From Homer to the Highlands: A Global History of the Idea of Ethiopia

About the Talk: 

The talk begins from the premise that the idea of “Ethiopia” is not indigenous to the Horn of Africa, and any claim of continuity between the late ancient Aksumite state and the Ethiopian medieval state (or any state preceding it) cannot be accepted a priori. This premise raises a vital, and unanswered question: When was this idea imported into the highlands, how was it subsequently shaped, and by whom? My work argues that “Ethiopia,” was a term imported into the highlands of the Horn of Africa from the Mediterranean world through Greco-Roman texts imported into the region via Arabic intermediaries. Once in the highlands, the process of reception continued as various indigenous groups, as well as European interlocutors, shaped the ideology and self-perception of the medieval Ethiopian state. It is an intellectual history of the importation and reshaping of a Greco-Roman cultural and intellectual product by an African polity through a multi-century dialectic involving African kings, aristocrats, intellectuals, clergymen, monks, and, ultimately, even in dialogue with later international figures and polities. Focusing on Ethiopian monasticism and kingship, this talk will track the evolution of the idea of Ethiopia as a Christian kingdom from the Mediterranean in antiquity to the highlands of the Horn of Africa in the Late Medieval/Early Modern period. While this story alone can never fully reveal the sum of any given society’s perception of itself (and raises the important question of whether such a notion ever existed), several such stories strung together can give us a window into the development of an idea over a vast expanse of time and space. 

About the Speaker: 

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He broadly works on the political and cultural history of the premodern Mediterranean and Red Sea Regions. His first book, The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt came out this year with UC Press. His second monograph is a Global History of the Idea of Ethiopia and its importation from the Mediterranean world to the Horn of Africa. 

Cosponsors: 

Department of History, Department of Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures, and the First Millennium Religion in Late Antiquity Workshop