The Kebra Nagast (link to reading - read only sections 21-32, 84-90)
Author: Unknown
Date: c. 14th century CE
Location: Ethiopia
Course Unit: Extraordinary People
Context:
"In the fourteenth century, Ethiopian scribes recorded the holy text of the Kebra Nagast (The glory of the kings). Written in the ancient Ethiopian scholarly language of Ge’ez, this thick volume articulates Ethiopian narratives of origin, parts of which were told for many centuries before the fourteenth century and parts of which are a refashioning of various biblical texts. Elaborating on an anecdote found in the Old Testament, the Kebra Nagast devotes forty chapters (of over one hundred total chapters) to describing how the Ethiopians took the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites, became the chosen people of God, and started a new Zion. It also argues that Ethiopia’s three-thousand-year–old line of emperors are descended from the tenth-century BCE King Solomon and an Ethiopian woman, called Maqeda or Candace, or the Queen of Sheba. In a direct strike at the heart of three world religions, the Ethiopians claim the queen as their own and recast her at the center of global history.
This remarkable Ethiopian narrative about Solomon and Sheba must be 'one of the most powerful and influential national sagas anywhere in the world,' writes the historian Edward Ullendorff. This narrative has enabled a seven-hundred–year dynasty (the Solomonic dynasty), has been retold continuously for maybe a millennia, is still widely believed by tens of millions of modern Ethiopians, and was written into the Ethiopian constitution of 1955 as historical truth." (Belcher)
Belcher, Wendy. "Medieval African and European Texts about the Queen of Sheba." UCLA Center for the Study of Women, 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20080511205908/http://www.csw.ucla.edu/Newsletter/May06/belcher.html.
Topics/Questions to Consider While Reading:
Why is Sheba/Makeda an extraordinary person?
What does Sheba/Makeda accomplish?
What are Sheba/Makeda's values?