Axum (Aksum)

‘From  the  Glories of Ancient Aksum  to the Mysteries of  Ancient Egypt: A Tale of Two  Memorable  Scholarly  Events’ By: Gloria Emeagwali:- On October 24, 2009 the curtains went down on one of the most memorable events of the year, for those who took the time to view the exhibition, ‘Lucy’s Legacy, the Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia,’ hosted by Discovery Times Square Exposition. The exhibit provided an evolutionary narrative of our ancestral family...

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Egypt History, Part 2

Religion and everyday life As mentioned before, the religion of Neolithic (late stone age) and pre-dynastic Egypt appears to have been animistic/nature worship, where each village or town had its own spirit deity in the form of an animal, bird, reptile, tree, plant or object. This spirit was always in something that played a prominent part in the life of the people. The spirits fell into two general categories, those which were friendly and helpful, such as cattle, or those that were menacing...

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Egypt History, Part 1

Naqada III In the next period, known as Naqada III, Egypt has by now, been split-up into many administrative/territorial divisions, known as Nomes. Each nome has it's own sacred animal or plant that became the totem, or emblem of that nome. This emblem was usually depicted on the pottery of each nome. It is also at this time that we see Egypt referred to as - Upper and Lower Egypt - with twenty nomes in Lower Egypt and twenty-two in Upper Egypt. Each nome had its own ruler, but perhaps...

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Prehistoric Egypt

Before beginning our history of Egypt, let us first dispel some popular White Lies and subterfuge. Concerning Literature Egyptians, Sumerians, Mohenjo-daroans, Harappans, and Cretans, Elamites, and Nubians, were literate 3,000 years, 4,000 years, who knows how many thousands of years, before the world ever heard of Greeks or Romans. And there is ample evidence of their literacy. Yet there is not one single entry: describing any of the people of their times, whether it...

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Malcolm X on Revolution

By: El Hajj Malik Shabazz 1963:- The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. ... Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, singing "We Shall Overcome"?...

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Malcolm X and OAAU

Pan-African development El Hajj Malik Shabazz:- The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organise a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people...

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SCRIPTS OF AFRICA

Native Writing Systems of Africa By 'Alik Shahadah + Other:- Ancient Africa had a predominately, but not exclusively, oral tradition. But Ethiopia for over a 1000 of years has used, and still uses a Ge'ez based native script. And apart from Ajami (Arabic script for African languages), West Africa had Vai and Nsibidi. Not to mention the obvious Nile-Valley (Ancient Egyptian and Nubian) scripts at the beginning of civilization. SCRIPTS ARE CULTURE A script is not only a technology...

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Prelude to Ethiopian Revolution

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that post-World War II Ethiopia witnessed significant achievements in economic and other fields. This did not, however, prevent the growth, in the 1960s and early 1970s, of steadily increasing political discontent. Now read on: The 1960 Coup d’Etat Complaints at the slow pace of Ethiopian economic development, which was seen as comparing unfavourably with that of other African countries, and criticism of the Emperor’s autocratic rule,...

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Ethiopian Developments of the 1950s and 1960s

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Ethiopian foreign policy developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Now read on: Political and Legal Reform, and Economic Developments The 1950s and 1960s witnessed notable developments in the Ethiopian political, legal, and economic fields. Realisation of the inadequacy of the then existing Ethiopian Constitution, and comparison with the more progressive UN Eritrean Constitution of 1952, led to the formulation in 1955 of a Revised Ethiopian...

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Emperor Haile Sellassie’s Post-War Foreign Policy

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Ethiopia, in the 1950s, edged ever closer to the United States. Now read on: The Future of Eritrea Emperor Haile Sellassie’s foreign policy, during the post-war years, was largely preoccupied with the future of the Italian colonies. This was a seemingly intractable question, which led to lengthy international discussions. The Ethiopian Government, for historical reasons, was particularly interested in the disposal of Eritrea. The...

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Ethio-American Post-War Relations

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Ethiopia’s Post-World War II Relations with Britain were far from satisfactory, and the Emperor, in the mid 1940s. reduced his contacts with that country. Now read on: Post-War Reconstruction The 1940s and early 1950s constituted an important period of post-war reconstruction. Decrees designed for the most part to bring the entire country under centralised, and standardised, administration, were issued as early as 10 March 1942....

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Ethiopia's Post World War II Relations with the British

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Ethiopia’s liberation from Italian fascist rule, by British forces, resulted in no small Ethio-British tension. Now read on: Haile Sellassie Unwilling to Accept British Hegemony Haile Sellassie, 1n 1941, was unwilling to acquiesce in British hegemony, or to accept the British political agenda. He succeeded in despatching a telegram to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in London, inquiring why a treaty between Ethiopia and Britain...

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1941: The Italian Departure, and the Arrival of the British

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Mussolini’s entry into the European war, on 10 June 1941, led directly to Ethiopia’s Liberation, and to the country’s occupation by British troops. Now read on: The Italian Legacy The collapse of fascist rule, the termination of Italian investment, upon which the Italian East African empire had hitherto been based, the demobilisation of colonial soldiers, many still in possession of their weapons, the disruption of the economy,...

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The Ethiopian Liberation Campaign, 1941 Mussolini’s Entry into the European War

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- At the outbreak of the European war, on 3 September 1939, Mussolini refrained from involving himself in the war. He nevertheless declared that fascist Italy, a close ally of nazi Germany, was in a state of “pre-belligerency”. By that he implied that he was committed to eventually participating in the struggle. By postponing his entry into the conflict he obviated having to fight with Italy’s neighbour, France, and avoided any immediate Allied attack...

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The Ethiopian Patriot Resistance, 1939-1941

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Mussolini’s Italy established its occupation in 1936. Now read on: Lej Hayla Maryam Despite Ethiopia’s military collapse in 1935-6, patriotic resistance continued throughout the occupation. Many patriotic Ethiopians were from the outset determined to continue the struggle. The first to do so was Lej Hayla Maryam Mammo, of Dabra Berhan, 130 kilometres north of Addis Ababa, who on 4 May 1936 attacked a group of invading forces on the...

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The Italian Occupation Years

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Mussolini’s invasion led to the establishment of an Italian fascist empire. Now read on: A.O.I. The Italian occupation led to important political and other changes. Italian-occupied Ethiopia was officially merged with Eritrea and Somalia, into an entirely new territory designated Africa Orientale Italiana (A.O.I.), i.e. Italian East Africa. This for the first time brought the greater part of the Horn of Africa under a single administration....

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May Chaw and Badoglio’s Occupation of Addis Ababa

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how the the Italian Fascist army began to advance on Addis Ababa in the early Spring of 1936. Now read on: Badoglio and Graziani’s Manifestly Incorrect Picture of the War In considering official Italian accounts of the war it should be noted that the fascist use of gas is fully substantiated, and was known indeed at the time throughout the world. Any mention of gas was, however, strictly excluded from the Italian press, which was highly...

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Anglo-French Diplomacy, and the Initial Italo-Ethiopian Campaign of 1935-6

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how the League of Nations, faced by Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, branded fascist Italy as the aggressor, but imposed only ineffective sanctions. Now read on: The Hoare-Laval Proposals The British and French foreign ministries, which also had no desire to see the imposition of an oil sanction, strove meanwhile to devise a compromise peace which would render it unnecessary to impose one. Proposals were duly formulated, after...

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League of Nations Sanctions on Italy

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Mussolini used the Wal Wal incident of December 1934 to launch his unprovoked invasion of Ethiopia, on 3 October 1935. Now read on: League of Nations Sanctions Confronted with the long-anticipated act of invasion the League of Nations met, on 5 October, and, six days later, ruled that the Italian Government was guilty of having resorted to war in disregard of the League Covenant. This decision was reached by fifty votes to one (Italy),...

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Mussolini and Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Mussolini and his fascist aide De Bono planned to invade Ethiopia, and how the French Government, preoccupied with the rise of nazi Germany, withdrew its earlier opposition to Italian expansion at Ethiopia’s expence. Now read on: Fascist War Preparations Fascist Italy, aware that there would no longer be any significant French opposition to an invasion, then embarked on massive war preparations, both in Italy and its East African...

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The Italo-Ethiopian Scenario, 1935

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Ethiopia, the victor of the battle of Adwa in 1896, was by the early twentieth century the only state in Africa to have survived the European Scramble for the continent. The country was, however, dangerously situated between two Italian coastal colonies, Eritrea and Somalia. These territories could scarcely be developed in isolation from the Ethiopian hinterland, or expanded other than at Ethiopia’s expense. Adwa had been a turning point in the history...

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The Emperor’s Coronation, and Pre-War Reforms

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that the period after World War I had witnessed a number of reforms, as well as difficult relations with both Britain and France. Now read on: Reforms of the 1920s Contacts between Ethiopia and the outside world were nevertheless strengthened by the establishment of an Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by the setting up of Ethiopian Legations in Paris, Rome and London. Talks with the Coptic Church of Egypt were also initiated,...

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Empress Zawditu, and the Tafari Makonnen Regency

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that after the fall of Lej Iyasu, in 1916, the Ethiopian nobility arranged for Menilek’s daughter Zawditu to ascend the imperial throne, while Dajazmach Tafari Makonnen, son of Menilek’s cousin, Ras Makonnen, was nominated Heir to the Throne. Now read on: Zawditu, and Tafari The political settlement of 1916, which divided power between the Empress Zawditu, and the Regent and Heir to the Throne, Tafari, inaugurated a difficult, and unprecedented,...

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Menilek’s Failing Health, European Attempts to Partition Ethiopia, and the Rise of Lej Iyasu

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Having, in the last two weeks examined the beginnings of modernisation in the last part of Menilek’s reign, we turn now to the political crises of the time: Succession Problems The last years of Menilek’s reign, like those of several earlier Ethiopian rulers, were bedevilled by the problem of succession. This became particularly serious after 1904, when the Emperor’s health began visually to deteriorate. The question of the royal inheritance was the...

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The Eucalyptus Tree, and Ethiopia’s First Modern Schools and Hospitals.

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Menilek, mainly after his victory at the battle of Adwa in 1896, began Ethiopia’s modernisation. Now read on: Another important development of this period was the introduction, by whom is uncertain, of the Australian eucalyptus tree. Some of the first plants were reportedly planted by Menilek’s French adviser, Casimir Mondon-Vidailhet, in 1894 or 1895. The tree grew so fast that it was soon extensively cultivated in Addis Ababa....

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The Beginnings of Ethiopia’s Modernisation

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst The last decades of Menilek’s (1889-1913) reign marked the beginning of Ethiopia’s modernisation, which had been delayed, among other reasons by almost a century of internal or external warfare. An unprecedented period of peace after the battle of Adwa, the opening up of foreign contacts in the aftermath of the Italian defeat, and the advent of increasing numbers of foreign craftsmen, created an entirely new climate for economic and technological developent....

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Trade in Ethiopia in Modern Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-  The Maria Theresa Thaler, or Dollar The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed the arrival in Ethiopia of an Austrian coin: the Maria Theresa thaler, or dollar. This remarkable silver coin, which was called after Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, and was minted in Vienna, gained an extensive circulation throughout the Middle East, including Ethiopia. Its coming helped to equalise the disequilibrium between Ethiopian exports, which...

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Trade in Ethiopia in Ancient Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- These two articles are adapted from a study presented by the author to the 74′th District Conference and Assembly of Rotary International, held in Addis Ababa from 7 to 9 May, 1999. They were published in the Addis Tribune newspaper in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 4 June 1999 and 11 June 1999 respectively. Trade and business have a long history in Ethiopia. Pharaohs and Ptolemies Our earliest records are those of the Egyptian Pharaohs, who conducted numerous...

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A Glimpse at My Mother’s (Sylvia Pankhurst) Archives

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Ethiopia and the Awakening Africa, 1936-40 This week, and next, I dip into the records relating to Africa in 1936-40, of my mother, Sylvia Pankhurst, who edited “New Times and Ethiopia News” (here abbreviated as N.T. ; E.N.), a pro-Ethiopian, and Anti-Fascist weekly newspaper, at the time. I present the following excerpts fom her African correspondence, with a minimum of comment. Introduction Many European Liberals, Socialists and Democrats, and Anti-Fascists...

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Ethiopian Manuscripts: Bindings and Illustration

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Ethiopian Bookmanship Ethiopian bookmanship, at least by the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, was highly developed. Manuscripts were often beautifully fashioned, and indeed works of art, and craftsmanship, in their own right. Parchment, or Vellum Manuscripts were invariably made of parchment, usually fashioned from cow, sheep or goat skin, but sometimes also of horse hide, which enabled the production of particularly large sheets of vellum. Manuscripts...

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Artistic Developments of the Gondar Period

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The classical, Byzantine, style of Ethiopian art, characteristic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, developed significantly in the seventeenth century. This was the so-called Gondar period, so named after the city of that name, in the north-west of the country, which became the capital of the Ethiopian realm in 1636. This period, which witnessed the construction of the city’s famous castle-like palaces, and the development of a more urban form...

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Ethiopian Christian Art: Icons, Wall Paintings and Manuscripts

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The Coming of Christianity Ethiopia was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the Christian faith. Local tradition holds that this conversion occurred as early as at the time of the Apostles. Be that as it may, we know that King Ezana of the Aksumite kingdom, in what is now the northern highlands of Ethiopia, issued coins bearing the Cross of Christ already around 330AD. The Aksum realm was indeed the first in the world to strike money with...

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Ethiopian-Indian Relations in Ancient and Early Medieval Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Contacts between the lands which became to be known as Ethiopia and India date back to the dawn of history. The two countries, though geographically remote from one another, had largely complimentary economies. Ethiopia was a source of gold, ivory and slaves, all three of them in great demand in India. India by contrast produced cotton and silk, pepper and other spices, all in great demand in Ethiopia, as well as some manufactured articles consumed by...

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Ethio-Indian Trade, and Slaves, in Medieval Times

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Ethiopia imported large quanlities of cotton and silk from India, in ancient and medieval times. Now read on: Jewels were another costly import from India, destined largely for the richest Ethiopian churches. Emperor Galawdewos’s chronicle states that several places of worship destroyed by the soldiers of the Adal conqueror Ahmad Gragn had been thus decorated with “precious Indian stones”. Pearl-encrusted thrones from India were...

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The Microfilming of Ethiopian Manuscripts: A Nostalgic View

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Launching the EMML Project Almost thirty years ago, in what some people like to call the Good Old Days, Dr Walter Harrelson, Dean of the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, visited Ethiopia in search of manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. While in Addis Ababa, he met His Holiness Abuna Theophilus, the then Acting Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who suggested to his American visitor that funds might be sought to...

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The Preservation of Ethiopian Culture

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The Art of Gabre Kristos Desta: an Important Offer that Should be Accepted! Gabre Kristos Desta, who studied in Germany, was one post-World War II Ethiopia’s best known artists. He was also a prominent teacher at Ethiopia’s School of Fine Arts. When he died, in Oklahoma, in the United States in 1981, it was his wish that those of his paintings which were still in his possession should be returned to his beloved Ethiopia. That this was his ardent wish...

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Lives of Ethiopian Saints

by Dr Richard Pankhurst:- Ethiopia posseses, as we have more than once urged in these pages, a vast historical heritage, which, we would insist, has up to now been insufficiently studied, and exploited. The Gadl This week we turn our attention to one particular Ethiopian historical source: the Gadl, or Saint’s Life. Ethiopia, over the centuries, had numerous holy men (and also a few women!), who lived what were considered holy lives, founded monasteries, and were remembered...

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Ethiopia’s Missing Statues

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Addis Ababa has many missing statues! Such is our theme for our essay today. Tewodros Look, to start with, at Addis Ababa’s Tewodros Square. You drive up Churchill Road, past the Post Office, and the French school, both of them on the right; and you come to Tewodros “square”, or, if you like “circle”, and what do you see? Nothing! The plan, never implemented, was to erect a statue there in memory of Emperor Tewodros II. A first drawing for the statue...

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Traditional Ethiopian Medical Text-Books, and Botanical Gardens

Ethiopia is in many ways remarkable in possessing lands of greatly varying altitude, and hence of widely differing climate. Traditionally the areas of differing altitude in which these lands were situated were known as Qolla, or Lowlands, Dega, or Lands of Considerable Elevation, and Wayna Dega, literally “Grape Highlands”, or lands of intermediary elevation. Temperature, Rainfall and Climate Temperature and rainfall also varied very greatly. The country thus included cold mountains,...

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How To Lose Your History

By Dr Richard Pankhurst:- Addis Ababa – Almost thirty years ago, in what some people like to call the Good Old Days, Dr Walter Harrelson, Dean of the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, visited Ethiopia in search of manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. While in Addis Ababa, he met His Holiness Abuna Theophilus, the then Acting Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who suggested to his American visitor that funds might be sought to microfilm all manuscripts ...

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The Temple of Yeha, and its Killer Trees

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We have had occasion in previous articles to draw attention to the sapling trees, and other vegetation, which have been allowed to grow in Ethiopian historic buildings, in many parts of the country, thereby endangering their future existence. A case in point is the vegetation in and around the historic temple of Yeha, a building discussed, and described at some length, in previous issues of “Addis Tribune” – where allusion has also been made to the question...

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Tewodros Receives No Reply from The British Government

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how Emperor Tewodros, recalling the treaty which Britain had signed with his predecessor, Ras Ali, wrote to Queen Victoria, on 29 October 1862. The British Government, apparently not wishing to become embroiled in Ethiopia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire, however, filed his letter, with the result that no reply of course arrived. A Letter Unanswered As time passed and his letter remained unanswered, Tewodros, whose pride in his...

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Tewodros, and the Battle of Maqdala, 1868

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- `We saw last week that the British Government, after several years’ inaction, had agreed to Emperor Tewodros’s request to obtain craftsmen for him, but that his renewed detention of the Europeans at his court had led, in the autumn of 1866, to a hardening of the British attitude. The Emperor’s attempt to pressurise the British Government by imprisoning its functionaries, though up to then surprisingly successful, had miscarried. British policy was now...

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Missionary Craftsmen in Tewodros II reign!

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that Tewodros, from the very inception of his reign, sought the military unification of the Ethiopian empire. Being, as we saw, in a difficult position to import fire-arms, he soon conceived the ambitious plan of having them cast in Ethiopia itself. With a view to improving his military equipment he accepted an offer by Samuel Gobat, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, in 1855 to send him a group of young craftsmen from the Chrischona...

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Emperor Tewodros II: His Reform Policies

An Essay in Nineteenth Century Ethiopian History.  By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The rise of Kasa, the future Emperor Tewodros II, marked the opening of a new, and, in the light of later events, crucially important, era of Ethiopian history. Most of his attempted reforms were never achieved, but nonetheless charted the course taken in the decades which followed. Kasa, who was born around 1818, was the son of a chief of Qwara on the western frontier. A distant member of the...

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The Lalibala Churches

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst The largest, noblest, and perhaps historically most interesting, of the Lalibala churches is that of MadhaneAlam, or Saviour of the World. Some scholars believe it may actually have been modelled on the old Church of St Mary of Seyon at Aksum, which was then extant. Madhane Alam Madhane Alam, which is no less than 33.5 metres long, 23.5 metres wide, and 11 metres high, is unusual in having an external colonnade of pillars on all four sides. These columns...

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King Lalibala and his Monolithic Churches

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Harbe, whose history we considered last week. was succeeded by his brother Lalibala. The best known of the Zagwe rulers he is renowned as a great builder, or, more exactly, excavator of rock-hewn churches. Lalibala and Legend Lalibala’s life is enshrined in legend. It is traditionally claimed that he was surrounded, shortly after his birth, by a cloud of bees, whereupon his mother, seized by the spirit of prophecy, cried out, `The bees know that this...

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Medical Developments at the Time of Menilek

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how rivalry between the European powers in Addis Ababa led, during the reign of Emperor Menilek, to the establishment of clinics, at the Italian, French and British legation. They competed with the Russian hospital, a truly pioneering institution which had been established a few years earlier. Now read on! Ras Makonnen’s Leprosarium Foreign medicine also began to make its appearance in the provinces at about the same time. In Harar,...

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Menilek, Medicine and International relations

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week how foreign medicines gained increasing popularity during the reign of Emperor Yohannes. Now read on! Menilek The coming of modern medicine to Ethiopia advanced significantly further during the reign of Menilek, a period of relative peace, when foreign contacts expanded. This period also witnessed the founding of Addis Ababa, and all the modernisation which followed therefrom. Italian Contacts Despite Menileks reputed interest in innovation,...

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Ethiopia’s Historic Quest for Medicine: a Century and a Half Ago

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that foreign medicines had long been in great demand in Ethiopia. We saw also that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, such medicines were relatively well known, and relatively much used, at the country’s more important towns, particularly in governing and related circles. King Sahla Sellase King Sahla Sellase of Shawa was in particular a great fan of foreign medical treatment. This is fully apparent in the often excessively critical...

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The Medical Activities in the Early 19th Century Successors, in Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- We saw last week that the rulers and people of Ethiopia had long been interested in foreign medical practice of all kinds. Valuable evidence of this is to be found in the writings of foreign travellers, who were frequently approached by Ethiopians of all classes requiring medical advice or assistance. Making of Amulets Two of the visiting foreign travellers approached for cures, in the 1830s, were the French Saint Simonian missionaries Combes and Tamisier....

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The Medical Activities of James Bruce, and his 19th Century Successors in Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The rulers of Ethiopia, as we saw last week, had long been interested in foreign medicines, and foreign medical practice of all kinds. This was, as we have already suggested, no less apparent in the eighteenth century, at the time of the visit to the country of the famous Scottish traveller James Bruce. Smallpox Stricken Massawa Bruce, whose claims of medical prowess must not, I fear, be taken too literally, landed at the Red Sea port of Massawa in...

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Medical Activities in Early Times of Ethiopia

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Though Ethiopia long had its own system of medical lore, and a remarkably extensive local traditional pharmacopoeia, the people of the country were for centuries deeply interested in foreign medical practices of all kinds. The Sixteenth Century Evidence of Ethiopia’s historic thirst for foreign medicine can be traced back to at least the early sixteenth century. A member of the first Portuguese mission to Ethiopia, Joao Bermudes, who arrived in the...

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Who Lost the Battle of Maqdala?

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- Ethiopian students over many years have often asked why the British, after defeating Emperor Tewodros at Maqdala, in 1868, did not stay on in the country, and make it a “colony”, “protectorate”, “condominium” or “sphere of influence”. I always gave three answers: 1. That the British had promised from the outset that they would leave as soon as the dispute with Tewodros had come to an end; further, that it was only on that undertaking that they had been...

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The Crowns of Emperor Tewodros: Loot from Maqdala

The Loot from Maqdala By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The dispute, in the 1860’s between Emperor Tewodros II and the British Government, led, it will be recalled, to the extensive looting of the Ethiopian ruler’s mountain fortress of Maqdala, by British troops. The loot from Maqdala, which included several hundred valuable Ethiopian manuscripts and many other Ethiopian artifacts, both religious and secular, was taken, on 15 elephants and nearly 200 mules, from the fortress of Maqdala...

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Maqdala and its Loot: a Brief History

Institute of Ethiopian Studies By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- I. The Fall of Maqdala The British capture of Maqdala, Emperor Tewodros’s mountain capital in north-west Ethiopia, took place on 13 1868, immediately after the Ethiopian monarch committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of his enemies. The fall of the citadel was described by an Ethiopian royal chronicler, Alaqa Walda Mariam, who, looking at the event from an Ethiopian point of view, states that when “everything...

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Dr and Mrs Pankhurst Write to London “Independent” Newspaper on Maqdala Treasures

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- The question of the return to Greece of the Elgin Marbles has recently re-erupted in the British press, with an article by one Philip Hensher in support of restitution, which appeared in the “Independent” newspaper, in London.. On that occasion the “Independent, on 31 August, published a letter from Professor Richard and Mrs Rita Pankhurst which read in part: “Philip Hensher’s perceptive article urging the return to Greece of the Elgin marbles prompts...

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Mussolini, and the Ethiopian Crowns of Tewodros, Yohannes, Menilek, and Haile Sellassie

By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:- During the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia, 1936-1941, the invaders looted not only the Aksum obelisk (which should have been returned in 1947-8, in accordance with the United Nations-Italian Peace, and in 1997, in accordance with the more recent Italian agreement with the present Ethiopian Government). The Italians also carried off an indeterminate quantity of other Ethiopian artifacts. These included a number of Ethiopian royal crowns. Several...

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