Ethiopia

Ethiopia boasts a rich legacy. Once called the Kingdom of Punt, then the Empire of Axum, by the thirteenth century the Ethiopian Empire is an amalgamation of many smaller kingdoms, each ruled by a "negus." Agew, Bet Amhara, Medri Bahri, and Shewa compose the core of a Christian culture isolated from Europe by hostile tribes and tributary Muslim territories. The Dahlak Sultanate controls the islands off Ethiopia's central coast, and Muslim merchants and corsairs rule the Red Sea. Tribes of pagans and Blemmyae occupy the lands to the north and west. The southern border is commanded by the sultans of Adal, Hadiya, and Ifat. The Torrid Zone, that region of scorching heat discussed in Art & Academe (page 27) and Between Sand & Sea (pages 13- 14), lies even further to the south, through sultry, impenetrable jungles.

The territory of Ethiopia extends from the Semien Mountains and Takkaze River in the west, to the Blemmyae occupied hills to the north, to the Ganale and Wabe Shebele rivers to the south, and the inhospitable Danakil desert and the Bab-al-Mandab strait in the east. The tall escarpments and rich salt flats of the Great Rift Valley very clearly mark the division between highland and lowland. Treasured above all, however, the Blue Nile spills out of Lake Tana and carves through rock and earth as it flows through Nubian valleys on its long pilgrimage to Egypt. While they may have been the same realm in antiquity, this is not the land of the Mythic Aithiopes (see Chapter 9).