Wehni
| Wehni ወህኒ |
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|---|---|---|
 Wehni, Amhara |
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| location | Addis Zemen ( Ethiopia ) | |
| Coordinates | 12 ° 8 '54 " N , 37 ° 45' 59" E | |
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| rock | basalt | |
| particularities | Legendary place | |
Wehni ( Amharic ወህኒ ) is the name of a mountain in Ethiopia on which most of the male heirs of the imperial throne were interned - often for life.
It was the last of three mountains (or amba ) to serve this purpose. The rest were Debre Damo and Amba Geshen .
At some point in history it became a tradition that once an emperor came to the throne, his brothers and other male relatives were taken to royal prison, where they either died or lived until they ascended the throne. Mount Wehni was first used as a prison by Fasilides . He promoted his son Dawit there after he led a riot.
During the Zemene Mesafint , the prison on the mountain was taken out of service. This happened in the 1790s, as Samuel Gobat learned from a man named Tekla Selassie, "a relative of the king" (meaning Emperor of Ethiopia).
James Bruce was the first to mention the royal prison. However, the first European to visit the site was Thomas Pakenham in 1955 . He states that when he began his search for this half-forgotten complex, three places in the province of Begemder (now part of Amhara ) came into question: the Ethiopia expert Steven Wright believed he was three days west of Gonder while Colonel Shifferaw, who knew the place, reported two possible places in the east. Pakenham's investigation revealed that he was in the mountains northeast of Emfraz . He describes his first sight like this:
- “ A ravine opened up on the gentle plain, perhaps half a mile wide, which led into a tub-shaped valley. This was the valley of Wehni. From the middle of it rose the thumb, black as slag, the mountain. It was actually twice as high as it first appeared, its flanks sloping perfectly towards the bottom, and its summit flat and grassy. "
Pakenham found a village at the foot of the mountain that "hardly deserved the name". Although the residents were "miserable and poor" when he examined the church in the area, he found some paintings that he dated to the 17th century. “Fifty years after Fasil, but still exciting evidence of the importance of woe at that time. Even if the church and village were now in ruins, it is evident that they once enjoyed royal support as generously as Gonder himself. "
Pakenham was unable to climb Mount Wehni due to a landslide in the previous 30 years. Equipped with climbing equipment, he made another unsuccessful attempt a few months later. He closes his travelogue about Ethiopia with a description of the buildings on the summit as he saw them from the air. He had previously been able to convince the pilot of the Gondar - Addis Ababa flight to fly by there and circle the summit.
In 2002 it was climbed by members of the HotRock worldwide climbing expedition.
The royal prison at the top of Wehfulness left its influence on English literature through Bruce's accounts . Dr. Samuel Johnson used it as the inspiration for the plot of his story: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia .
Web links
- The prison of Mt Wehni - Ethiopia. June 15, 2011, accessed February 12, 2015 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gobat wrote in 1830: "30 years have passed since this inhuman custom was given up." This points to a date not much later than 1800. Journal of Three Years' Residence in Abyssinia . 1851 Negro Universities Press (New York 1969), p. 243.
- ↑ Thomas Pakenham: The Mountains of Rasselas . Reynal & Co., (New York 1959), p. 27.
- ↑ Pakenham, p. 59.
- ↑ Pakenham, p. 62.
- ↑ Pakenham, pp. 186-190.