Yekuno Amlak

Yekuno Amlak (Amharic: ይኵኖ አምላክ; throne name Tasfa Iyasus) was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1270 to 1285, and a prince from Bet Amhara province (in today's Wollo region) who became king of kings of Ethiopia following the defeat of the last Zagwe king. He was nəgusä nägäst (r. 10 August 1270 – 19 June 1285)[2] of Ethiopia and founder of the Solomonic dynasty, which lasted until 1974.[3][4][5] He traced his ancestry through his father, Tasfa Iyasus, to Dil Na'od, the last King of Axum.

Yekuno Amlak
Emperor of Ethiopia
Reign	10 August 1270 – 19 June 1285
Predecessor	Yetbarak
Successor	Yagbe'u Seyon[1]
Died	19 June 1285
Regnal name Tasfa Iyasus
House	Solomonic dynasty
Religion	Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Rise to power

Much of what is known about Yekuno Amlak is based on oral traditions and medieval hagiographies. Yekuno Amlak was educated at Lake Hayq's Istifanos Monastery near Amba Sel, where later medieval hagiographies state Saint Tekle Haymanot raised and educated him, and helped him to depose the last King of the Zagwe Dynasty. Earlier hagiographies, however, state that it was Iyasus Mo'a, the abbot of Istifanos Monastery in Lake Hayq, who helped him achieve power. G.W.B. Huntingford explains this discrepancy by pointing out Istifanos had once been the premier monastery of Ethiopia, but Tekle Haymanot's Debre Libanos eventually eclipsed Istifanos, and from the reign of Amda Seyon it became the custom to appoint the abbot of Debre Libanos Ichege, or secular head of the Ethiopian Church. However, neither of these traditions is contemporary with any of the individuals involved.[6]

There was also the story, related in both the "Life of Iyasus Mo'a" and the Be'ela nagastat, that a rooster was heard to prophesize outside of the house of the Yakuno Amlak for three months that whoever ate his head would be king. The king then had the bird killed and cooked, but the cook discarded the rooster's head—which Yekuno Amlak ate, and thus became ruler of Ethiopia. Scholars have pointed out the similarity between this legend and one about the first king of Kaffa, who likewise learned from mysterious voice that eating the head of a certain rooster would make him king, as well as the Ethiopian Mashafa dorho or "Book of the Cock", which relates a story about a cooked rooster presented to Christ at the Last Supper which is brought back to life.[7]

Traditional history further reports that Yekuno Amlak was imprisoned by the Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun ("the unknown, the hidden one") on Mount Malot, but managed to escape. He gathered support in the Amhara provinces and in Shewa, after receiving considerable aid from the Muslim Sultanate of Shewa with an army of followers, defeated the Zagwe king.[8] Taddese Tamrat argued that this king was Yetbarak, but due to a local form of damnatio memoriae, his name was removed from the official records.[9] A more recent chronicler of Wollo history, Getatchew Mekonnen Hasen, flatly states that the last Zagwe king deposed by Yekuno Amlak was none other than Na'akueto La'ab himself.[10]

Reign

The church of Genneta Maryam, which is traditionally believed to have been built by Yekuno Amlak

Yekuno Amlak is said to have campaigned against the Kingdom of Damot, which lay south of the Abbay River. According to Arabic texts found in Harar, deposed Sultan Dil Marrah of Sultanate of Shewa successfully appealed to Yekuno Amlak in 1279 to restore his rule.[11]

Recorded history affords more certainty as to his relations with other countries. For example, E.A. Wallis Budge states that Yekuno Amlak not only exchanged letters with the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII, but sent to him several giraffes as a gift.[12] At first, his interactions with his Muslim neighbors were friendly; however his attempts to be granted an Abuna for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church strained these relations. A letter survives that he wrote to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, who was suzerain over the Patriarch of Alexandria (the ultimate head of the Ethiopian church), for his help for a new Abuna in 1273; the letter suggests this was not his first request. When one did not arrive, he blamed the intervention of the Sultan of Yemen, who had hindered the progress of his messenger to Cairo.

Taddesse Tamrat interprets Yekuno Amlak's son's allusion to Syrian priests at the royal court as a result of this lack of attention from the Patriarch. Taddesse also notes that around this time, the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch were struggling for control of the appointment of the bishop of Jerusalem, until then the prerogative of the Patriarch of Antioch. One of the moves in this dispute was Patriarch Ignatius IV Yeshu's appointment of an Ethiopian pilgrim as Abuna. This pilgrim never attempted to assume this post in Ethiopia, but—Taddesse Tamrat argues—the lack of Coptic bishops forced Yekuno Amlak to rely on the Syrian partisans who arrived in his kingdom.[13]

Yekuno Amlak is credited with the construction of the Church of Gennete Maryam near Lalibela, which contains the earliest surviving dateable wall paintings in Ethiopia.[14]

His descendant Emperor Baeda Maryam I had Yekuno Amlak's body re-interred in the church of Atronsa Maryam.[15]

References

1. Stuart Munro-Hay (2002). Ethiopia: The Unknown Land. I.B. Tauris. p. 24.
2. In the Ethiopian calendar, 10 Sené and 16 Nehasé, respectively. A. K. Irvine, "Review: The Different Collections of Nägś Hymns in Ethiopic Literature and Their Contributions." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. School of Oriental and African Studies, 1985.
3. "Ethiopia | History, Capital, Map, Population, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica.
4. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ethiopia/history-solomon.htm
5. history, Dr Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian; school, culture She has taught at the high; U.S, university levels in the; Szczepanski, South Korea our editorial process Kallie. "Makeda | Ethiopia's Queen of Sheba". Learn Religions.
6. See G.W.B. Huntingford, "'The Wealth of Kings' and the End of the Zāguē Dynasty", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 28 (1965), pp. 2f
7. Huntingford, "'Wealth of Kings'", pp. 4–6
8. Oromo of Ethiopia with special emphasis on the Gibe region (PDF). p. 4.
9. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 68 n.1
10. Getachew Mekonnen Hasen, Wollo, Yager Dibab (Addis Ababa: Nigd Matemiya Bet, 1992), pp. 28–29
11. Selassie, Sergew (1972). Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270. p. 290.
12. Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 285.
13. Taddesse, Church and State, pp. 69ff.
14. Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 59.
15. "Local History in Ethiopia" Archived 19 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 28 January 2008)