Older than Egypt is Ethiopia!
Ethiopia is old, even older than Egypt, but its
antiquity is somewhat different. While Egypt was the world's first indisputable nation-state, unique in its complex politico-religious system augmented by magnificent material remains and a corpus of epic literature, in Ethiopia, the very cradle of mankind, the material evidence of its ancient civilisation alone attests to its former glory.
The Ancient Egyptians, from the earliest times, kept records of their kings and this chronology is central to the chronological structure of the early Aegean, Levantine and Mesopotamian civilisations. It is, however, of no import to Ancient Ethiopia. If the
Ethiopians did keep records, these have either been lost for ever or not yet discovered. The attempts by unnamed writers to compile an Ethiopian king-list -- the Kebra Negast or Book of the Glory of Kings -- from
the Queen of Sheba to the rise of the Zagwe dynasty, is believed to be a 13th-century creation; its aim seems to have been to establish the political credentials of the so-called Solomonic dynasty, an Ethiopian king-list that traces the rulers of Ancient Axum to Menelik I (originally Bin Ha Malik, The King's
Son), the son of the "Israelite" King Solomon and the "Ethiopian" Queen Makeda, the Queen of Sheba.
Confusingly, the Queen of Sheba features prominently in the oral and written traditions of Ethiopia, Yemen and ancient Israel. The Yemenis saw her as a South Arabian queen, the Ethiopians as Axumite. In Arabic her name is Bilquis, in Ethiopia Makeda and in the biblical language of the Israelites she is known as
the Queen of Sheba. To add to the confusion,
historians suggest that King Solomon must have reigned around the 10th century BC. It is difficult to decipher fact from fiction, but archaeological evidence is indisputable and it reveals that Axum was founded a millennium later.
LUCY-DINKENESH: Ethiopia easily claims the longest archaeological record of any country
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