1922 regnal list of Ethiopia

The 1922 regnal list incorporated names from Biblical, Egyptological, Greco-Roman and native Ethiopian sources. Clockwise from upper left: (1) Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, dining with Solomon, (2) Pharaoh Taharqa of Kush, (3) Ezana of the Kingdom of Axum and (4) Zewditu, incumbent Empress of Ethiopia at the time the list was written.

The 1922 regnal list of Ethiopia is an official regnal list used by the Ethiopian monarchy which names over 300 monarchs across six millennia. The list is partially inspired by older Ethiopian regnal lists and chronicles, but is notable for additional monarchs who ruled Nubia, which was known as Aethiopia in ancient times. Also included are various figures from Greek mythology and the Biblical canon who were known to be "Aethiopian", as well as figures who originated from Egyptian sources (Ancient Egyptian, Coptic and Arabic).

This list of monarchs was included in Charles Fernand Rey's book In the Country of the Blue Nile in 1927, and is the longest Ethiopian regnal list published in the Western world. It is the only known regnal list that attempts to provide a timeline of Ethiopian monarchs from the 46th century BC up to modern times without any gaps.[1] However, earlier portions of the regnal list are pseudohistorical and were recent additions to Ethiopian tradition at the time the list was written.[2][3] Despite claims by at least one Ethiopian court historian that the list dates back to ancient times,[4] the list is more likely an early 20th century creation, possibly originally written by Alaqa Taye Gabra Mariam or Heruy Wolde Selassie.[5][6] The earlier sections of the list are clearly inspired by the work of French historian Louis J. Morié, who published a two-volume history of "Ethiopia" (i.e. Nubia and Abyssinia) in 1904.[3] His work drew on then-recent Egyptological research but attempted to combine this with the Biblical canon and writings by ancient Greek authors. This resulted in a pseudohistorical work that was more imaginative than scientific in its approach to Ethiopian history.[3]

This regnal list contains a great deal of conflation between the history of modern-day Ethiopia and Aethiopia, a term used in ancient times and in some Biblical translations to refer to a generalised region south of Egypt, most commonly in reference to the Kingdom of Kush in modern-day Sudan. As a result, many parts of this article will deal with the history of ancient Sudan and how this became interwoven into the history of the Kingdom of Axum, the region of Abyssinia (which includes modern-day Eritrea) and the modern state of Ethiopia. The territory of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was known as "Abyssinia" to Europeans until the mid-20th century, and as such this term will be used occasionally in this article to differentiate from 'ancient' Aethiopia (i.e. Nubia).

  1. ^ Kropp 2006, pp. 315–316.
  2. ^ Budge 1928a, pp. x–xi.
  3. ^ a b c Kropp 2006, Addendum, pp. 328–331.
  4. ^ Rey 1924, p. 84.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Taye-chron was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Kropp 2006, p. 305.