1

The Definition of Ethiopia through Time and Place

Today, the modern country of Ethiopia takes its name from an Ancient Greek toponym (Aithiopia/Αιθιοπία), both by Ethiopians themselves and across the world. However, the Gəʿəz/Amharic toponym ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) was not adopted within Ethiopia until the arrival of the Solomonic dynasty in 1270, neither in Dʿmt (c. ninth century BCE–c. first century BCE), ʾAksum (c. first century BCE–c. eighth century CE), nor the Zagʷe kingdom of Bǝg^wǝna (c. 900/c. 1140–1270). Nor was being ‘Ethiopian’ applied as an endonym until after 1270 in surviving Ethiopian Gəʿəz sources. It was only from the fourteenth century that Ethiopia also began to increasingly universally be considered ‘Ethiopia’ by external observers as a result of this developing internal identity discourse within Ethiopia, though not by all immediately. The earliest external recognition of this new Ethiopian identity is found in Latin European sources, with other textual traditions, such as Arabic and Hebrew, maintaining their historic toponyms for the kingdom for some time – al-Ḥabaša (الحبشة) and Ḥabaš (חבש) – despite both modern Arabic and Hebrew now using ʾĀthyūbīā (أثيوبيا) and ʾEtiyowpiyah (אתיופּיה) for the country, respectively. These latter developments are beyond the scope of this book; however, this chapter aims to discuss why and how Ethiopia adopted this toponym and what regional significance it had, particularly for the original ancient, and especially biblical, ‘Ethiopia’, the geo-cultural region of Nubia. That is not to say that Ethiopia’s fourteenth-century adoption of the toponym, which coincided with the burgeoning relationship between Nubia and the Latin Christians, was purposefully responding to this dynamic, but it did have unintended consequences. Notably, as far as the Latin Christians were concerned, upon the arrival of the first Ethiopian embassy to Latin Europe in 1402, they were building on prior efforts to already engage with an ‘Ethiopia’. The Nubian ‘Ethiopia’ was replaced by Ethiopia. A happy coincidence that the Ethiopians were quickly made aware of and then able to exploit to achieve their own aims. The transferal of the ‘Ethiopian’ identity of Nubia to Ethiopia had significant effects, both regionally and beyond, as Solomonic Ethiopia replaced the increasingly declining and stunted Nubia.

In scholarship, ‘Ethiopia’s’ Nubian identification, whilst acknowledged, is often overlooked for its significance in this development in favour of a more direct development between the classical Greco-Latin Aithiopia/Aethiopia and ʾItyoṗya.¹ Therefore, tracing the development of the toponym ‘Ethiopia’, both within and beyond north-east Africa, is critical for understanding the sources discussed within this book to show why the Nubian identification of ‘Ethiopia’ is central to understanding the context that fifteenth-century Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations were building on, specifically those of attempted Nubian ‘Ethiopian’-Latin Christian relations. Moreover, Solomonic Ethiopia’s adoption of this new identity effectively replaced Nubia as the new biblical Ethiopia, including both its associated historical and contemporary discourses. It was not merely the adoption of a name either. For instance, as will be noted later in this chapter, the new Solomonic rulers also began to portray themselves as the defenders of the wider region’s Christians, a role traditionally considered to be that of the Nubian ruler. The Ethiopian adoption of the toponym initially confused matters for the Latin Christians. Since the twelfth century, Nubia and ‘Abyssinia’ were clearly known to be separate by the Latin Christians. Nevertheless, it would appear to be no coincidence that once Ethiopia projected itself as ‘Ethiopia’ and this had become known to the Latin Christians, a clear shift can be witnessed in Latin Christian sources which begin to commonly transfer the meaning of the toponym from Nubia to Ethiopia from the latter half of the fourteenth century. However, once fifteenth-century Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations began to prosper, it no longer mattered to the Latin Christians whether they were dealing with Nubians or Ethiopians, consistent engagement with ‘Ethiopia’, comparatively speaking, was finally achieved. Above all, the discussion within this chapter aims to highlight that scholarship must be wary of not erasing discussion of Nubia in favour of an uncritical assumption of Ethiopia – whether ʾAksum, Bǝg^wǝna, or Solomonic Ethiopia – as a result of the success of the Solomonic adoption of the ‘Ethiopian’ biblical identity and the dominance of the identification of ‘Ethiopia’ as Ethiopia began to have in early modern European discourse – and its explicit association with ‘Abyssinia’ – particularly when discussing pre-fourteenth-century uses of Aithiopia/Aethiopia when other material, not least that produced by Ethiopians themselves, is taken into consideration.

What Was ‘Ethiopia’? The Legacies of Greek Geography and Navigating the Parallel Kush

The word ‘Ethiopia’, or more precisely ‘Ethiopian’ (ai-ti-jo-qo), is first recorded as the personal name, which was possibly acting as an ethnonym, of a landholder and official of various roles in the collection of Mycenaean texts of varying length written in Linear B known as the Pylos tablets (from the city in south-western Greece). These texts date to before c. 1200 BCE, though little more can be said with any surety regarding the word’s original etymology before it became recorded in Ancient Greek.² It is often stated that ‘Ethiopia’ originally described the land of the people with ‘scorched faces’ more generally, being a combination of the Greek aíthō (αἴθω, ‘to scorch’) and ṓps (ὤψ, ‘face’), which could be applied generally across the lands of Saharan/Sahelian Africa similar to the comparative Tamaziɣt and Arabic toponyms Akal n-Iguinawen and Bilād al-Sūdān, respectively. Subsequently, the land of ‘Ethiopia’ became popularised with its transmission in Greek (Αἰθιοπία) and Latin (Aethiopia) texts. This etymology has been most substantially challenged by R. S. P. Beekes, and even earlier briefly by J. R. R. Tolkien, who both have argued, linguistically speaking, that such an origin cannot be possible as both aíthiō and ṓps do not naturally join together to create a toponym meaning those with ‘burnt faces’ (the most common translation of the phrase).³ Beekes even goes as far as to suggest that the Aithíopes (Αἰθίοπες) (sing. Aithíops, Αἰθίοψ) were originally a people neighbouring Greece and their secondary association with ‘burnt-faced’ people of Africa developed via the popularisation of a later folk etymology, not least on account of the absence of any association with Africa or skin colour in the earliest Greek works, such as those of Homer (fl. by c. 800 BCE).⁴ Skin colour does not become an explicit signifier of ‘Ethiopian’ identity in known surviving texts until Herodotus (fl. fifth century BCE), though it is implied a century earlier.⁵ ‘Ethiopia”s associations with darkness were a continual linguistic theme and also later appeared during the medieval period in other forms, such as in the explanation given by the Englishman Gervase of Tilbury (fl. c. 1209–14), who wrote that ‘Ethiopia’ was called so because of its darkness (tenebre), though without any further explicit reference to its people.⁶ Alternatively, ‘Ethiopia’ was also commonly said to have been named after a figure or place. For instance, according to Pliny the Elder in the first century CE, ‘Ethiopia’ was named after Aethiops, a son of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire, blacksmiths, and other artisans.⁷ This association may have something to do with Hephaestus’ role in providing weaponry to King Memnon and his ‘Ethiopian’ army in his aid of Troy in the Aíthiopís (Αἰθιοπίς), the now almost completely lost eighth-century BCE Ancient Greek epic which tells of the events following the Iliad. Too little is known about the contents of the Aíthiopís to understand Pliny’s assertion any further if, indeed, that is the origin of his reference. In contrast to Pliny, Honorius Augustodunensis claimed in his Imago Mundi (wr. c. 1110–39) that ‘Ethiopia’ was actually named after the biblical site of Etham.⁸ Whatever the case, the early development of the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’ remains obscure. Undoubtedly, its origin will continue to spur debate.

The historic broadness of the pre-Christian Greek understanding of ‘Ethiopia’ continued to influence later Greco-Latin Christian writers, notably regarding an eastern and western ‘Ethiopia’, even beyond the period which began to initially identify ‘Ethiopia’ as Ethiopia from the fourteenth century. It is here where it is important to distinguish between the broad and localised ‘Ethiopias’. Western ‘Ethiopia’, which usually encompassed the region of the wider Sahara, is not the concern here, as West and Central Africa continued to be labelled with the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’ even after the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century and the employment of the toponym is more reflective of geographical traditions, rather than necessarily revealing developing contemporary knowledge, which is the primary focus of this book. Eastern ‘Ethiopia’, or the more localised biblical ‘Ethiopia’, on the other hand, is key to the discourses discussed here. This ‘Ethiopia’ was understood primarily through the prism of biblical tradition which located it in relation to the River Nile (the biblical Gehon) and the ancient history of Sudan. Importantly, this classical ‘Ethiopia’ was not indicative of the kingdom which later became known as Ethiopia. How, then, did an ‘Ethiopia’ which centred on Sudan come to be adopted by the country known today as Ethiopia? Furthermore, how did many ‘Ethiopias’ become one? This process was to have profound local, regional, and international significance. However, before continuing, the fragmentation of ‘Ethiopias’ cannot be discussed without also addressing their relationship with ‘India’, though the question itself is far too great to discuss here in adequate depth. The central significance of this question for the perception of geography rests on the ancient and medieval Greco-Latin conception of the Nile dividing ‘India’ and ‘Ethiopia’ (or Asia and Africa), rather than the Red Sea; some of Africa was actually deemed to be in Asia.⁹

The confusion of African and Indian ‘Ethiopias’, or at least the enhancement of this confusion, was influenced by the Greek translation of ‘Kush’. Whilst certain confusions existed in some earlier texts, the third-century BCE Greek Septuagint translated the Kūš (כוש) of the Hebrew Old Testament into Aithiopia (Αἰθιοπία), which ultimately became Aethiopia in Latin and precipitated the notion of an ‘Ethiopia’ with multiple origins.¹⁰ Pierre Schneider has suggested how the Mesopotamian toponym of Meluḫḫa (???) appears to have been used to denote both northern India and the south of Egypt/Sudan.¹¹ As Schneider further highlights, this is important when understanding the Hebrew use of Kūš (כוש) in the Old Testament, which was susceptible to similar multiple definitions, especially when writers confused it with Kiš (קיש), the toponym for the region of ancient Babylonia, thus creating an equally African and Asian ‘Kush’. Specifically, some translators came to attribute Kush as equally referring to the Kꜣš of Nubia in Egyptian sources or the similarly sounding Kaššu who ruled Babylonia in the second half of the second millennium BCE in Cuneiform sources.¹² Any geographical nuance of the toponyms in the Greek, and later Latin, biblical translations, which treated ‘Kush’ as an all-encompassing toponym – now ‘Ethiopia’ – however, was lost.¹³ ‘Ethiopia’ was used for both locations of ‘Kush’ regardless of the geographical context of the biblical text. It is precisely this employment of ‘Ethiopia’ in Greco-Latin biblical discourse which underpinned medieval Latin Christian conceptions of either a single ‘Ethiopia’ or multiple ‘Ethiopias’. Certainly, by the European medieval period, Latin Christian writers were explicitly aware that biblical ‘Ethiopia’ originated from its roots from Kūš, via Hebrew.¹⁴

‘India’ also developed its own separate discourse, both connected and isolated from the multiple ‘Ethiopias’.¹⁵ Although this does aid in understanding the apparent confusion in multiple ‘Ethiopias’, it does not help to explain the continuity of such confusions when the contemporary knowledge corpus was not so confused. This can be best viewed as a linguistic hang-up, similar to the modern Anglophone use of the West Indies for the Caribbean despite knowing that the area has no connection to India proper. Indeed, seemingly confusing toponyms can often be contextualised once accompanying information is taken into account. Hugh of St. Victor’s Descriptio Mappe Mundi (c. 1130), for instance, has six distinct toponyms when discussing ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘India’ – Ethiopia, Ethiopica India, Ethiopica Egyptus, India que finem facit, India que mittit ad Medos, and India que mittit ad Parthos – yet geographical features and towns mentioned in individual passages aid in textual clarification and localisation.¹⁶ Often, the confusion of toponyms remains superficial upon closer examination, leading to scholars, such as Anne-Dorothee von den Brincken, concluding that, generally, toponyms, such as India Aegypti and India Aethiopie, can be seen to be placed within north-east/east Africa, whereas Indias prima, secunda, tertia, superior, and inferior, were placed within Asia.¹⁷ The context in which the toponym is found in a text can often lead to the identification of the region in discussion. This linguistic confusion is even more surprising given that both north-east Africa and India were well-connected within the ancient world. In fact, some have argued that it was indeed this connection that was the root cause for the later confusion. For example, at the first International Conference for Ethiopian Studies in 1959, Enrico Cerulli posited that trade products were the cause of Roman confusion between ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘India’ as they arrived from lands that were too distant for many to comprehend, yet all were traded through Egypt, which acted as a hub for the further confusion of the distant origins of products.¹⁸ One clear example of simultaneous ‘Ethiopian’ and ‘Indian’ origins in ancient and medieval texts can be found pertaining to the locations of exotic animals, especially in later maps and bestiaries; evidently not aided by the notable existence of elephants in both Africa and Asia to say the least.¹⁹

Neither ‘Ethiopia’ nor ‘India’ was particularly unknown. In fact, such confusion may actually reflect the unity of the ancient Indian Ocean world, rather than being reflective of an inherent misunderstanding, thus underlining the lack of a negative correlation between seemingly confused toponyms and actual knowledge.²⁰ Yet, both ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘India’ were continually used as tropes for alterity and distance despite writers having the ability to correctly identify each region, labelled by Grant Parker as the Eastern or Indian Ocean paradigm.²¹ The long-lasting and cultural influence of the Alexander romances (fl. third century CE), which survive in some form in hundreds of manuscripts throughout the medieval period in Latin Europe in both Latin and numerous European vernacular languages and epitomised perceptions of alterity and distance, offers just one clear example of this within a literary tradition, for instance.²² Moreover, to echo Pierre Schneider into the medieval period, the confusion between ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘India’ in antiquity should not be viewed as the result of an ignorance about both regions, but, rather, reflective of the presence of lacunas in the knowledge of individual authors.²³ Given that the acquisition of knowledge regarding these far-away lands was not a particular problem, the continued interchange of ‘Ethiopia’ and ‘India’ by some writers owed itself more to cultural norms and literary traditions, rather than to a misunderstanding of geography, possibly emboldened by an individual lack of knowledge too. The nuance of individualised or personalised knowledge, and the role of the author and their intended audience, especially in relation to the chosen use of toponyms and ethnonyms, cannot be understated.

The African Biblical ‘Ethiopia’

The first known surviving explicit Latin direct association between Nubia and ‘Ethiopia’ is found in the first-century CE Naturalis Historia of the Roman writer Pliny the Elder in which he references the now lost works of the third-century BCE Greek travellers Dalion, Aristocreon, Simonides the Younger, Bion, and Basilis. The utilisation of these sources by Pliny particularly highlights how closely connected the Greco-Latin world was with Meroë. Not only were Dalion, Aristocreon, and Bion and Basilis said to have sailed further down the Nile than Meroë but Simonides the Younger had stayed in Meroë for five years whilst writing his account of Aethiopia, further emphasising that confusions of ‘Ethiopia’ cannot necessarily be blamed on ignorance.²⁴ Whilst referencing Aristocreon, Pliny makes note of the Nubaei Aethiopes or ‘Nubian Ethiopians’.²⁵ The origin of the toponym ‘Nubia’ itself, as argued by Claude Rilly, may have had a Meroitic origin to denote non-Meroitic populations raided for slaves (noba) which had become known to Greek and Roman writers, reinforced to external observers by the Egyptian word for gold, nwb, on account of the gold mines in Lower Nubia.²⁶ Perhaps most indicative of this ancient understanding of the Nubian ‘Ethiopia’ is the Greek literary fourth-century CE work of Heliodorus entitled the Aithiopiká (Αἰθιοπικά), which is entirely centred on Meroë. Ancient Greco-Latin texts certainly had an understanding of Nubia in their notes on ‘Ethiopia’. Importantly, this pre-dated any supposed confusion with ʾAksum, which was centred in modern Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Indeed, Meroë’s location within ‘Ethiopia’ was a common fact restated by writers even into the medieval period, whereas the association of ʾAksum (Latin: Auxumae/Greek: Auxoumē/Αὐξουμῇ) with ‘Ethiopia’ appears exclusively as a caveat for an audience who most readily located an ‘Ethiopia’ in Sudan. Writing between 425 and 433 CE, Philostorgius appears to be the first writer to relate ʾAksum within an area labelled ‘Ethiopia’, leading some historians to use this as the first direct association of ʾAksum with ‘Ethiopia’.²⁷ This is, however, a matter of translation, specifically of the word chōras (χώρας), and ignores the fact that the emphasis of the text is on ʾAksum, not ‘Ethiopia’. The most recent critical edition of the Acts of Saint Arethas (c. seventh century), which is accompanied by a French translation, reflects this overemphasis on the role of chōras in portraying ʾAksum as the kingdom of Ethiopia, particularly in the line ‘then in the [country] of Ethiopia, Kalēb the righteous reigned in the city of ʾAksum of these Ethiopians’ (τότε τῆς Αἰθιόπων χώρας ἐβασίλευσεν Ἐλεσβαὰς ὁ δικαιότατος ἐν Αὐξουμῇ τῇ πόλει τῆς αὐτῆς Αἰθιόπων). In this edition, Joëlle Beaucamp translated chōras explicitly as ‘country’ (pays), rather than the equivalent vaguer option of ‘land’, which would instead situate ‘Ethiopia’ more broadly as a region following pre-Christian Greek models of geography and thus conform to the hypothesis forwarded here.²⁸ Even writers who do appear to link ‘Ethiopia’ to Ethiopia – such as the sixth-century writers Procopius, the otherwise unknown author of the Christian Topography, and the tenth-century work of Photius I – felt the need to clearly define their ‘Ethiopia’ as encompassing ʾAksum rather than presuming an understanding by their readers of an immediate association between ʾAksum and ‘Ethiopia’.²⁹ Despite these examples, it should be stressed that ʾAksum never became the kingdom of ‘Ethiopia’ to replace Nubia, with the toponym of ʾAksum instead determining the kingdom. As will be shown next, this is especially supported by the surviving ʾAksumite evidence itself.

Despite literary and pre-Christian influences, biblical geography undoubtedly viewed ‘Ethiopia’ as Nubia.³⁰ First and foremost, ‘Ethiopia’ was the land that encompassed the River Gehon (Nile) in Genesis, one of the four Rivers of Paradise. The Gehon itself was first attributed to the Nile by Josephus in the first century CE and was soon adopted by Christian writers, notably Isidore of Seville.³¹ This biblical influence was also present in the chroniclers of the First Crusade. Fulcher of Chartres (fl. before c. 1128) located the flow of the Nile through ‘Ethiopia’ because it was ‘as we read’ (ut legimus) according to Genesis.³² Ancient authors were certainly knowledgeable about the river. For example, Strabo (d. c. 24 CE) correctly identified the river’s ‘S’ shape between Aswan and Meroë, which was described as a reversed ‘N’ (i.e. И) shape, illustrating that the Nile was understood much more than within an abstract geography.³³ A key geographical attribute of the ‘Ethiopian’ Nile was the location of the Nubian island of Meroë within it, which was repeatedly described in medieval Latin texts following from the account of Pliny the Elder, who described the island as being the ‘capital’ of the ‘Ethiopians’ (caputque gentis Aethiopum) and being 5,000 stadia from Syene.³⁴ It is also noticeable in classical texts that descriptions of the Nile often focused on its flow through Nubia and the wonder of its unknown sources.³⁵ Whilst the source and route of the Nile may have remained open for debate throughout the medieval period, its location in Egypt, and therefore its origin from Nubia, further emphasised Nubia’s ‘Ethiopian’ identity.³⁶

Regrettably, there is currently no known evidence of what the inhabitants of Nubia called themselves collectively in surviving Old Nubian texts. The closest thing we have is the unification of the Nubian kingdoms under the toponym of Dotawo from the twelfth century but this may have been primarily a political, rather than a cultural, identity.³⁷ It had once been supposed by Anthony J. Arkell that an Old Nubian inscription found in Kordofan attests to a Christian named Anena from ‘Kush’ (Kasito, ⲕⲁⲥⲓⲧⲟ) who left their mark during the reign of a, currently unidentified, ourou Aaron, though Grzegorz Ochała has more recently proposed a completely different reading of the inscription to associate it with ourou Siti, who is attested in the 1330s in other Old Nubian evidence, which discredits the inscription as evidence of a ‘Kushite’ identification.³⁸ However, there is some evidence for regional identities. For example, in Old Nubian, Nobadia was known as Mig-, both before and after its annexation, such as in the toponym migitin goul (ⲙⲓⲅⲓⲧⲛ̄ ⲅⲟⲩⲗ), ‘land of the Nobadians’, whilst it was also known directly as Nobadia (ⲛⲟⲃⲁⲇⲓⲁ), whose inhabitants were Nobadians (ⲛⲟⲃⲁⲇⲓⲟⲛ).³⁹ Old Nubian texts also refer to their ourou as specifically being the ourou of the Makrout/Makuritai (?) (ⲙⲁⲕⲟⲩⲣ⸌ⲧ⸍) and of the Aruades (ⲁⲣⲟⲩⲁ⸌ⲇ⸍, Alwans), suggesting the continued existence of regional identities, but it is currently unknown if there were multiple identities or even differences within these regions, such as in Alwa where very few manuscripts are known.⁴⁰ Nubians do not appear to have adopted the ethnonym of ‘Nubians’ beyond an association with the region of Nobadia and more likely understood themselves as Kushites, if not something else.

How Nubia implemented its biblical identity, if at all, is unknown, however. Regrettably, there are no known examples of a Nubian self-identification with Psalm 68:31 (‘Ethiopia shall reach out its hands to God’), though there is an Old Nubian translation of Psalm 87, which is indicative of a Nubian understanding of Aithiopōn (ⲁⲓⲑⲓⲟ̄ⲡⲱⲛ) with the profession of Christianity.⁴¹ Known evidence of other psalms would indicate that Psalm 68:31 would not have been unknown.⁴² This textual absence is exemplary of the lack of surviving Nubian evidence and limits our understanding of the existence of any Nubian self-awareness of being the ‘Ethiopians’ of the Bible, which could have further influenced Latin European discourse, similar to the Ethiopian adoption of the fourteenth century, which will be outlined in this chapter. That said, Coptic may aid in this matter, not least as it was an active language in Nubia itself. For example, the Sahidic Coptic translation of the Bible translates Kush as both the vaguer Etayš (ⲉⲑⲁⲩϣ/‘Ethiopia’) when in reference to a region (i.e. in Genesis) and the more explicitly ‘Nubian’ Necooš (ⲛⲉϭⲟⲟϣ) when employed for a specifically Nubian narrative regarding Queen Candace (her name originating from the Meroitic title ktke, vocalised as kandake, meaning ‘queen’ or ‘queen-mother’) or Psalm 68:31 where ‘Ethiopia’ will reach out its hands to God.⁴³ Whilst it may only be suggestive, given the wide use of Coptic in Nubia, such attributions may have been in use by Nubians too.⁴⁴ This would be supported by the fact that Meroites described themselves as people from Qeš up until the fifth century CE, despite the lack of later Christian Nubian evidence.⁴⁵ In fact, the fifth-century ruler of northern Nubia, Silko, did declare himself in Greek to be ‘king of the Nobades and all of the Ethiopians’ (Βασιλισκος Νουβαδον και ολων των Αιθιοπων).⁴⁶ His inscription interestingly possibly highlights both pre-Christian Greco-Latin and Christian traditions of ‘Ethiopia’ as the Nobades can equally be read as being ‘Ethiopians’ or within a wider regional ‘Ethiopia’. The evidence, as limited as it is, would suggest that even if Nubians did not consider themselves ‘Ethiopians’, they likely did consider themselves ‘Kushite’ or at least made the connection. Christian Nubians would have seemingly been aware that they were the biblical and historical Kush and, by extension, ‘Ethiopia’, both within their own narrative and within the narratives of other Christian groups. So, where does Ethiopia fit into this narrative?

Abyssinia and a New Ethiopia

Despite both the consistencies and inconsistencies with the identifications of Aethiopia/Aithiopia (Αἰθιοπία), it is evident in Ethiopian sources that the kingdom of Ethiopia only begins, as far as surviving evidence suggests, to refer to itself as Ethiopia (ʾItyoṗya:ኢትዮጵያ) from the early fourteenth century. Problematically, this period also coincides with an increase in surviving Ethiopian texts, thus possibly resulting in an altogether incomplete picture. However, accompanying surviving ʾAksumite material, especially inscriptions, would suggest that the adoption of the toponym in fourteenth-century Ethiopian texts would appear to have been a contemporary development. In the surviving sources, in addition to being specifically of the kingdoms of ʾAksum (አክሱም) or Zagʷe Bǝg^wǝna (ብጒና), Ethiopians understood their own ‘land’ (bǝḥera:ብሔረ) or ‘people’ (sabʾ:ሰብአ) – or occasionally their ‘kingdom’ (mangəśt:መንግሥተ) – in numerous ways. Ethiopians also referred to themselves as of the Ḥabašat (ሐበሠተ), the ʾAgʿäzi (አገዐዚ) or ‘free’, and, after the fourteenth century, of ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) itself. Significantly, Latin Christians first knew of Ethiopians during the Crusader period as Abyssinians, not Ethiopians, emphasising the distinction between Ethiopia and Nubian ‘Ethiopia’. A toponym akin to ‘Abyssinia’ – Abitis – first appeared in the travel narrative attributed to Roger of Howden in the latter third of the twelfth century as a result of the dissemination and corruption of eastern toponyms for Ethiopia – namely, from one, if not all, of Gəʿəz (Ḥabašat), Arabic (al-Ḥabaša:الحبشة), Hebrew (Ḥabaš:חבש), and Syriac (Ḥabaš:ܚܒܫ).⁴⁷ The root of ‘Abyssinia’ from Arabic and Gəʿəz has been noted in current scholarship, yet the reinforcing ability of similar Hebrew and Syriac toponyms has received much less attention and is potentially significant in analysing the influencers of knowledge from the array of possible networks of knowledge detailed in Chapter 3.⁴⁸

‘Abyssinia’ may even have been in use prior to Roger of Howden’s text. For instance, a place called Abasitarum was located in Africa by Gervase of Tilbury, though it is not explicitly related to East Africa.⁴⁹ It appears likely that Gervase was influenced by the Auasitarum – a toponym based on the Coptic spelling for ‘oasis’ (ouahe:ⲟⲩⲁϩⲉ) – which had been a known location in antiquity.⁵⁰ In normal circumstances, the different spelling in Gervase of Tilbury’s text may not be a reason to draw too much attention. However, Gervase was copying from Orosius who, perhaps notably, referred instead to the Oasitae (‘oasis-dwellers’) of the Sahara, rather than the Auasitarum.⁵¹ It is, therefore, possible that Gervase’s form of Abasitarum was not merely a different spelling but also a conscious replacing of one toponym with another identically spelt toponym to ‘correct’ or update his text using a ‘modern’ toponym he had recently become accustomed to. Importantly, here, Gervase claimed to have first conceived of his Otia Imperialia (wr. 1211–15), which was written for Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, 30 years previously during the reign of Otto’s uncle King Henry the Younger of England (d. 1183). In which case, it may be that the concept of ‘Abyssinia’ had been known independently from, or even before, Roger of Howden’s reference. Even if Gervase’s toponym is coincidental, Roger of Howden’s reference to Abitis still places Abyssinia’s first surviving appearance in the Latin Christian corpus to the late twelfth century, long before Ethiopia became explicitly associated with ‘Ethiopia’. More importantly, the very process of the development of the toponym of ‘Abyssinia’ was in response to a need to distinguish the region later known as Ethiopia from Nubian ‘Ethiopia’.

Returning to the question of an Ethiopian ‘Ethiopia’, it has been argued, for example by both Daniel Selden and George Hatke, that it was actually ʾAksum that tried to write itself into universal Christian history, long before the rise of the Solomonids, by referring to itself as Ethiopia.⁵² Yet, as will be shown, Aithiopia (Αἰθιοπία) appears only rarely in Greek inscriptions in Ethiopia and never in any known Gəʿəz examples, even in parallel texts with the same, or very similar, narratives. The rulers of ʾAksum always labelled themselves first and foremost as being a nǝguś of ʾAksum, not of ‘Ethiopia’. Furthermore, any use of Aithiopia appears most associated with Kush, rather than either ʾAksum or even Ḥabašat. For instance, ʿEzana’s fourth-century inscriptions are indicative that Kush was seen as a distinct region in Nubia. In fact, a closer look at the trilingual inscriptions of ʿEzana suggests a more nuanced understanding of the use of Aithiopia in the Greek sections. Upon closer inspection of the inscriptions known as RIE 185I, 185II, and 270, the Greek inscription most closely reflects the Sabaic, rather than the Gəʿəz forms of the inscription, notably in the order that ʿEzana’s dominions appear, though there is no overall consistency in any of the orders despite supposedly being translations of the same text. Aithiopia corresponds with the Sabaic use of Ḥbštm, both of which appear before Sabaʾ, but in the Gəʿəz inscription, Kāsū appears before Sabaʾ, whilst Ḥabaśt appears after.

· Sabaic (RIE 185I): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Ḥabaštm, Sabaʾ, Salḥén, Ṣiyāmō, Kāsū, Bega

· Gəʿəz (RIE 185II): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Kāsū, Sabaʾ, Ḥabaśt, Raydān, Salḥén, Ṣiyāmō, Bega

· Greek (RIE 270): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Aithiopia, Sabaʾ, Salḥén, Ṣiyāmō, Bega, Kāsū

The fact that Aithiopia appears to correspond most closely to the Sabaic Ḥbštm in comparison with the Gəʿəz text, which aligns more with Ks, also highlights the question of audience. The use of Sabaic in these inscriptions appears to be for an internal audience of limited scope to project an ʾAksumite localised power, whereas the Gəʿəz and Greek versions would have been most commonly read.⁵³ The distinction between ʾAksum and ‘Ethiopia’ is even clearer in the other known trilingual inscription of ʿEzana (RIE 185bisI, 185bisII, and 270bis), which does appear to more clearly claim Aithiopia as an equivalent to Kāsū, with Ḥabaśt largely relegated in importance in comparison in the Gəʿəz text:

· Sabaic (RIE 185bisI): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Salḥén, Sabaʾ, Ḥabaštm, Ṣiyāmō, Ṣrd, Kāsū, Bega

· Gəʿəz (RIE 185bisII): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Kāsū, Sabaʾ, Salḥén, Ṣrd, Ḥabaśt, Bega

· Greek (RIE 270bis): nǝguś of ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Aithiopia, Sabaʾ, Salḥén, Ṣiyāmō, Bega, Kāsū

Indeed, the pre-Christian inscription said to have been witnessed on a throne in Adulis, ʾAksum’s principal Red Sea port, recorded by the anonymous Byzantine merchant known as Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century, details the military exploits of an unnamed nǝguś and makes it clear that Aithiopia (Αἰθιοπία) was to the west of ʾAksum, seemingly pointing to Kush (Meroë).⁵⁴ Furthermore, it is striking that Aithiopia was not listed amongst ʿEzana’s dominions in another known Greek inscription – interestingly without a parallel Gəʿəz or Sabaic text – despite the appearance of the other common localities (including, in order, ʾAksum, Ḥimyar, Raydān, Sabaʾ, Salḥén, Kāsū, Bega, and Tiāmō [Ṣiyāmō]).⁵⁵ Such an omission would appear strange if ʾAksum did indeed consider itself to be Aithiopia. Moreover, if reconstructions of ʾAksumite numismatic evidence by Wolfgang Hahn are to be believed, it is notable that some examples of ʾAksumite coins depicted rulers as being from the chora Abassinon in their Greek legends, a clear attempt at the transliteration of Ḥabašat, rather than being from Aithiopia.⁵⁶ This is reiterated by the fact that ʾAksumite nägäśt continued to frame themselves as nägäśt of ʾAksum, rather than of ‘Ethiopia’ in Gəʿəz elsewhere in later centuries.⁵⁷ Within the kingdom itself, it remained the kingdom of ʾAksum, not ʾItyoṗya, which is in stark contrast to its appropriation by the Solomonids who adopted the toponym both internally and externally.

Whilst it is true that following ʿEzana’s conquest of Kush, Kush was rarely referred to after the fourth century, except for a few isolated incidences up until the sixth century, there is no evidence that an ʾAksumite ‘Ethiopia’ replaced the Kushite ‘Ethiopia’ within surviving Ethiopian discourse.⁵⁸ More importantly, there is no evidence which suggests that ʾAksum believed itself to be the ‘Ethiopia’ of the Bible. Although the full Old Testament was translated into Gəʿəz no later than the seventh century, no complete manuscripts are known to survive prior to the fourteenth century.⁵⁹ Moreover, earlier biblical texts, such as those of the Garima Gospels (the earliest incorporated texts date to the sixth century), concern New Testament gospel texts and therefore do not refer to any narratives of ‘Ethiopia’ to reveal any significant attestations for an earlier adoption either. Modern scholarly consensus currently argues for a Greek origin to the Ethiopian Bible, rather than a previously argued Syriac one, which further supports the lack of an ʾAksumite adoption of the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’.⁶⁰ A Gəʿəz biblical translation from Greek would suppose that the early Gəʿəz texts would have contained the translation of Ethiopia (ʾItyoṗya:ኢትዮጵያ), yet even combined with other Greek influences, there is no evidence that the toponym was adopted by any of the rulers of Ethiopia as a self-descriptor prior to the Solomonic adoption of the toponym.⁶¹ The absence of the importance of such an identification is reflected in the fact that there is no known surviving element of Psalm 68:31 in any known ʾAksumite inscription, unlike references to numerous other psalms, suggesting that the later infamous passage which became most associated with Ethiopia was not seen, at least primarily, as fundamental to ʾAksumite identity and gained its importance sometime later, specifically during the Solomonic period when the earliest Gəʿəz texts attesting to the Psalm survive.⁶² Whether earlier Gəʿəz biblical manuscripts had contained ʾItyoṗya or not, evidence suggests that ʾAksum acknowledged a separation between itself and ‘Ethiopia’.

Furthermore, this is also the case for the post-ʾAksumite period. Documents with Zagʷe protagonists, such as the gädlät (hagiographies) of saintly nägäśt, only survive in manuscripts dating from the Solomonic era, further highlighting the issue that the incorporation of ‘Ethiopia’ (ʾItyoṗya:ኢትዮጵያ) into Gəʿəz cannot be dated without question to before the fourteenth century. For example, ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) appears in the Gädl of Lalibäla, who ruled between c. before 1204 and after 1225, but the surviving known manuscripts date no earlier than the fourteenth century.⁶³ Equally, no contemporary Zagʷe inscription using ʾItyoṗya is known, neither in stone nor on datable objects, such as tabots – replicas of the Ark of the Covenant. In fact, whilst not conclusive, the few surviving land grants from the Zag^we period are indicative that Zag^we Ethiopia seemingly considered itself to be a kingdom called Bǝg^wǝna (ብጒና), not ʾItyoṗya.⁶⁴ Shiferaw Bekele has used the example of tabots to argue that an Ethiopian ‘national’ consciousness which became epitomised in the Kəbrä nägäśt, the Solomonic ‘national’ epic relating Ethiopia’s foundational history from the time of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, which will be discussed shortly, can be dated to the late first millennium, if not earlier. Yet, there are no known early tabots which have ʾItyoṗya inscribed on them. Indeed, the one Gəʿəz text noted to sustain evidence for the Ethiopian adoption of ʾItyoṗya prior to the Kəbrä nägäśt in this ‘national’ consciousness by Shiferaw Bekele, the homily of St. Frumentius, is described broadly as ‘not before the thirteenth century’. However, whilst not incorrect, this text specifically dates to either 1336/7 or 1339/40, thus emphasising the association between the adoption of ʾItyoṗya and the arrival of the Solomonic dynasty.⁶⁵ That is not to say that a ‘national’ consciousness did not exist in Ethiopia before 1270, but that it did not centre on being ‘Ethiopian’ as later Ethiopians came to understand it. For instance, as Marie-Laure Derat has highlighted, the twelfth-century Zag^we ruler Ṭanṭawǝdǝm was also known as Solomon, possibly indicating an earlier cultural association with King Solomon prior to the Ethiopian translation of the Kəbrä nägäśt.⁶⁶ Yet, any such earlier ‘national’ narrative cannot be said to have centred on an Ethiopian self-identification as ʾItyoṗya until after the arrival of the Solomonids based on the current evidence. There is no reason to discount that later writers simply added the toponym of ʾItyoṗya into their texts – for instance, to replace Ḥabašat – even if such texts were copies of older manuscripts. The expansion of the use of ʾItyoṗya in Ethiopian texts coincided with the episcopate of ‘the Translator’ Abba Salama IV (r. c. 1348–88), who oversaw a flourishing of manuscript production within Ethiopia, which enabled the cultural entrenching of the toponym and the development of this new identity, building on the explicitly ‘Ethiopian’ narrative of the Kəbrä nägäśt.⁶⁷

Building an Ethiopian Narrative in Ethiopia

The Kəbrä nägäśt cemented Ethiopia’s new Ethiopian identity and relates a history covering a period between the tenth century BCE and the sixth century CE. It was said to have been translated into Gǝʿǝz from an Arabic manuscript during the reign of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon (r. 1314–44), more likely earlier in his reign than later, as the fruits of a project led by a monk called Yǝsḥäq. The Arabic text had, in turn, supposedly been translated from an earlier Coptic manuscript during the reign of Lalibäla and in the days of Abba Giyorgis II, which would give the date c. 1225.⁶⁸ The vast majority of the text centres around Makədda (the Ethiopian name for the Queen of Sheba, though this is not directly ascribed in the text) and the son she gave birth to with King Solomon following their encounter in 1 Kings 10:2, who became known in Ethiopian tradition as Mənəlik. Mənəlik would be anointed as the first nǝguś of ʾItyoṗya by his father Solomon, thus creating a historical foundation for the Solomonic Ethiopian ‘Ethiopia’: there are no less than 122 appearances of ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) throughout the text. The Kəbrä nägäśt was, first and foremost, a text designed to legitimise the new Solomonic dynasty ‘reconnecting’ to an ancient past following a period of what they more generally framed as usurpation by the Zag^wes.⁶⁹ It remains unclear what, exactly, inspired the Solomonic adoption of the toponym ʾItyoṗya. For example, it may have been a dynastic decision made independent of regional context, but it may equally have been another element of the wider Solomonic contestation of Nubian hegemony as seen elsewhere, such as in their jockeying to be viewed as the protectors of the wider region’s Christians. No explicit evidence exists to reveal how present Nubia, or its current situation, was in the minds of the Solomonic rulers as they sought legitimisation. Nevertheless, the Solomonic adoption of ʾItyoṗya, both in the Kəbrä nägäśt and elsewhere, can be shown to have been building on an ʾItyoṗya centred on Nubia. Once the Latin Christians began to hear news of an Ethiopia which had the traits of Nubia, the merging of Ethiopias transcended the matter of legitimisation sought by the Solomonids and began to affect regional geopolitics. Before looking at how the Ethiopian adoption of the toponym informed external observers, we shall see how Ethiopia was not ignorant of ʾItyoṗya’s Nubian connotations.

The evidence for the Nubian origin of the ʾItyoṗya of the Kəbrä nägäśt is present in both content and when considering the process of translation. No Arabic or Coptic manuscripts, despite the claim in the text’s colophon of its translation process, however, are known. That said, there are clear linguistic influences in the Gəʿəz text which display evidence for it being a product of translation. For instance, there are visible Arabic influences in the text, such as in the name given to Mənəlik, Bäynä Ləḥkəm (በይነ፡ልሕክም), meaning ‘son of a wise man’ in reference to Solomon from the Arabic Ibn al-Ḥakīm (ابن الحاكم).⁷⁰ As a result of the chronological shift forward at the end of the Kəbrä nägäśt to the sixth century, some debate has arisen arguing that the Kəbrä nägäśt is based on an earlier contemporary sixth-century original, but this has been more widely argued to be inherently unlikely.⁷¹ The argument put forward here is not to suggest that elements of the narrative of the Kəbrä nägäśt were not in circulation before the fourteenth century but that the direct association of the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’ with Ethiopia was a contemporary Solomonic development and an active insertion into the narrative. The lack of evidence for an earlier Gəʿəz translation further problematises the Ethiopian development of its self-association with ‘Ethiopia’ when the translation of toponyms from these supposed textual traditions is considered. Presumably, any supposed earlier Arabic text would have applied al-Ḥabaša (الحبشة) for what became translated as ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ), thus offering a specifically Ethiopian narrative, albeit under the guise of a different toponym. Certainly, ‘Ethiopia’ does not appear in original Arabic texts without clear evidence of copying from a Greek or Latin base text. For instance, Ibn Khordāḍbeh (fl. ninth century) is illustrative of this occasional copying when he wrote of an Asian ‘Ethiopia’ (Etyūbyā:يتيوبيا) based on Ptolemaic principles, which contained Tihāmah (تهامة: the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia), Yemen (Yaman:ييمن), China (Sind:سند), India (Hind:هند), and a second ‘China’ (Ṣī:صي).⁷² Instead, Arabic texts normally label the region of the Greco-Latin African ‘Ethiopia’ as either Kūš (كوش: [most often to mean] Nubia), Nūba (نوبة: Nubia), Ḥabaša (حبشة: modern Ethiopia), Sūdān (سودان: Sub-Saharan Africa in general), or Zanj (زنج: the East African coast), and would consistently call India Hīnd (هند). Yet, the question of the text’s transmission is further problematised once the supposed Coptic role in the textual process is taken into consideration. For example, one known contemporary example of a direct Arabic translation of Coptic in a biblical context appears in a multilingual Copto-Arabic Pentateuch dating to 1356 in which the Arabic translation applies Kūš (كوش) for Etayš (Ethiopia:ⲉⲑⲁⲩϣ) in Genesis 2:13 in relation to the River Gehon.⁷³ Was, then, the Kəbrä nägäśt based on notions of Kush, and therefore Nubia, rather than al-Ḥabaša?

Regarding the supposed Coptic Vorlage, this would equally appear unlikely to have given an Ethiopian origin to the initial text. Coptic transliterations of Aithiopia (Αἰθιοπία) most commonly appear as a variant of Etoope (ⲉⲑⲟⲟⲡⲉ) or Etayš (ⲉⲑⲁⲩϣ) and follow the same identifications as their Greek counterpart noted previously. More importantly, however, is the use of Necooš (ⲛⲉϭⲟⲟϣ) in Acts 8:27 in relation to Queen Candace and Psalm 68:31.⁷⁴ David Johnson proposed a possible early Coptic Vorlage for the Kəbrä nägäśt in a c. tenth/eleventh-century manuscript; though the fragment does not mention the Queen of Sheba with a locatable toponym.⁷⁵ If this earlier Coptic passage is indicative of the Coptic influence on the Kəbrä nägäśt, it is notable that other Coptic works referring to the queen describe her as being from Necooš (ⲛⲉϭⲟⲟϣ), therefore identifying her as Nubian.⁷⁶ It is difficult to imagine that any Coptic base text for the Kəbrä nägäśt would have had anything other than a reference to Nubia, either directly as ‘Kush’ or indirectly as ‘Ethiopia’. The possible existence of ‘Kush’ in the text when it was supposedly translated into Arabic may offer some explanation for the Ethiopian translators’ use of ʾItyoṗya. It is true that there are multiple examples from various Semitic language sources that describe Ethiopia as Kush. For instance, in Arabic, al-Battānī (d. 929) described Ethiopian towns as both of the al-Ḥabaša (الحبشة) – such as the town of Suwān – and of Kūš (كوش) – notably giving the example of Kusūmī (ʾAksum) for the latter – whilst Mahbūb ibn Qūṣṭānṭīn (d. c. 942) explicitly described the land of al-Ḥabaša as that of Kūš.⁷⁷ Equally, some Syriac texts employed Kūšāyē (ܟܘܫܝܐ) in descriptions of Kalēb’s invasion of Ḥimyar in c. 535, though in later Syriac sources, Ethiopia is often more specifically referred to as Ḥabaša (ܚܒܫܝܐ) or even Hindāyē (ܗܢܕܘܝܐ).⁷⁸ That said, Syriac authors could always specify their Kūš, as was the case in the late seventh-century Edessene Apocalypse, which stated that the people of Kūš were the Nubians (Nūb:ܢܘܒ).⁷⁹ Similarly, translators of texts could define toponyms not originally defined as can be seen in the Armenian translation (wr. 1246) of Patriarch Michael Rabo’s (d. 1199) Syriac chronicle which translated Kūš specifically as Ethiopia (Hapešač, Հապեշէաչ), such as when detailing Kalēb’s invasion of Ḥimyar.⁸⁰ Comparatively broad uses occur in Hebrew, as can be witnessed, for example, in the case of the twelfth-century Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela who used Kūš (כוש) when detailing both Nubia and Ethiopia simultaneously akin to a regional, rather than a specific, toponym.⁸¹ However, this is by no means consistent in other works in order to provide definitive proof for this, and such a suggestion still avoids explaining the appearance of ʾItyoṗya. Instead, evidence points to ʾItyoṗya being an active insertion by the Ethiopian translators of the Kəbrä nägäśt.

The identity of the Queen of Sheba also deserves further attention. In addition to the lack of sources that predate Ethiopia’s use of ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) before the fourteenth century, the queen had never appeared in Gəʿəz sources prior to the Kəbrä nägäśt.⁸² She was only known as the Queen of Sheba in 1 Kings 10 and was more commonly known simply as the ‘Queen of the South’ in the New Testament (Mathew 12:42; Luke 11:31), remaining nameless in the Tanakh, Bible, and the Qur’an. Her association with Sheba has almost categorically resulted in the belief of her historical residency in Arabia, yet a closer look at the distinctive African Saba (סבא) and the Arabian Šeba (שבא) in the Hebrew Old Testament is key to revealing Nubia’s appropriation in the Kəbrä nägäśt. Similar to the potential that Meluḫḫa and Kūš/Kiš had for confusing references to ‘Ethiopia’ with somewhere in Asia, and vice versa, Sheba should be viewed in a similar light. Given the Ethiopian desire to appropriate the toponym of ʾItyoṗya, it should not be ignored that the Kushite city of Meroë was said to have been originally called Saba (Σαβα) before being renamed by the Assyrian king Cambyses following his invasion in the sixth century BCE.⁸³ Significantly, Cambyses’ invasion happened after the reign of Solomon, suggesting that Meroë would have been known as Saba during his reign. This would also complement the scholarly dating of the Book of Kings in which the Queen of Sheba appears to the sixth century BCE.⁸⁴ Furthermore, the earliest reference to Meroë by name by an external author is by Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, thus after the narrative of the Queen of Sheba’s earliest incarnations.⁸⁵ Notably, Stephanos of Byzantium (fl. sixth century) explicitly linked the Nubians (Νουβαῖοι) with Saba – expressing that Zabaioi (Σαβαῖοι) was an alternate name for them – in his ethnographic compendium, whilst the placement of a city of Saba (סבא) on the Nile also appears in the twelfth-century itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, further emphasising the longevity of the association between Meroë and Saba in historical consciousness, which transcended any one cultural corpus.⁸⁶ Likewise, Saba was also located in ‘Ethiopia’ by Latin Christians before ‘Ethiopia’ became identified with Ethiopia.⁸⁷ Moreover, the c. eighth-century, so-called second Targum of Esther relates that the Queen of Sheba came from the ‘fortified city’ (karkaʾ, כרכא) of Qitor (קיטור), which is also described as having plentiful gold and silver.⁸⁸ It is notable that qīṭōr means ‘[thick] smoke’ in Hebrew, which may well also allude to Meroë’s well-known iron furnaces, with the reference to bountiful gold especially reflecting Nubia’s historic gold mines.⁸⁹ The reference to the queen coming from Ethiopia (al-Ḥabaša) in the continuation of the History of the Patriarchs in relation to the period of Patriarch of Alexandria Kosmas III (r. 921–33), whose section containing this reference was compiled in the late eleventh century, possibly provides an interesting indication of a phased approach towards Nubian appropriation.⁹⁰ However, it is possible that the text merely misspoke between Nubia and Ethiopia, and the later twelfth-century text written by Abū al-Makārim, which used the History as a source, did confuse elements of knowledge regarding both kingdoms which makes his reiteration of the queen’s kingdom potentially circumspect.⁹¹ The anomaly of the continuation of the History of the Patriarchs should be read with caution, as no Ethiopian sources attest to this before cementing this appropriation with the adoption of the toponym of ‘Ethiopia’ in the fourteenth century.

More generally, the historical and archaeological record attests to multiple influential queens of the kingdom of Meroë, or Kush, to act as an exemplar for the queen. The most prominent of those which appear alongside the title of kandake are attested between the late second century BCE and first century CE – most famously providing the template for the biblical Queen Candace in Acts 8:27–39. It appears that an earlier queen, actually labelled as Hǝndakē (ህንደኬ) in the Kəbrä nägäśt, was the exemplar for the Queen of Sheba used in the Kəbrä nägäśt.⁹² Ethiopia had certainly appropriated the biblical Nubian Queen Candace for its own purposes during Francisco Álvarez’s stay in Ethiopia in the 1520s, as he claims to have been explicitly told that Queen Candace resided in ʾAksum.⁹³ Similarly, other elements of the Kəbrä nägäśt are indicative of a Nubian origin. On a literary level too, E. A. Wallis Budge noted how the act of Bäynä Ləḥkəm swearing upon his mother’s breasts for his speedy return upon being questioned by Solomon in the Kəbrä nägäśt had a known Kushite precedent, albeit the evidence for it postdating the reign of Solomon by a few centuries.⁹⁴ Robert Beylot has even gone as far as to suggest a Nubian etymology for the name Makədda, which he posited may derive from the Old Nubian word koud(i), which he suggested would mean wife or concubine in this context, though this has been rejected by Pierluigi Piovanelli.⁹⁵ Whilst much of the text is original Ethiopian material, its Nubian influences should not be ignored in Ethiopia’s attempt to forge a new universal Christian identity in the fourteenth century, importantly coinciding with the increasing Mamlūk challenges faced by the Christian Nubian kingdom of Dotawo to offer any significant rebuke to this cultural process. Although it is not the focus here, it is important to note that the Islamic tradition of placing Bilqīs (باقيس), the Queen of Sheba in Arabic literature, in Yemen, though early in dating, cannot be taken literally as historical fact, as her residence in Yemen within this tradition both largely places her life in the fifth or sixth century CE and provides a legitimisation of the coming of Islam in Arabia with her conversion; though the anonymous Byzantine merchant, known in scholarship today as Cosmas Indicopleustes, likewise placed the Queen of Sheba in Ḥimyar in the sixth century.⁹⁶ Yet, the Arabic tradition and the anonymous Byzantine example, however, can both be explained by a confusion originally caused by the Hebrew African Saba and Arabian Šeba. Nevertheless, the material which the Kəbrä nägäśt drew upon should be viewed as locating the queen originally in Nubia.

Whatever the intricacies of the text of the Kəbrä nägäśt, it remains most significant that ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon, the nǝguś on the throne as the Kəbrä nägäśt was translated, is the first Ethiopian nǝguś with surviving unquestionable contemporary sources which independently attest to their rulership over ʾItyoṗya in Gəʿəz, highlighting the recent nature of this development and its developing central importance to Ethiopia’s still relatively new Solomonic political establishment.⁹⁷ Possibly slightly predating ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon, according to the colophon of a manuscript held at the British Library, including Acts of Saints and Martyrs and additional Homilies, it was created during the reign of nǝguś Yagbe’ä Ṣəyon (r. 1285–94) whose land was described as ʾItyoṗya.⁹⁸ However, the contemporary date of the colophon remains questionable. Yet, it may be notable that his reign coincided with Marco Polo labelling the land of Abasce as Ethiopia, especially as Polo narrated information specifically relatable to Yagbe’ä Ṣəyon.⁹⁹ Nevertheless, no Ethiopian evidence for the adoption of ʾItyoṗya is known prior to the arrival of the Solomonic dynasty. Importantly, the Kəbrä nägäśt was produced as ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon began his period of expansion, which was detailed in his chronicle; the earliest Ethiopian royal chronicle known. ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon’s exploits got Ethiopia noticed on the world stage and were able to steer ‘Ethiopian’ discourse. As we will see, as far as the Latin Christians were concerned this period coincided with the relative absence of recorded news of Nubia and its internal affairs which inadvertently paved the way for a seamless transition between ‘Ethiopias’ once the Ethiopian embassies arrived in Latin Europe following 1402.

Above all, the Kəbrä nägäśt was just one of a body of Solomonic Ethiopian texts which positioned Ethiopia within a universal Christian chronology.¹⁰⁰ The key to this was making Ethiopia ‘Ethiopian’. Certainly, sixteenth-century Ethiopian sources are adamant that ʾItyoṗya had always been Ethiopia’s true toponym. According to a section of the Maṣḥafa Aksūm (መጽሐፈ፡አክሱም) dating to the reign of Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl (r. 1508–40), for instance, ʾAksum’s first capital, Mazaber, was built by ʾItǝyoṗis (ኢትዮጲሰ), an otherwise unknown son of Cush, which is why they are called ʾItyoṗya (ለኢትዮጵያ).¹⁰¹ A wider contextual look at the production of the Kəbrä nägäśt, however, is indicative of ʾItyoṗya being an active insertion by the early fourteenth-century Ethiopian translators, regardless of the content of the claimed Coptic and Arabic Vorlages. Even if some of the sources of the Kəbrä nägäśt did indeed refer to Ethiopia, they did not use, and arguably could not have used, the toponym ʾItyoṗya. Further textual analysis of the Kəbrä nägäśt may reveal even more Nubian influences within the text. What is important here is that the success of Solomonic Ethiopia’s cultural and political adoption of the toponym of ʾItyoṗya fundamentally rested on the contrasting fortunes of fourteenth-century Nubia and Ethiopia. It is no coincidence that Nubia’s weakening regional position following the first period of conflict with Mamlūk Egypt beginning in the 1270s created the necessary vacuum for Solomonic Ethiopia’s successful adoption of an ‘Ethiopian’ identity. Ethiopia’s attempts to replace Nubia was not merely literary either. For example, around the time of the Gəʿəz translation of the Kəbrä nägäśt, Ethiopia’s new Solomonic rulers began to actively claim to be the protectors of Eastern Christians from any abuse at the hands of Mamlūk Egypt, including sending embassies to Cairo on the matter.¹⁰² This role of protector, or perhaps more correctly ‘saviour’, had traditionally been held by Nubian rulers in the view of multiple Eastern Christian groups – specifically in apocalyptic traditions – and, possibly, explicitly expressed by Nubian rulers themselves, such as in the case of Moüses Georgios in the late twelfth century.¹⁰³ This parallel chronological development of Nubia and Ethiopia from the late thirteenth century is a key underlying factor in many of the later elements of this book, particularly regarding shifting Latin Christian discourse from Nubia to Ethiopia. That is not to say that a stronger Nubia would have prevented this development in Ethiopia, but its relative comparative weakness during this latter period did little to stop, or even slow, the process of replacement.

The Emergence of the ‘New’ Ethiopia

For our purposes, before continuing, it is notable here to emphasise that, besides Ethiopians themselves, it was only Latin Christians who addressed Solomonic Ethiopia as ‘Ethiopia’, rather than by a different name. This underlines the significance of the toponym’s adoption and the geopolitical consequences that this developing Solomonic internal discourse created, especially when we consider that Ethiopia only became universally known as ‘Ethiopia’ from the nineteenth century.¹⁰⁴ Beyond Ethiopia, the consequence of Ethiopia becoming ʾItyoṗya mattered most to the Latin Christians, and it was only then that a clear shift from Nubia to Ethiopia can be witnessed. When exactly Ethiopia was successful in disseminating its new ‘Ethiopian’ identity to foreign rulers, both directly and indirectly, from the early fourteenth century is difficult to determine. Regrettably, the earliest surviving Ethiopian royal correspondence to Latin Christian rulers which attests to the active Ethiopian appropriation of ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) only dates to the early sixteenth century, though there is suggestive fifteenth-century evidence that centred ʾItyoṗya in these exchanges following the arrival of the embassy to Venice in 1402.¹⁰⁵ For example, Alfonso V of Aragon (r. 1416–58) addressed aṣé Yǝsḥäq (r. 1414–29) in 1427/8 as ‘king of Ethiopian kings’ (regum Ethiopie regi) whilst also referring to the Ethiopian ruler’s authority over the Ark of the Covenant as ‘lord of the Tablets of Mount Sinai’ (domino Tabularum Montis Sinay), a fact that would have been relayed in either the Ethiopian letters or by Ethiopian informants. Perhaps Afonso’s use of Ethiopie was in response to ʾItyoṗya.¹⁰⁶ Certainly, the Ethiopian monks from the community in Jerusalem who participated in the Council of Florence in 1441 did refer to themselves as being from ʾItyoṗya (ኢትዮጵያ) in their correspondence with Pope Eugenius IV.¹⁰⁷ It is likely that Ethiopians informed Latin Christians of this ‘new’ Ethiopia in encounters across the eastern Mediterranean and further afield throughout the fourteenth century even if the evidence for this is reliant solely on tracing the developing, initially inconsistent, meaning of ‘Ethiopia’ in Latin Christian sources. The significance of identifying the ‘Ethiopians’ in discussion based on a more rounded evidenced approach which also takes into account Ethiopian evidence also poses challenges to current scholarly narratives, which will be addressed later in this book. For example, the Ethiopian identification of the ‘Ethiopian’ embassy to Castile and Avignon between 1300 and sometime after 1314 should be viewed as anachronistic, particularly when viewed alongside the evidence of toponymy presented here and the Nubian context which will be presented in Chapter 6.

Significantly, Ethiopia’s new identity as ʾItyoṗya, despite not being its primary concern, had the most profound effect on Latin Christian discourse due to ‘Ethiopia’s’ association with Nubia, which Ethiopia was able to exploit when this became apparent. In contrast, the surviving records of letters sent by Solomonic Ethiopian rulers to the Mamlūk rulers of Egypt in the late thirteenth century and in the fourteenth century, though only recorded in Arabic works, all present the various rulers of Ethiopia as mulūk (ملوك/‘kings’; sing. malik:ملك) of al-Ḥabaša, not of Etyūbyā, or a similar transliteration, despite at least some communication seemingly being conducted in Gəʿəz.¹⁰⁸ This may merely reflect a matter of Arabic translation by the respective writers, but it is also true that relations with Muslim Egypt had no concept of what the importance of being ‘Ethiopia’ was to build upon. It may be the case that Ethiopia did not present itself as Ethiopia universally immediately, particularly to non-Christian audiences. For example, in contrast to Egypt’s Muslim inhabitants, fourteenth-century Arabo-Coptic manuscripts listing places which post-date the arrival of the Solomonids the Coptic Necooš was translated as the land of the al-Ḥabaša – or, sometimes more precisely, the land of the Najāšī (نجاشي: the nǝguś) – suggesting that the Solomonic Ethiopian portrayal of its new ‘Ethiopian’ identity may also have been expressed to Copts. However, there was also not a single instance of change that can be pinpointed within the discourses of other Christian groups to attribute ‘Ethiopia’ to Ethiopia immediately either, such as the example of the detailing of Habeži (Хабежи) at the Holy Sepulchre in c. 1370 by the Russian pilgrim, the archimandrite Agrefeni.¹⁰⁹ This may be coincidental but may also be explained by the comparative degree of interactions between Ethiopians and certain other Christian groups, which in these two instances, would have been much less with Russians than it would have been with Copts. In relation to the Latin Christians, it remains unclear when the Ethiopians realised that being ‘Ethiopian’ could also have profound importance when engaging with Latin Europe to further their goals, whether this was immediately clear or made more explicit only following their embassy to Venice in 1402. Evidence would suggest that this was a happy beneficial coincidence which happened to build upon Latin Christian desires to engage with Nubian ‘Ethiopia’, rather than an active pursuit.

It is also notable that the adoption of ʾItyoṗya may not even have been initially universal within Ethiopia itself, which only serves to further highlight the late Ethiopian adoption of the toponym. For instance, according to Saint Ēwosṭatēwos’ gädl, the name of the ourou of Nubia, Sabʾä Nol (ሳብአ፡ኖል), who met Ēwosṭatēwos during his journey through Nubia during the saint’s exile from Ethiopia (after 1337) is explicitly stated to have meant ‘sons of Ethiopia’ (Wǝludä ʾItyoṗya, ውሉደ፡ኢትዮጵያ) in Arabic.¹¹⁰ In which case, the king’s name should be seen as a corrupted understanding of the Arabic al-ṣibyān al-Nūbah (صبيان النوبه), or, more grammatically correct, ‘son of Nubia’ (al-ṣabiy al-Nūbah: الصبي النوبه). This suggestion is supported by the fact that the earliest texts derive from a single α tradition (the others being known as β and γ) and whose earliest manuscript dates to the mid-fifteenth century, thus enabling the opportunity for the existence of a scribal error involving the letters ‘b’ (በ) and ‘l’ (ለ) to present ‘Nob’ as ‘Nol’ to be mistakenly replicated by future copyists. Importantly, this example may illustrate that some remnants of the historical linking of ‘Ethiopia’ and Nubia in Gəʿəz may have survived the initial fourteenth-century Solomonic adoption given that the narrative could only have developed from the late fourteenth century at the earliest following Ēwosṭatēwos’ death; indeed, only after 1374 following the establishment of the monastery at Däbrä Maryam by a disciple of Ēwosṭatēwos, Absadi, where the monks first developed the text.¹¹¹ This takes on additional significance when, as Olivia Adankpo-Labadie has highlighted, this encounter within Ēwosṭatēwos’ gädl purposefully idealises Nubia’s Christian ourou during a period of conflict, therefore suggesting an active historical connection between Christian Nubia and ‘Ethiopia’ by the earliest writers of the gädl in their intended narrative.¹¹² Whilst tentative, this may also help to explain why, if one possible reading of the surviving text is correct, one Archbishop of ʾAksum felt the need to claim his ʾAksumite titulature in an inscription left at the Church of Sonqi Tino, c. 70 km south of the second cataract in Nubia, in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, without any association to ‘Ethiopia’.¹¹³

The change in association that ‘Abyssinia’ was the ‘true’ Ethiopia in Latin Christian discourse was informed by Ethiopians themselves during the fourteenth century. Whilst the majority of Latin Christian references to ‘Ethiopia’ in this book predate this appropriation, this understanding cannot be separated from the role of Nubia and Ethiopia in the mentality of the Crusaders and, more generally, Latin Europe overall, which sowed the seeds for the Ethiopian-Latin Christian interactions of the fifteenth century more commonly discussed. Regarding the era of Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations beginning in the fifteenth century, elements of Nubian history were being portrayed as Ethiopian history to Latin Christian audiences. For example, by the Council of Florence in the 1440s, Ethiopians actively framed Queen Candace within their own history to Latin Christians, and Francisco Álvarez was informed in the 1520s during his time in Ethiopia that Queen Candace lived at ʾAksum and that it was in ʾAksum that Ethiopians say that Psalm 68:31 was fulfilled when Candace received Christianity as told in Acts 8:27.¹¹⁴ The correlation between the rise of the Ethiopian ʾItyoṗya and a slowly declining Nubia, at least on the international scene, in the fourteenth century is striking. Even though the adoption of ‘Ethiopian’ identity by the Solomonids was principally a matter of cementing internal power, once this identity began to be projected externally it clearly began to influence where Latin Christians believed their ‘Ethiopia’ to be. It was no longer Nubia, but Ethiopia. However, it does not appear that Solomonic Ethiopia actively sought to replace Nubia in the eyes of the Latin Christians, though its rulers did take up the regional role of protector of Eastern Christians in place of the ourou of Nubia almost immediately, and any benefits that Ethiopia were able to gain in their conducting of Ethiopian-Latin Christian fifteenth-century relations, as a result, were coincidental. Nevertheless, the centrality of the role of Nubia to Solomonic Ethiopian ‘Ethiopian’ identity, should not be overlooked for the scenarios it initially unintentionally, but later intentionally, created.

Notes

1. For example, see E. Vagnon, ‘Comment localiser l’Éthiopie? La confrontation des sources antiques et des témoignages moders au XV^e siècle’, Annales d’Éthiopie, 27 (2012), pp. 21–48.

2. J.-P. Olivier and M. Del Freo, eds., The Pylos Tablets Transcribed: Deuxième édition (Padua, 2020), pp. Eb 156, 87; Eb 846, 94; En 74, 105; Eo 247, 110; Ep 301, 114. Amongst other roles attributed to him, Ai-ti-jo-qo was one of the officials known as the telestai who were associated with the dāmos, an administrative body that oversaw cultivated land and provided goods to the palace during the Mycenaean period; see D. Nakassis, Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos (Leiden, 2013), 225 and discussions therein.

3. J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘Sigelwara Land’, Medium Ævum, 1.3 (1932), 191n1; R. S. P. Beekes, ‘Aithiopes’, Glotta, 73 (1995–6), pp. 12–34. My own avoidance of the term ‘burnt’ due to its more negative associations has been inspired by Sarah Derbew. For just some issues of terminology related by Derbew, see S. Derbew, Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge, 2022), pp. 10–6.

4. ‘Ethiopians’ were possibly associated with African peoples in the works of Hesiod (fl. c. late-eighth century BCE), though there is no surety in the fragmentary text of the ethnonym’s etymology or of its direct connection to dark-skinned people: Hesiod, eds. and trans. G. W. Most, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 2006), Frags. 98–9, pp. 168–71 (text and trans.).

5. Herodotus, Histories, ed. and trans. A. D. Godley, 4 vols. (Cambridge, MA., 1920–5), II.22, pp. I:300–1 (text and trans.). Their blackness is implied in a fragment from the sixth century BCE which says that ‘Ethiopians’ say their gods are black, seemingly imitating themselves: Xenophanes of Colophon, Fragments, ed. and trans. J. H. Lesher (Toronto, 1992), pp. 24–5 (text and trans.).

6. Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, eds. and trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns (Oxford, 2002), Book II Ch. 4, pp. 214–15 (text and trans.).

7. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, eds. and trans. H. Rackham, W. H. S. Jones, and D. E. Eichholz, 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA., 1967–71), 6.35.186–7, pp. II:476–7 (text and trans.).

8. V. I. J. Flint, ‘Honorius Augustodunensis Imago Mundi’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 49 (1982), Book I Ch. 32, 64.

9. See U. P. Arora, ‘“India” Vis-à-vis Egypt – Ethiopia in Classical Accounts’, Graeco-Arabica, 1 (1982), pp. 131–40; M. van Wyk Smith, ‘“Waters Flowing from Darkness” The Two Ethiopias in the Early European Image of Africa’, Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 68 (1986), pp. 67–77; P. Mayerson, ‘A Confusion of Indias: Asian India and African India in the Byzantine Sources’, JAOS, 113.2 (1993), pp. 169–74; P. Schneider, L’Ethiopie et l’Inde: Interférences et confusions aux extrémités du monde antique: VIIIe siècle avant J. C. - VIe siècle après J. C. (Paris, 2004); P. Schneider, ‘The So-called Confusion between India and Ethiopia: The Eastern and Southern Edges of the Inhabited World from the Greco-Roman Perspective’, in Brill’s Companion to Ancient Geography: The Inhabited World in Greek and Roman Tradition, eds. S. Bianchetti, M. R. Cataudella, and H.-J. Gehrke (Leiden, 2016), pp. 184–202; P. Vasunia, ‘Ethiopia and India: Fusion and Confusion in British Orientalism’, Les Cahiers d’Afrique de l’Est/The East African Review, 51 (2016), pp. 21–43; N. J. Andrade, The Journey of Christianity to India in Late Antiquity: Networks and the Movement of Culture (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 69–93. According to Beekes’ etymological argument, this may even have been an adoption of a confused geography regarding Homer’s original neighbouring ‘Ethiopians’ in north-western Greece and their relation to the paradisiacal Garden of the Hesperides: Beekes, ‘Aithiopes’, pp. 30–1.

10. For the origins and dating of this translation process, see N. Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible, trans. W. Watson (Leiden, 2000), pp. 3–105.

11. Schneider, L’Éthiopie et l’Inde, pp. 365–71. Also, see S. H. Levitt, ‘The Ancient Mesopotamian Place Name “Meluḫḫa”’, Studia Orientalia, 107 (2009), pp. 135–76.

12. Schneider, L’Éthiopie et l’Inde, pp. 371–3. For various syntheses of this linguistic nuance, see D. Neiman, ‘Ethiopia and Kush: Biblical and Ancient Greek Geography’, Ancient World, 3 (1980), pp. 35–42; P. Unseth, ‘Hebrew Kush: Sudan, Ethiopia, or Where?’, Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology, 18.2 (1999), pp. 143–59; Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham, pp. 17–25.

13. Kūš (כוש) was only translated directly as Kous (Κους) in one example (Gen 10:6–8) in relation to the son of Ham, although, seemingly unrelatedly, Chous (Χούς) does also appear identifying a village near the Palestinian city of Bethulia in Judith 7:18.

14. This was often made explicitly known; for example: Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), I:Book IX Ch. 2 (text); The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. S. A. Barney, W. K. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and O. Berghof (Cambridge, 2006), 199 (trans.); Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, eds. Banks and Binns, Book II Ch. 4, pp. 214–15 (text and trans.).

15. For example, see M. O’Doherty, The Indies and the Medieval West: Thought, Report, Imagination (Turnhout, 2013).

16. La «Descriptio Mappe Mundi» de Hugues de Saint-Victor, ed. P. Gautier-Dalché (Paris, 1988): Ethiopia: Ch. 7, 139, Ch. 14, 146, Ch. 15, pp. 146–7, Ch. 16, pp. 147–8, Ch. 17, 150, Ch. 18, pp. 150–1; Ethiopica India: Ch. 9, pp. 140–1; Ethiopica Egyptus: Chs. 7, 138, Ch. 16, pp. 147–8. For the different Indias, see Ch. 9, pp. 140–1.

17. A.-D. von den Brincken, Fines Terrae: Die Enden der Erde und der vierte Kontinent auf mittelalterlichen Weltkarten (Hannover, 1992), 162.

18. E. Cerulli, ‘Perspectives on the History of Ethiopia’, in Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Ethiopian, ed. A. Bausi (Farnham, 2012), pp. 15–18.

19. See N. R. Kline, Maps of Medieval Thought (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 105–7; S. C. Akbari, Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100–1450 (Ithaca, 2009), pp. 68–75. For a comprehensive list of animals that were noted as both ‘Ethiopian’ and ‘Indian’ in classical sources, see Schneider, L’Éthiopie et L’Inde, pp. 145–94.

20. For example, this argument is made in Schneider, ‘The So-Called Confusion’.

21. G. Parker, The Making of Roman India (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 141–2.

22. For discussions of this influence, see the chapters in: D. Zuwiyya, eds., A Companion to Alexander Literature in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2011).

23. Schneider, L’Éthiopie et L’Inde, pp. 233–8.

24. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, eds. and trans. Rackham, Jones, and Eichholz, 6.35.183, pp. II:474–5 (text and trans.).

25. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, eds. and trans. Rackham, Jones, and Eichholz, 6.35.191–192, pp. II:480–1 (text and trans.). ‘Nubians’ also survives as an independent ethnonym during the same time in Strabo’s Greek Geography, where, upon referencing the third-century BCE writer Eratosthenes, he wrote of the Νοῡβαι: Strabo, Geography, ed. and trans. H. L. Jones, 8 vols. (Cambridge, MA., 1917–32), 17.1.2–3, pp. VIII:2–9 (text and trans.).

26. C. Rilly, ‘Enemy Brothers. Kinship and Relationship Between Meroites and Nubians (Noba)’, in Between the Cataracts: Proceedings of the 11th Conference for Nubian Studies, Part I: Main Papers, eds. W. Godlewski and A. Łajtar (Warsaw, 2008), pp. 211–25, esp. 217–19.

27. Philostorgius, Kirchengeschichte, ed. J. Bidez (Berlin, 1981), Book III Ch. 6, pp. 35–6 (text); Philostorgius, Church History, trans. P. R. Amidon (Atlanta, 2007), 43 (trans.); R. Schneider, ‘Notes on the Royal Aksumite Inscriptions’, in Languages and Cultures, ed. Bausi, pp. 46–8; G. Hatke, Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa (New York, 2013), 53.

28. Le martyre de saint Aréthas et de ses compagnons, eds. and trans. M. Detoraki and J. Beaucamp (Paris, 2007), Ch. 1, pp. 183–6 (text and trans.).

29. Procopius, History of the Wars, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing, 5 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1914–28), Book I, Chs. 19–20, pp. I:178–95 (text and trans.); Cosmas Indicopleustès, Topographie Chrétienne, ed. and trans. W. Wolska-Conus, 3 vols. (Paris, 1968–73), Book II Chs. 48–65, pp. I:357–81 (text and trans.); Photius, Bibliothèque, ed. and trans. R. Henry, 9 vols. (Paris, 1959–91), pp. I:5–8 (text and trans.).

30. For an overview of some of ‘Ethiopia”s biblical appearances, see J.-M. Courtès, ‘The Theme of “Ethiopia” and “Ethiopians” in Patristic Literature’, in The Image of the Black in Western Art, eds. D. Bindman, H. L. Gates, 10 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 2010), pp. II.I:199–214.

31. Josephus, ed. and trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, R. Marcus, and L. H. Feldman, 9 vols. (Cambridge, MA., 1930–65), Book I Ch. 39, pp. IV:18–21 (text and trans.); Isidori Hispalensis Etymologiarum, ed. Lindsay, II: Book XIII Ch. 21 (text); Etymologies, trans. Barney, Lewis, Beach, and Berghof, 280 (trans.).

32. Fulcheri Cartonensis, Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Hagenmeyer, Book II Ch. 57, pp. 597–8 (text); Fulcher of Chartres, History, trans. Ryan with Fink, pp. 216–17 (trans.).

33. Strabo, Geography, ed. and trans. Jones, 17.1.2, pp. VIII:2–3 (text and trans.).

34. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, eds. and trans. Rackham, Jones, and Eichholz, 2.75.184, pp. I:316–17 (text and trans.). The medieval examples are far too numerous to list here but Meroë appears as a common defining feature of the Nile on many medieval maps and some form of this statement rarely fails to appear in any discussion of the Nile, often appearing as if it was a required fact for any serious writer to repeat, even when Meroë had long lost its significance.

35. See P. H. Schrijvers, ‘A Literary View on the Nile Mosaic at Praeneste’, in Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World: Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, May 11–14 2005, eds. L. Bricault, M. J. Versluys, and P. G. P. Meyboom (Leiden, 2007), pp. 224–9.

36. For an example of such a debate, see the work of Stephen of Pisa and Antioch. His Liber Mamonis (c. 1120s) refuted Macrobius’ (fl. c. 399–422 CE) theory of an equatorial ocean by arguing that the Nile flowed from the habitable southern hemisphere as it explained the flooding of the Nile in the summer during otherwise dry months because of the inverse climatic conditions of the southern hemisphere: D. Grupe, Stephen of Pisa and Antioch: Liber Mamonis: An Introduction to Ptolemaic Cosmology and Astronomy from the Early Crusader States (Cham, 2019), pp. 66–9, 112–17 (text and trans.).

37. The earliest known example of a Nubian ourou only referring to himself as the ourou of Dotawa dates from the reign of ourou David I (c. 1132–c. 1155): G. M. Browne, ‘Griffith’s Old Nubian Sale’, Orientalia, Nova Series, 61.4 (1992), pp. 454–8. On the identification of Dotawo, see G. R. Ruffini, “Newer Light on the Kingdom of Dotawo’, in Qasr Ibrim, Between Egypt and Africa: Studies in Cultural Exchange (Nino Symposium, Leiden, 11–12 December 2009), eds. J. van der Vliet and J. L. Hagen (Leuven, 2013), pp. 179–91. For further examples, see R. H. Pierce, ‘Nubian Toponyms in Medieval Nubian Sources’, Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 4 (2017), pp. 47–8, 44.

38. A. J. Arkell, ‘An Old Nubian Inscription from Kordofan’, American Journal of Archaeology, 55.4 (1951), 354; G. Ochała, ‘A King of Makuria in Kordofan’, in Nubian Voices: Studies in Nubian Christian Civilization, eds. A. Łajtar and J. van der Vliet (Warsaw, 2011), pp. 149–55.

39. For examples, see Pierce, ‘Nubian Toponyms’, 44.

40. For some examples, see Pierce, ‘Nubian Toponyms’, pp. 43, 47.

41. PQI 2 13.i.18, in G. M. Browne, Old Nubian Texts from Qaṣr Ibrīm II (London, 1989), 11.

42. For example: G. R. Ruffini, ‘Psalms 149–150: A Bilingual Greek and Old Nubian Version from Qasr Ibrim’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 168 (2009), pp. 112–22.

43. For instance, Queen Candace is called the ‘Kandake of the Nubians’ (ⲕⲁⲛⲇⲁⲕⲏ ⲧⲣⲣⲱ ⲛⲛⲉϭⲟⲟϣ) in Acts 8:27, whilst the toponym is again used for Psalm 68:31: ⲟⲩⲛ ϩⲉⲛϥⲁⲓϣⲓⲛⲉ ⲛⲏⲩ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϩⲛ ⲕⲏⲙⲉ ⲛⲉϭⲟⲟϣ ⲛⲁⲣϣⲟⲣⲡ ⲛϯ ⲛⲛⲉⲩϭⲓϫ ⲙⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ.

44. Ochała, ‘Multilingualism’, pp. 26–7. For problems on Nubian uses of self-designation, see G. Ochała, ‘When Epigraphy Meets Art History: On St Phoibammon from Abdallah-n Irqi’, in Aegyptus et Nubia Christiana: The Włodzimierz Godlewski Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, eds. A. Łajtar, A. Obłuski, and I. Zych (Warsaw, 2016), pp. 516–17. Very little is known about Nubian self-identification and the limited sources are not always clear. For example, note the use of Lubi (ⲗⲩⲃⲓ) in the fourteenth century Coptic scrolls of Bishop Timotheos found at Qasr Ibrim and the alternative uses of Nubias (ⲛⲩⲃⲓⲁⲥ), Zomites (ⲝⲟⲙⲓⲧⲏⲥ: ʾAksum), and Teopias (ⲑⲉⲟⲡⲓⲁⲥ: Ethiopia) by two of the witnesses: J. M. Plumley, The Scrolls of Bishop Timotheos: Two Documents from Medieval Nubia (London, 1975), pp. 8–16 (text), 18–21 (trans.).

45. FHN III, pp. 1104 (text), 1107 (trans.).

46. FHN III, pp. 1149–50 (text and trans.).

47. Du Yorkshire à l’Inde: Une «Géographie» urbaine et maritime de la fin du XIIe siècle (Roger de Howden?), ed. P. Gautier-Dalché (Geneva, 2005), De Viis Maris, Ch. 11, pp. 216–17. Following the ‘rediscovery’ in Latin Europe of Ptolemy’s second-century Geography in 1406, multiple fifteenth-century writers claimed that Ptolemy’s Agisymba (Ἀγίσυμβα) was a historical reference to Ethiopia, however there is no evidence that this conflation existed in the previous centuries: A. Stückelberger et al., Klaudios Ptolemaios: Handbuch der Geographie, 2 vols. (Basel, 2006), 1.7.2, 1.8.1, 1.8.5, pp. I:70, 74, 76; 7.5.2, II:742 (text); Claudius Ptolemy, The Geography, trans. E. L. Stevenson with intro. by J. Fischer (New York, 1991), pp. 29–30, 159 (trans.). Examples of these fifteenth-century writers are Cardinal Fillastre’s noting of the 1427 Ethiopian embassy in Valencia, the description of Abascia on the Fra Mauro map (c. 1450), a geographical description in Benedetto Cotrugli’s De navigatione (c. 1464–5), and Columbus’ own handwritten annotations of his personal copy of d’Ailly’s Mappa mundi: C. M. de La Roncière, L’Europe au moyen age (Paris, 1969), 116 (Agisimba); P. Falchetta, Fra Mauro’s World Map (Turnhout, 2006), *134, pp. 208–9 (agisimba); P. Falchetta, ‘Il trattato “De navigatione” di Benedetto Cotrugli (1464–65). Edizione commentata del ms. Schoenberg 473. Con il testo del ms. 557 di Yale’, Studi Veneziani, 57 (2009), Book I Ch. 49, pp. 105–6, 222 (Agisimba); Ymago Mundi de Pierre d’Ailly, cardinal de Cambrai et chancelier de l’Universite de Paris, 1350–1420, ed. M. Buron, 3 vols. (Paris, 1930), Ch. 8, pp. I:206–9 (agesinba). Maps which accompanied early manuscript translations of Ptolemy (the first printed edition only appeared in 1477), however, did not adopt this approach, and depicted Agisimba in Central Africa, unrelated to north-east Africa; for example: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Lat. 4802, f.100v; Valencia, Universitat de València. Biblioteca Històrica MS 693, f.83v. Early printed editions did not conflate the two either; for example, Claudius Ptolemaeus, Cosmographia [Bologna, 1477], ed. R. A. Skelton (Amsterdam, 1963); Claudius Ptolemaeus, Cosmographia [Rome, 1478], ed. R. A. Skelton (Amsterdam, 1966); Claudius Ptolemaeus, Cosmographia [Ulm, 1482], ed. R. A. Skelton (Amsterdam, 1966); Francesco Berlinghieri, Geographia [Florence, 1482] (Amsterdam, 1966).

48. Compare: R. Voigt, ‘Abyssinia’, in EA: pp. I:59–65 and ‘Aithiopia’, in EA: pp. I:162–5; F. Breyer, ‘Äthiopisches in altägyptischen Quellen? Eine kritische Evaluation’, in Multidisciplinary Views on the Horn of Africa: Festschrift in Honour of Rainer Voigt’s 70^th Birthday, ed. H. Elliesie (Cologne, 2014), pp. 15–19; W. G. C. Smidt, ‘The Term Ḥabäša: An Ancient Ethnonym of the “Abyssinian” Highlanders and Its Interpretations and Connotations’, in Multidisciplinary Views on the Horn of Africa, ed. Elliesie, pp. 37–69.

49. Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, eds. and trans. Banks and Binns, pp. Preface, 14–5; Book II Ch. 3, 180–1 (text and trans.).

50. For example, see Strabo, Geography, ed. and trans. Jones, 2.5.33, pp. I:500–1 (text and trans.), Stephani Byzantii Ethnica, ed. M. Billerbeck, 5 vols. (Berlin, 2006–17), Α533, I:302–3 (text and trans.).

51. Paulus Orosius, Historiae Adversus Paganos Libri VII, ed. K. Zangemeister (Stuttgart, 1889), Book I, I (text); Paulus Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, trans. A. T. Fear (Liverpool, 2010), 37 (trans.).

52. D. Selden, ‘How the Ethiopian Changed His Skin’, Classical Antiquity, 32.2 (2013), pp. 340–1; Hatke, Aksum and Nubia, pp. 52–3.

53. On proposed reasoning for the Sabaic inscriptions, see A. Sima, ‘Die “sabäische” Version von König ʿĒzānās Trilingue RIE 185 und RIE 185bis’, Archiv für Orientforschung, 50 (2003/2004), pp. 269–84. George Hatke has argued that Aithiopia does indeed correspond to the Gəʿəz text, but this would ignore the significance of the order of the toponyms: Hatke, Aksum and Nubia, pp. 52–3. On the peoples in the inscriptions, see C. Hoffman, ‘Ethnizität und Ethnogenesen am Horn von Afrika nach den Inschriften von König ʿEzānā’, in Multidisciplinary Views on the Horn of Africa, ed. Elliesie, pp. 217–51. On ʿEzana’s diplomatic methods, see Z. Rubin, ‘Greek and Ge’ez in the Propaganda of King ‘Ezana of Axum: Religion and Diplomacy in Late Antiquity’, Semitica et Classica, 5 (2012), pp. 139–50. All of the cited RIE inscriptions can be found in the first volume of the following, with translations of the Greek inscriptions to be found in volume three A (2000) and of the Gəʿəz and Sabaic inscriptions in volume three B (2019): E. Bernand, A. J. Drewes, R. Schneider, M. Kropp, and H. Stroomer, eds., Recueil des inscriptions de l’Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, 3 vols. in 4 parts (Paris and Wiesbaden, 1991–2019).

54. RIE no.277.

55. RIE no.271.

56. W. Hahn, ‘Das Kreuz mit dem Abessinierland – Epigraphische Anmerkungen zu einer axumitischen Münzlegende’, Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts für Numismatik, 18 (1999), pp. 5–8; W. Hahn, ‘The “Anonymous” Coinage of Aksum – Typological Concept and Religious Significance’, Oriental Numismatic Society Newsletter, 184, (2005), pp. 6–8.

57. For example, see RIE nos.189; 191; 192. This is especially apparent on coins.

58. Hatke, Aksum and Nubia, pp. 153–4n649. It appears amongst Kalēb’s vassals in RIE no.191.

59. M. A. Knibb, Translating the Bible: The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1999), pp. 14–19.

60. On the question of the influences on the early Ethiopian Bible, see Knibb, Translating the Bible.

61. For an overview of Ethiopian translation, see A. Bausi, ‘Translations in Late Antique Ethiopia’, in Egitto crocevia di traduzioni, ed. F. Crevatin (Trieste, 2018), pp. 69–99.

62. Knibb, Translating the Bible, pp. 46–54; M. A. Knibb, ‘The Ethiopic Translation of the Psalms’, in Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen: Symposium in Göttingen 1997, eds. A. Aejmelaeus and U. Quast (Göttingen, 2000), pp. 107–22.

63. Vie de Lalibela: Roi d’Éthiopie, ed. and trans. J. Perruchon (Paris, 1892), xxx.

64. M.-L. Derat, ‘Les donations du roi Lālibalā: Éléments pour une géographie du royaume chrétien d’Éthiopie au tournant du XII^e et du XIII^e siècle’, Annales d’Éthiopie, 25 (2010), pp. 19–42, esp. 36–7; Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte, pp. 87–145.

65. Shiferaw Bekele, ‘The Genesis of Ethiopian Nationalism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Ethiopia in Light of Recent Historical and Philological Research’, in Written Sources about Africa and Their Study: Le fonti scritte sull’Africa e i loro studi, eds. M. Lafkioui and V. Brugnatelli (Milan, 2018), pp. 3–18. On the homily, see M. Villa, ‘Frumentius in the Ethiopic Sources: Some Text Critical Considerations’, RSE, 3^a Serie, 1 (2017), pp. 87–112.

66. For Ṭanṭawǝdǝm’s use of Solomon, see Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte, pp. 35–40.

67. On Salama IV, see S. Munro-Hay, Ethiopia and Alexandria II: The Metropolitan Episcopacy of Ethiopia from the Fourteenth Century to the Zemana Mesafint (Warsaw, 2005), pp. 17–19. For the context of the wider Ethiopian translation movement, see Z. Wellnhofer, ‘Die arabisch-altäthiopische Übersetzungsliteratur im historischen Kontext des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts’, in Multidisciplinary Views on the Horn of Africa, ed. Elliesie, pp. 467–95; A. Bausi, ‘Ethiopic Literary Production Related to the Christian Egyptian Culture’, in Coptic Society, Literature and Religion from Late Antiquity to Modern Times: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Rome, September 17th–22nd, 2012, and Plenary Reports of the Ninth International Congress of Coptic Studies, Cairo, September 15th–19th, 2008, eds. P. Buzi, A. Camplani, and F. Contari, 2 vols. (Leuven, 2016), pp. I:503–71; A. Bausi, ‘Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene: Cultural Transmission, Translation, and Reception’, in A Companion, ed. Kelly, pp. 217–51.

68. C. Bezold, Kebra Nagast: Die Herrlichkeit der Könige (Munich, 1905), pp. 172–3 (text), 138 (trans.); La Gloire des Rois, ou l’Histoire de Salomon et de la reine de Saba, trans. R. Beylot (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 383–4 (trans.). Given the importance of the text, it would be important to note that there is an English translation, though it should be used with caution: The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek, trans. E. A. W. Budge (London, 1922).

69. On the text’s role for dynastic legitimisation, see R. Beylot, ‘Du Kebra Nagast’, Aethiopica, 7 (2004), pp. 74–83; P. Piovanelli, ‘The Apocryphal Legitimation of a “Solomonic” Dynasty in the Kebrä nägäst – A Reappraisal’, Aethiopica, 16 (2013), pp. 7–44; P. Piovanelli, ‘“Orthodox” Faith and Political Legitimization of a “Solomonic” Dynasty of Rulers in the Ethiopic Kebra Nagast’, in The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective: Essays Presented in Honor of Professor Robert W. Thomson on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, eds. K. B. Bardakjian and S. La Porta (Leiden, 2014), pp. 688–705.

70. On the literary sources of the text, see M. Richelle, ‘Les sources littéraires du Kebra Nagast’, Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 64.1–2 (2012), pp. 41–52.

71. See primarily: I. Shahīd, ‘The Kebra Nagaśt in the Light of Recent Research’, in Languages and Cultures, ed. Bausi, pp. 253–98; D. W. Johnson, ‘Dating the Kebra Nagaśt. Another Look’, in Languages and Cultures, ed. Bausi, pp. 299-311; S. Munro-Hay, ‘A Sixth Century Kebra Nagast?’, in Languages and Cultures, ed. Bausi, pp. 313–28. On the role of the Kəbrä nägäśt as a response to events in late antiquity more broadly, see, for example: G. W. Bowersock, ‘Helena’s Bridle and the Chariot of Ethiopia’, in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, eds. G. Gardner and K. L. Osterloh (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 383–93; M. Debié, ‘Le Kebra Nagast éthiopien: une réponse apocryphe aux événements de Najran?’, in Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux Ve et VIe siècles: regards croisés sur les sources, eds. J. Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet, and C. J. Robin (Paris, 2010), pp. 255–78; G. Bevan, ‘Ethiopian Apocalyptic and the End of Roman Rule: The Reception of Chalcedon in Aksum and the Kebra Nagaśt’, in Inside and Out: Interactions Between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity, eds. J. H. F. Dijkstra and G. Fisher (Leuven, 2014), pp. 371–88.

72. M. J. de Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, Pars Sexta: Kitāb al-Masālik waʾl-Mamālik (Liber viarum et regnorum) auctore Abuʾl-Kāsim Obaidallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordādhbeh et excerpta e Kitāb al-Kharādj auctore Kodāma ibn Djaʿfar quae cum versione Gallica edidit, indicibus et glossario instruxit (Leiden, 1889), 155 (text); Ibn Khordadbeh, Le Livre des routes et des provinces, trans. C. Barbier de Meynard (Paris, 1865), 265 (trans.).

73. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Copte 1, f.4a.

74. For example, see W. E. Crum, ‘La Nubie dans la textes coptes’, Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l’Archéologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne, 21 (1899), pp. 26–7.

75. Johnson, ‘Dating the Kebra Nagaśt’, 308.

76. For example, Berlin P.9287 (tenth century): Aegyptische Urkunden aus den koeniglichen Museen zu Berlin: Erster Band (Berlin, 1904), 59.

77. al-Battānī, Opus Astronomicum: ad fidem codicis Escurialensis Arabice editum, ed. C. A. Nallino, 3 vols. (Milan, 1899–1907), III:239; A. Vasiliev, ‘Kitab al-‘Unvan: Histoire universelle écrite par Agapius (Mahoub) de Menbidj [premier partie]’, Patrologia Orientalis, 5 (1910), 607 [51] (text and trans.).

78. The Book of the Himyarites: Fragments of a Hitherto Unknown Syriac Work, ed. and trans. A. Moberg (Lund, 1924), used throughout; Incerti auctoris Chronicon Pseudo-Dionysianum vulgo dictum, ed. J.-B. Chabot, 2 vols. (Leuven, 1927–33), pp. II:54–7; I. Shahīd, The Martyrs of Najran: New Documents (Brussels, 1971), pp. xxx–xxxi. For an example for Ḥabaša (ܚܒܫܝܐ), see Das Buch von der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit, ed. K. Kayser (Leipzig, 1889), 258 (text); OSCN, 248 (trans.). For Hind āyē (ܗܢܕܘܝܐ): Chronique de Michel le Syrien: Patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166–1199), ed. J.-B. Chabot, 4 vols. (Paris, 1899–1910), Book XVI Ch. 2, IV:608 (text); The Syriac Chronicle of Michael Rabo (The Great): A Universal History from the Creation, trans. M. Moosa (Teaneck, 2014), 645 (trans.).

79. F. Nau, ‘Révélationes et legends: Méthodius–Clément–Andronicus’, Journal Asiatique, 9 (1917), pp. 432 (text), 443 (trans.).

80. Michael Rabo, Teaṙn Mixayēli patriark‘i asorwoc‘ Žamanakagrut‘iwn, ed. T. Sawalaneants (Jerusalem, 1870), 248 (text); Chronique de Michel le Syrien, ed. Chabot, Book IX Ch. 19, IV:273 (text); The Syriac Chronicle of Michael, trans. Moosa, 318 (trans.).

81. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and trans. M. N. Adler (London, 1907), pp. צז-צו (text), 68–9 (trans.).

82. A. Bausi, ‘La leggenda della Regina di Saba nella tradizione etiopica’, in La Regina di Saba: Un mito fra oriente e occidente, eds. F. Battiato, D. Hartman, and G. Stabile (Napoli, 2016), pp. 91–162. For an overview of this text, see W. L. Belcher, ‘African Rewritings of the Jewish and Islamic Solomonic Tradition: The Triumph of the Queen of Sheba in the Ethiopian Fourteenth-Century Text Kəbrä Nägäst’, in Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literary Works, ed. R. Sabbath (Leiden, 2009), 441–59.

83. Josephus wrote that it was named after Cambyses’ sister, whereas Strabo notes that some say that it was either named after his sister or his wife. Diodorus Siculus, however, says that it was named after Cambyses’ mother: Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Book 2, Ch. 249, in Josephus, ed. and trans. Thackeray, Marcus, and Feldman, pp. IV:272–3 (text and trans.); Strabo, Geography, ed. and trans. Jones, 17.1.5, pp. VIII:18–19 (text and trans.); Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, eds. and trans. various authors, 12 vols. (Cambridge, MA., 1933–67), 1.33, pp. I:108–9 (text and trans.). Other traditions, such as the account of Artapanus which was referenced by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica (fl. c. early fourth century), recalled that the city of Meroë was named after the daughter of the Pharaoh, Merris, after her burial by Moses at the site of the city; however, Artapanus’ work explicitly attempted to ascribe Judaism to the origin of the ancient Egyptian religion, so this explanation would appear most unlikely: K. Mras, Eusebius: Werke VIII: Die Praeparatio evangelica, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1982–3), 9.27.16, I:521 (text); Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicae Praeparationis, vol. 3, trans. E. H. Gifford (Oxford, 1903), I:464 (trans.).

84. Compare, for example, S. L. McKenzie, The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History (Leiden, 1991) and B. Halpern and D. S. Vanderhooft, ‘The Editions of Kings in the 7th–6th Centuries B.C.E.’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 62 (1991), pp. 179–244.

85. Herodotus, Histories, ed. and trans. Godley, 2.29–30, pp. I:306–11 (text and trans.).

86. Stephani Byzantii Ethnica, ed. Billerbeck, Ν76, pp. III:394–5 (text and trans.); Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and trans. Adler, pp. צו (text), 68 (trans.). Indeed, the Jewish traveller David Reubeni still spoke of post-Christian early-sixteenth-century Nubia in terms of being the land of Kūš (כוש) and, most interestingly, the land of Šeba (שבא) during his visit to the Funj sultanate, a successor state in the more southerly lands of Christian kingdom, in 1523: A. Neubauer, ed., Medieval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887–95), II:133 (text); OSCN, pp. 746–7 (trans.).

87. For example, see Flint, ‘Honorius Augustodunensis’, Book I Ch. 32, 64.

88. B. Grossfeld, ed., The Targum Sheni to the Book of Esther (New York, 1994), pp. 31–3 (text); B. Grossfeld, trans., The Two Targums of Esther: Translated, with Apparatus and Notes (Collegeville, 1991), pp. 115–17 (trans.).

89. Further, see J. Humphris, R. Bussert, F. Alshishani, and T. Scheibner, ‘The Ancient Iron Mines of Meroe’, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 53.3 (2018), pp. 291–311; R. Klemm and D. Klemm, Gold and Gold Mining in Ancient Egypt and Nubia: Geoarchaeology of the Ancient Gold Mining Sites in the Egyptian and Sudanese Eastern Deserts, trans. P. Larsen (Heidelberg, 2013).

90. For discussion of the earliest sources associating the Queen of Sheba with Ethiopia, see M.-L. Derat, ‘The Zāgwē Dynasty (11–13th Centuries) and King Yemreḥanna Krestos’, Annales d’Ethiopie, 25.1 (2010), pp. 168–9; Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte, pp. 66–8, 157–60.

91. For example, he calls the King (malik) of Makuria an Ethiopian (al-Ḥabaša): The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries Attributed to Abū Ṣāliḥ the Armenian, ed. and trans. B. T. A. Evetts (Oxford, 1895), pp. 119–27, 135–42 (text), 260–74, 284–91 (trans.). This was not overly uncommon either. For instance, similar misattributions of al-Ḥabaša to Nubian locations can be witnessed in a fourteenth-century Copto-Arabic manuscript held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Copte 43, which specifically equates the Coptic toponym of Nobatia (ⲛⲟⲃⲁⲧⲓⲁ) with al-Ḥabaša al-Nūbah (الحبشة النوبه): E. Amélineau, La géographie de l’Egypte à l’époque copte (Paris, 1893), 555.

92. On attested kandakes, see J. Phillips, ‘Women in Ancient Nubia’, in Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World, eds. S. L. Budin and J. M. Turfa (Abingdon, 2016), pp. 291–2; S. Ashby, ‘Priestess, Queen, Goddess: The Divine Feminine in the Kingdom of Kush’, in The Routledge Companion to Black Women’s Cultural Histories, ed. J. Hobson (London, 2021), pp. 28–31. The name Hǝndakē appears only once in the Kəbrä nägäśt when Bäynä Ləḥkəm is explaining that he comes from the land of Hǝndakē and Ethiopia as he sought King Solomon: Bezold, Kebra Nagast, pp. 30 (text), 24 (trans.); La Gloire des Rois, trans. Beylot, 181.

93. Francisco Álvarez, Verdadeira informação das terra do Preste João das ĺndias, ed. L. de Albuquerque (Lisbon, 1989), Ch. 37, 38 (text); Francisco Álvarez, The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John, Being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520, trans. C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1961), I:149 (trans.).

94. Bezold, Kebra Nagast, pp. 36 (text), 29–30 (trans.); La Gloire de Rois, trans. Beylot, 191 (trans.); Wallis Budge, Queen of Sheba, pp. lxiv–lxv.

95. Piovanelli, ‘“Orthodox” Faith and Political Legitimization’, 689n5.

96. Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographie chrétienne, ed. and trans. Wolska-Conus, Book II Ch. 50, pp. I:358–9 (text and trans.). In relation to Muslim works, Ibn Hišām’s eighth-century recension of Ibn Isḥāq’s now lost Sīra was amongst early works to preserve a passage that locates the Queen in Ḥimyar – for example, F. Wüstenfeld, Das Leben Muhammeds, 3 vols. (Göttingen, 1858–60), pp. I:12–18 (text); The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Isḥāq’s Sīrat rasūl allāh, trans. A. Guillaume (Oxford, 1955), pp. 6–12 (trans.).

97. For example, ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon is recorded as the ‘nǝguś of Ethiopia’ (nǝguś ʾItyoṗya: ንጉሠ፡ኢትዮጵያ) in his donation of a copy of the Book of Kings to the library of the Ethiopian community in Jerusalem: S. Grébaut and E. Tisserant, Codices Aethiopici, Vaticani et Borgiani, Barberinianus Orientalis 2, Rossianus 865 (Vatican City, 1935), pp.786–7.

98. London, British Library, Or691, 241v.

99. Marco Polo, The Description of the World, eds. and trans. A.-C. Moule and P. Pelliot, 2 vols. (London, 1938), Ch. 193, pp. I:434–40.

100. For example, see W. Witakowski, ‘Ethiopic Universal Chronography’, in Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronik, ed. M. Wallraff (Berlin, 2006), pp. 285–302.

101. Liber Axumae, ed. and trans. C. Conti Rossini, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1909–10), Ch. I, pp. I:3, 6 (text); II:3, 6 (trans.). Equally, by 1540, the Ethiopian Ṣägga Zäʾab, the source for Damião de Góis, declared that his emperor should not be referred to as the emperor of Abesynorum, but of Aethiopum: Damião de Góis, Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum sub Imperio Preciosi Ioannis (Leuven, 1540), 71.

102. G. Wiet, ‘Les relations Égypto-Abyssines sous les sultans Mamlouks’, Bulletin de la Société d’Archéologie Copte, 4 (1938), pp. 122–5; J. Loiseau, ‘The Ḥaṭī and the Sultan: Letters and Embassies from Abyssinia to the Mamluk Court’, in Mamluk Cairo, A Crossroads for Embassies: Studies on Diplomacy and Diplomatics, eds. F. Bauden and M. Dekkiche (Leiden, 2019), pp. 640–1; J. Loiseau, ‘Chrétiens d’Égypte, musulmans d’Éthiopie. Protection des communautés et relations diplomatiques entre le sultanat mamelouk et le royaume salomonien (ca. 1270–1516)’, Médiévales, 79 (2020), pp. 37–68.

103. Ourou Kyriakus famously sent an army to Egypt in the mid-eighth century in retaliation to news of the persecution of Christians: R. Seignobos, ‘Stratigraphie d’un récit. L’intervention égyptienne du roi Ciraque de Nubie dans l’historiographie copte-arabe et éthiopienne (X^e–XVIII^e siècle)’, Hypothèses, 13 (2010), pp. 49–59. For the suggestion for Moüses Georgios as protector of Eastern Christians under the jurisdiction of the Coptic patriarchate, see A. Łajtar and G. Ochała, ‘A Christian King in Africa: The Image of Christian Nubian Rulers in Internal and External Sources’, in The Good Christian Ruler in the First Millennium: Views from the Wider Mediterranean World in Conversation, eds. P. M. Forness, A. Hasse-Ungeheuer, and H. Leppin (Berlin, 2021), pp. 366–7.

104. There has been no study on the proliferation of the toponym ‘Ethiopia’ in reference to the kingdom. However, as a brief indication, Ethiopia was still referred to as al-Ḥabaša and Ḥabaš in Arabic and Ottoman sources in the nineteenth century.

105. These are letters sent from Queen Regent ʾƎleni and aṣé Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl: Sergew Hable Sellassie, ‘The Ge’ez Letters of Queen Eleni and Libne Dingil to John, King of Portugal’, in IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici (Roma, 10–15 Aprile 1972), ed. E. Cerulli, 2 vols. (Rome, 1974), pp. I:547–66.

106. Barcelona, Archivo di Corona di Aragon, Reg. 2680, f. 165.

107. O. Raineri, ed., Lettere tra i Pontefici Romani e i Principi Etiopici (Secoli XII–XX) (Vatican City, 2005), pp. 24–31 (text and trans.).

108. Loiseau, ‘The Ḥaṭī and the Sultan’, 642; for references which note Arabic works which describe the content of some of these letters, see the references therein: pp. 643–5.

109. Хождение Архимандрита Агрефенья обители Пресвятой Богородицы около 1370 года, ed. L. Kavelin (St. Petersburg, 1896), 6 (text); S. de Khitrowo, Itinéraires russes en Orient (Geneva, 1889), 173 (trans.).

110. ‘Vita et miracula Eustathii’, in Monumenta Aethiopiae Hagiologica, ed. B. Turaiev, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1902–5), pp. III:f.34–5 (text); Saints fondateurs du christianisme éthiopien: Frumentius, Garimā, Takla Hāymānot, Ēwosṭātēwos, trans. G. Colin with C. J. Robin and M.-L. Derat (Paris, 2017), pp. 132–4 (trans.). For additional context of the king’s name and possible alternative explanations, see O. Adankpo-Labadie, ‘An Ethiopian Fugitive Allied with a Nubian King? Ēwosṭātēwos and Sābʾa Nol at Nobā through Hagiographical Narrative’, Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 6 (2019), pp. 15–17.

111. Adankpo-Labadie, ‘An Ethiopian Fugitive’, 11.

112. Adankpo-Labadie, ‘An Ethiopian Fugitive’.

113. A. Łajtar and G. Ochała, ‘An Unexpected Guest in the Church of Sonqi Tino (Notes on Medieval Nubian Toponymy 4)’, Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 4 (2017), pp. 257–68.

114. Raineri, ed., Lettere, pp. 32–5 (text and trans.); Francisco Álvarez, Verdadeira, ed. de Albuquerque, Ch. 37, 38 (text); Francisco Álvarez, Prester John, trans. Beckingham and Huntingford, I:149 (trans.). According to the fourteenth-century Cronica Universalis of Galvaneus de la Flamma (d. c. 1345), a section entitled Ystoria Ethyopie states that Ethiopians explicitly worshipped the eunuch of Queen Candace because he was their first bishop following his baptism by Philip. For reasons detailed in Chapter 6, this text should be viewed as originally focusing on Nubia, but it cannot be surely rejected that similar such information was provided by later Ethiopians who appear to have given the text a new direction following interest in the expansions of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon (r. 1314–44) similar to the narrative given to Francisco Álvarez: A. Bausi and P. Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie in the Cronica Universalis of Galvaneus de la Flamma (d. c. 1345)’, Aethiopica, 22 (2019), pp. 26–7 (text and trans.).