Yekuno Amlak

Yekuno Amlak ( äthiop. ዓጼ ይኵኖ አምላክ, throne name Tasfa Jesus, ተስፋ እየሱስ ) ( † June 17, 1285 ), was dated 10 August 1270 to his death Negus Nagast ( Emperor ) of Ethiopia. He is considered the founder or restorer of the Solomonic dynasty. About his father, Tasfa Jesus, he led his lineage back to Dil Na'od, the last king of Aksum.

Life

A large part of what we know about Yekuno Amlak, comes from oral traditions. According to most sources, his mother was a slave of a chief in Amharic Sagarat, in today's Dessie Woreda in Amhara Zuria. Yekuno Amlak was taught near Amba Sel in Istifanos monastery in Hayksee. Some records report that the Holy Tekle Haymanot raised him and helped him depose the last king of the dynasty Zagwe. The British historian G. W. B. Huntingford believes, however, that rather the abbot of the monastery, Jesus Mo'a for this role comes into question, if any one of these saints influenced the politics of the time.

The conventional historiography by Yekuno Amlak by the Zagwe King Za Ilmaknun ( " the unknown, the concealed" ) was incarcerated in Malot, but managed to escape. He found support in Amhara and Shoa and defeated this army of followers Zagwe the king. Taddese Tamrat believes that this king was Yetbarak whose name disappeared through a kind damnatio memoriae from the records. A more recent chronicler of history Wollos declared flatly that the last Zagwe king was deposed by which Yekuno no Amlak was less than Na'akueto La'ab.

Yekuno Amlak said to have also undertaken campaigns against the south of the Abbai River located Damot Kingdom.

Enclosed is the information to its relations with other countries. E. A. Wallis Budge writes, for example, that Yekuno Amlak stood with the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII not only in his correspondence, but also sent him several giraffes as a gift. The initially friendly relations with its Muslim neighbors were badly strained, as he strove for an Abuna for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. A letter of 1273 to the Mamluk Sultan Baybars I, the overlord of the Patriarch of Alexandria ( head of the Ethiopian Church ), has been preserved. In it he asks for support for a new Abuna. The contents of the letter suggests that it was not at the first request of this type. When no Abuna arrived, he blamed the intervention of the Sultan of Yemen. This had hindered the progress of his messengers to Cairo.

Taddesse Tamrat indicated the dependence of the son Yekuno Amlaks to Syrian clergy in the royal court as a result of this neglect by the patriarch. Taddesse also notes that at this time fought the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch to the right of appointment of the Bishop of Jerusalem, which had until then been in the hands of the Patriarch of Antioch. A move in this dispute was the appointment of an Ethiopian pilgrim to Abuna by the Patriarch Ignatius III. David of Antioch. This pilgrim never tried to compete this position in Ethiopia. The lack of Coptic bishops Yekuno Amlak, however, was dependent on the Syrians, who came into his kingdom, as Taddesse Tamrat outlines.

Yekuno Amlak commissioned the construction of the church Gennete Maryam far from Lalibela. This has the oldest surviving datable murals in Ethiopia.

References and Notes

• Kaiser ( Ethiopia)
• Died in 1285
• Born in the 13th century
• Man