google Scholar

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72 Kur, Actes de Iyasus Moՙa, transl., pp. 14ff, text pp. 18ff. Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, p. 232.Google Scholar

73 Tabot is the Geՙez word for the Ark of the Covenant, which according to Ethiopian tradition was carried from Jerusalem to Ethiopia by Solomo's son Menelik and later placed in the cathedral of Aksum where it still remains. In any other church in Ethiopia it is a small rectangular board of wood consecrated by the bishop and placed upon the slab of the altar. See Leslau, Wolf. Comparative dictionary of Geՙez, 1991, 570.Google Scholar

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76 See Munro-Hay, , Aksum, 17.Google Scholar

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78 Taddesse, , Church and state, 40.Google Scholar

79 Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 240.Google Scholar

80 See Neugebauer, , Chronography, 67.Google Scholar

81 For the different figures given for the duration of the Zagwe dynasty, see Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 231, 240fGoogle Scholar; Taddesse, , Church and state, 55, n. 3Google Scholar; Neugebauer, , Chronography, 64, 97, 111, 116, 122–4, 127Google Scholar; Levi, , Yodit, 101.Google Scholar

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83 Taddesse, , Church and state, 55ff.Google Scholar

84 See Neugebauer, , Chronography, 71, 86, 98Google Scholar; Levi, , Yodit, 66ffGoogle Scholar, where the author interprets the last chapter of the Kibrä Nägäst as a text that ‘supports the idea of a chronological and dynastic political fiction developed in the post-Lastan era’.

85 See Neugebauer, , Chronography, 97, 111, 122.Google Scholar

86 See ibid., 74, 85, 96, 97, 129.

87 See Jones, A history of Ethiopia.

88 See Neugebauer, , Chronography, 85, 96.Google Scholar

89 In two lists year 1 of Martyrs or of Diocletian (D 1) is identified with the year w 5852 = I 352, which is otherwise year 0 of Grace (G 0) (see Neugebauer, , Chronography, 71, 98)Google Scholar. In this case D 1 is moved 76 years forward in time, whereas above G 1 was moved back 76 years. But in both cases an identification or confusion of D 1 and G 1 has taken place.

90 For this example and several other examples of years of Grace, counted from I 276 instead of I 352, see Chaine, M., La chronologie des temps chrétiens de l'Egypte et de l'Ethiopie, Paris, 1925 111 ff.Google Scholar

91 See Levi, , Yodit, 77f and 108Google Scholar: ‘These female figures (…Gudit, Tirda’ Gäbäz and Mäsobä Wärq) are essentially one and the same.’

92 Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 202f.Google Scholar

93 Sergew, , Ancient and medieval, 240 fGoogle Scholar. Sergew quotes the list from Mekuria, Täklä Sadik, Ya Ityopia Tarik: Nubia Aksum Zagwiye, Addis Ababa, 1951, Ethiopian Calendar, era I, 356.Google Scholar

94 Ibn Haukal may have written his note about the queen some years before A.D. 977, the last year of his flourishing.