Chronicle
The Kebra Nagast
ክብረ ነገሥት
Anonymous · 1320
Synopsis
The Queen of Sheba, Makeda, goes to Solomon, whose wisdom has been praised to her, and returns to her kingdom pregnant by the king. Grown to manhood, their son Menelik goes to Jerusalem to meet his father, who recognises him and has him anointed; on the way back, the sons of the dignitaries who escort him secretly carry off the ark of the covenant, and the narrative makes Ethiopia the new Israel and its kings the heirs of David. Around this core, the book gathers prophecies, exegeses and biblical, apocryphal and Quranic traditions.
Context
The text was compiled in Ge'ez at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the so-called Solomonic dynasty, restored in 1270, was seeking to establish its right to rule. Menelik II gave it a quasi-official status, and its episodes were painted in long strips on the cloths carried in procession; the 1955 constitution still recorded the Solomonic descent of the emperors. A copy taken to London after the capture of Magdala, in 1868, was returned to Ethiopia in 1872. The Rastafari movement, born in Jamaica, has made it one of its reference books.
Who it is for
A compiled narrative, mixing the Bible, apocrypha and chronicle. To be read for its political use as much as for the story it tells.
Prizes and reception
Foundational text of Ethiopian identity, translated into French in extracts from 1914; four complete translations appeared between 2002 and 2008.