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Early History
Cushitic language speakers are believed
to have been the original inhabitants of Ethiopia. They
were driven out of the region by the Cushites in the 2d
millennium BC The Cushites founded a new civilization
which probably traded with the Egyptians, according to
ancient Egyptian texts. The Egyptian name for Ethiopians
was Habashat, which is the probable origin of the name
Abyssinia.
According to tradition, the Ethiopian kingdom was
founded (10th cent. BC) by Solomon's first son, Menelik I,
whom the queen of Sheba is supposed to have borne.
However, the first kingdom for which there is documentary
evidence is that of Aksum (Axum), a kingdom which probably
emerged in the 2d cent. AD, thus making Ethiopia the
oldest independent country in Africa and one of the most
ancient in the world. Immigrants (mainly traders) from S
Arabia who had been settling in N Ethiopia since about 500
BC influenced the economy and culture of Ethiopia. Aksum
controlled much of the Red Sea coast and had links with
the Mediterranean world.
Under King Ezana, Aksum was converted (4th cent.) to
Christianity by Frumentius of Tyre. Closely tied to the
Egyptian Coptic Church, the established Ethiopian church
accepted Monophysitism following the Council of Chalcedon
(451). In the 6th cent., Jewish influence penetrated Aksum,
and some Ethiopians were converted to Judaism.
With the rise of Islam in the 7th cent. Aksum
declined, mainly because its land contacts with the
Byzantine Empire were severed and its control of the Red
Sea trade routes was ended. Thereafter, the focus of Aksum
was directed inward toward the center of the Ethiopian
Plateau (mainly the regions of Amhara and Shoa), and it
was largely cut off from the outside world. Aksum soon
lost its cohesion, and Ethiopia lapsed into a period of
competition among small political units.
In 1530-31, Ahmad Gran, a Muslim Somali leader,
conquered much of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian emperor Lebna
Dengel (reigned 1508-40) appealed to Portugal for help
against the Somalis (a Portuguese embassy had reached the
Ethiopian court in 1520). The Somali war exhausted
Ethiopia, ending a period of cultural revival and exposing
the empire to incursions by the Oromo. For the next two
centuries the Ethiopian kingdom, centered at Gondar near
Lake Tana, was beset by ruinous civil wars among princes
(especially those of Tigray and Amhara), was menaced by
the Oromo, and was again isolated from the outside world.
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