Yekuno Amlak

Yekuno Amlak ( Amharic ዓጼ ይኵኖ አምላክ , throne name Tasfa Jesus , ተስፋ እየሱስ ) († June 17, 1285 ) was Negus Negest ( Emperor ) of Ethiopia from August 10, 1270 until his death . He is considered the founder or restorer of the Solomonic dynasty . Through his father, Tasfa Jesus, he traced his descent to Dil Na'od , the last king of Aksum .

Life

Much of what we know about Yekuno Amlak comes from oral traditions. According to most sources, his mother was the slave of an Amharic chief in Sagarat , in what is now the Woreda Dessie Zuria in Amhara . Yekuno Amlak was taught near Amba Sel in the Istifanos Monastery in Lake Hayk . According to some traditions, Saint Tekle Haymanot raised him and helped him depose the last king of the Zagwe dynasty . However, the British historian G. W. B. Huntingford believes that the abbot of the monastery, Jesus Mo'a , is more likely to be considered for this role, if any of these saints influenced the politics of the time.

According to traditional historiography, Yekuno Amlak was imprisoned in Malot by the Zagwe king Za Ilmaknun ("the unknown, the hidden") , but was able to flee. He found support in Amhara and Shoah and with this army of followers defeated the Zagwe king. Taddese Tamrat takes the view that this king was Yetbarak , whose name disappeared from the records through a kind of damnatio memoriae . A recent chronicler of Wollos history flatly explains that the last Zagwe king to be deposed by Yekuno Amlak was no less than Na'akueto La'ab .

Yekuno Amlak is also said to have launched campaigns against the kingdom of Damot , south of the Abbai River .

Information about his relations with other countries is more secure. E. A. Wallis Budge writes, for example, that Yekuno Amlak was not only in correspondence with the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII , but also sent him several giraffes as gifts. The initially friendly relations with his Muslim neighbors were severely strained when he tried to get an Abuna for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church . A letter from 1273 to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars I , the overlord of the Patriarch of Alexandria (the head of the Ethiopian Church), has been preserved. In it he asks for support for a new Abuna . The contents of the letter suggest that this was not the first such request. When Abuna did not arrive, he blamed the intervention of the Sultan of Yemen . This had hindered the progress of his messenger to Cairo .

Taddesse Tamrat interprets the son Yekuno Amlak's allegiance to Syrian clergy at the royal court as a result of this neglect by the patriarch. Taddesse also notes that at that time the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch were fighting over the right to appoint the Bishop of Jerusalem , which until then had been in the hands of the Patriarch of Antioch. One move in this dispute was the appointment of an Ethiopian pilgrim as Abuna by the Patriarch Ignatius III. David of Antioch . This pilgrim never tried to take up this position in Ethiopia. Due to the lack of Coptic bishops, however, Yekuno Amlak was dependent on the Syrians who came to his kingdom, as Taddesse Tamrat explains.

Yekuno Amlak commissioned the construction of the Gennete Maryam church not far from Lalibela . This has the oldest surviving datable wall paintings in Ethiopia.

References and comments

1. ↑ In the Ethiopian calendar synonymous with, 10 Sené or 16 Nehasé. AK Irvine: Review: The Different Collections of Nägś Hymns in Ethiopic Literature and Their Contributions . In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London . School of Oriental and African Studies, 1985.
2. ^ GWB Huntingford: The Historical Geography of Ethiopia . The British Academy (London 1989), pp. 74f.
3. ^ Taddesse Tamrat: Church and State in Ethiopia . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1972, p. 68n.1.
4. ↑ Getachew Mekonnen Hasen: Wollo, Yager Dibab . Nigd Matemiya Bet, Addis Ababa 1992, pp. 28-29.
5. ^ Budge: A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia . 1928 Anthropological Publications, Oosterhout, Netherlands 1970, p. 285.
6. ^ Taddesse: Church and State . Pages 69ff.
7. ^ Paul B. Henze: Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia . Palgrave, New York 2000, p. 59.

predecessor	Office	successor
Harbai	Emperor of Ethiopia 1270–1285	Solomon I.