Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1910 — A NEW LINK IN HISTORY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A NEW LINK IN HISTORY

By RUSSELL WOODARD

IXCE the excavation in Crete, which f changed the Minoan myths into historical fact and revealed the existence of a great island empire that existed in the \. g< ;:n long before t Greek civilization began, there have AT jH been few discoveries of greater inW terest and importance than those X Jr which have recently been made by Professor Garstang at Meroe, in the Sudan. Professor Sayce in 1909 located the site of the city of Meroe on the east bank of the Nile, between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts, and the excavations carried on by Professor Garstang at the end of 1909 enabled the details of the Ethiopian capital to become known. The Temple of Amon, where the Ethiopian Kings were crowned, was also discovered. Even more interesting is the excavation of the beautibul Sun Temple, which was discovered at the edge of the khor, or meadow, thus confirming the account of Herodotus, who tells us that Cambyses sent to the Ethiopian King to inquire about “the Table of the Sun” in a meadow ‘in the suburbs of the capital, where cooked meats were set each night.” There is no doubt that this building is referred to in tl* Homeric legend that Zeus and the other gods feasted every year for twelve days among the blameless Ethiopians. Many others buildings were also explored, and the Temples of the Lion and the Kenlsq were discovered. It be noted that the lion emblem was of frequent occurrence, and may probably have been the totem of the district. Many beautiful objects were dug up by the expedition, in-

eluding forty inscriptions in the hieroglyphics of Meroe, two royal statues, and a great many vases of a new kind of pottery, objects of wood and glass, titles and pottery. Especially interesting was the pottery which is almost as thin as biscuit china, and gives evidence of Roman influence. Professor Sayce found Greek inscriptions showing how the city was destroyed at the end of the fourth century A. D., by a King of Axum, since which event the city was unoccupied. Ethiopia was the name given by the Greeks to a country south of Egypt variously conceived as including only Nubia (Aethiopia Aegypti), or Nubia, Sonnar, Kordofan and Abyssinia, or a region extending indefinitely east and west from the Upper Nile, but applied after the fall of Meroe more particularly to Abyssinia. The name is said to have had its origin from the fact that it was alluded to by the Greeks as a country of sunburned faces. Historically there were three distinct kingdoms known as Ethiopia, those of Napata, Meroe and Askum. There is no definite evidence that either of these included at any time all the territory between the southern border of Egypt and Bab el Mandeb. Already in the time of the old empire the Egyptians had relations with their southern neighbors. From the forests of Nubia they obtained a large proportion of their timber, and the city of Abu (Elephantine) derived its name from the ivory which found its way to this place from the interior of Africa. King Uncas (c 3290-3260 B. C.) employed warriors belonging to six Nubian tribes in his war upon the Bedouins. The early pictorial representations of Nubian archers do not suggest that they were negroes. A regular conquest of the conn-, try south of Syene apparently was not undertaken until the twelfth dynasty (c. 2522-2323). The most powerful Nubian people at this time was Kash or Kosh, the Hebrew Cush. It is probable that the stock was originally Hamitic. though in course of time it absorbed various Negritic tribes. Usertesen in (c. 2409-2372) established his frontier north of the second cataract and bollt for its protection two forts •t Semneh and Kummeh on opposite sides of the river. Whether the Hyksos kings ever held possession of this territory is doubtful. At any rate it had to be reorganized by Aahmes (15751653), the founder of the eighteenth dynasty and his successors. Napata probably had been the capital of the Independent kingdom, since it was made the residence of the viceroy, entitled prince' of Kosh, who governed the new Egyptian province. In the time of Raineses II there was an unsuccessful rebellion. Pianchi I. who seems to have reigned in Napata since 777, availed himself of the weakness of Egypt at the end of the reign Of Uasarken 111 to make an invasion of Egypt. He defeated twenty petty rulers and forced a treaty. Shabaka, a grandson of Pianchi, united all Egypt with Ethiopia under one crown. Xapata was destroyed by Camhyses in 524. * -T

A new kingdom gradually arose in the south after the .fall of Napata, with

Merpe as its capital. The kings, Arum Harsiot, Nastasen, who reigned in the fifth and fourth centuries, conquered considerable territory south of fteroe in Seunar and Kordofan, and possibly in Abyssinia. While the suzerainty I 'of the Ptolemies seems to have been recognized for religious reasons, King Ergamenes, by putting to death the priests who had demanded that he should abdicate in the time of Ptolemy IV Philopator (221-204), paved the way for independence. 'Ptolemy V. Epiphanes (204181) was able to resist his attack upon Egypt, but not able to prevent his asserting of sovereignty in Ethiopia. Queen Candace seems to have -extended her power in the north, and twenty-five provinces are said to have been tributary to her. But her invasion of Egypt was successfully resisted by Caius Petronius in B. C. 24. that had been rebuilt, was destroyed by the Romans. Another Queen Candace is mentioned in Acts viii. But gradually Meroe Itself fell into ruins. To guard against invasion by the Bleramyans, a people akin to the Bugaitae. the modern Beja, Diocletian moved the Nobatae, negro tribes of the same stock as the population of Kordofan, fronf the oasis of Khargeh into the Nile valley. The mountain region of Abyssinia was probbably inhabited in very early times by Semites as well as Hamites. Whether the original home of the former was in Africa or in Arabia the overflow population would naturally set in the direction of this Alpine country. As the native name shows, the Semitic Ethiopians were still fn the nomadic state when they entered this territory, priding themselves on being wanderers, roaming freely wherever they liked. There were evidently successive waves of immigration. If the Egyptian Hbst is of Semitic origin, as can scarcely be doubted, they were apparently kinsmen of the Yemenites in Eretria and on the Somali coast c. 1500 B. C. Sebaean inscriptions found in Yeha, the ancient Awa, may be as old as the seventh century B. C. As long as the Ptolemies domninate the Erythrean coast from Adulis, Berenice and Arsinoe, a strong Abyssinian kingdom could not well develop. But in the reign of Augustus, when the Romans suffered serious reverses in Arabia, and were occupied ir Africa with Queen Candace, while the Arsacid conquests in eastern Arabia forced the Yemenite States to seek compensation for their losses elswhere, the Semitic element in Ethiopia seems to have' been reinforced, and the kingdom of Askum founded. The ‘ Periplus maris Erythroel,” probably written by Basiles between A. D. 56 and 67, refers to a king of Askum by the name of Zoscales, who controlled the coast from Massowah to Bab el Mandeb, and. was a friend of Greek culture It Is possible that some of the Greek coins with Greek legends that have been preserved should be assigned to the second

and third centuries A. D On a marble throne in Adulis, Cosmos Indicopleustes found and copied in the sixth century an inscription commemorating the power of a great king whose name is not given. He is supposed by some scholars to be the founder of the Askumite kingdom, but it is more probable that he reigned at the end of the third century A. D. King Aizana is known to have reigned in the year A. D. 356. In his time Frumentius preached Christianity in the country. The political relations that had long existed between Askum and Rome were such as to favor his mission. In 378 Askum was reduced to its African territory. In A. D. 625 Elesbaas, king of Askum, with the aid of the Sabaen and Hadramautian rulers, made an end to the Himyarite kingdom of Dhu Nuwas, and Ethiopia again controlled Arabian territory! Before the end of the century, however, the Askumites were driven back to Africa, and never again extended their conquests to Arabia According to a letter addressed to a king of Nubia in the time of the Patriarch Philotheus of Alexandria (980-1002), preserved in the four-

teenth century ' Life of the Patriarchs” and in the “Ethiopic Synaxar,” a woman who reigned over the Beni el Hamuna had recently invaded the country, burned the churches and monasteries, and driven him from place to place. Marianus Victor speaks of this woman as the founder of the Zague dynasty, and as having married a ruler of the province of Bugna, a name afterwards corrupted into Beni el Zague Eleven kings of the so-called Zague dynasty reigned until 1270. The earliest monuments of Semitic speech in Ethiopia are thb inscriptions found at Yeha. These are written in the consonantal .Sabaen script and indicate that the writers used the lesna Gees, the language of Semitic Ethiopia, as early as the seventh century B C Geez is today represented by two dialects, Tigre and Tigrai or Tigrina. The latter is spoken in Tigre, and the former is spoken in the districts north and northwest of Tigre, and shows great similarity to the old Geez.