| 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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