In the land of Prester John

Our short layover in Ethiopia was in the capital city, Addis Ababa, a city of about 3 million people. It was founded in by Emperor Menelik in 1887. This relatively young city belies the ancient history of Ethiopia which is unknown by many in the West. The line of emperors of Ethiopia claim direct descent from King Solomon of Old Testament fame, claiming that the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Bible was from Ethiopia and that she bore a son through Solomon. This began an unbroken chain of emperors that only ended in a coup in the 1970’s when Haile Selassie was smothered in his sleep. An interesting aside is that the Ethiopians claim that they hold the Ark of the Covenant (yes, the one Indiana Jones was looking for) in one of their churches in Axum. An interesting book about this is called The Sign and The Seal by Graham Hancock. As well it is most likely Ethiopia that was the site of the fabled Christian African kingdom talked about in Europe since just after the fall of Rome. In fact when Portuguese sailors first sailed into the Indian Ocean part of their mandate from the King of Portugal was to find the Kingdom of Prester John and make an alliance with them. It is quite interesting that Ethiopia was a Christian island surrounded by both Islam and tribal religions cut off from the rest of the Christian world but it managed to survive. Anyways, exploring Ethiopia will have to wait for another trip as our layover was only for about an hour before we left for Malawi.