Ethiopia was the first place on our journey where we regularly saw guys with dread locks. Most chew khat leaves (a drug that is legal in Ethiopia) instead of smoking Marihuana, but they still wear Bob Marley T-shirts and green-yellow-red colours. Clear signs of the Rastafari movement – but how come? This is Africa, not Jamaica. A quick read about the Rastafari movement clarified the issue: Green-yellow-red are Ethiopia’s national colours, not Jamaicas where the movement originated. Rastafaris use Ethiopia’s colours because they actually worship Haile Selassie I., who ruled the country from 1930 – 1974, as the reincarnation of Jesus. Selassie’s title as king was Ras Tafari, with ‚ras‘ meaning ‚head‘ or ‚duke‘ in Ethiopia’s dominant language Amharic, and Tafari being the king’s given name. So the connection between Bob Marley and Ethiopia is much more direct than we thought. Small world, really.
Embarrassingly enough we only then started reading about Ethiopia’s proud history, the only African nation that has never really been colonialized, ignoring a short occupation by the Italians just before WW2. Most defining for the country was the Aksumite Empire, which rose to power in the first century BC with its capital Aksum located in the North of modern day Ethiopia. According to the Persian prophet Mani it was one of the four great powers of the time alongside Rome, Persia and China. The Aksumites converted to Christianity in the early 4th century, shortly after Constantine and the Romans. The kingdom controlled trade along the Red Sea, a vital sea link to India at the time. Their decline came a few hundred years later, when the Arab neighbours converted to Islam and the country got isolated and subsequently lost its important trade port of Adulis on the Red Sea.
The second important period for the country, which was known as Abyssinia at the time, might have started when Saladin defeated the Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1187 and allowed Muslims and Jews to return to the Christianised city. King Lalibela of Abyssinia is said to have been so upset by that event that he wanted to create a new (Christian) Jerusalem in the city of Roha, later renamed Lalibela after him. The town is still famous for its rock-hewn churches from that period, which are real masterpieces. Like the caves in Ellora and Ajanta they were carved out of one huge piece of rock – monolithic structures hidden away in the mountains of Northern Ethiopia. King Lalibela was part of the Zagwe dynasty, which was overthrown soon after by the Solomonic dynasty. Their members claim to be direct descendants of the biblical King Solomon because of his one-night-stand with Queen Sheba. The dynasty only really took power in the 13th century and established its capital with lots of castles in the city of Gondar, another tourist hub in the country of today. We were impressed by the fortresses of Gondar, dubbed the ‚Camelot of Africa‘, and after all those history lessons we finally understood why the star of David made it into the dining room of one of the Gondar castles. As I said before, a small world.
