The Kebra Nagast: The Glory of the Kings

In August 1872, the British Museum sent a manuscript back to Ethiopia. Four years earlier, a British army under Sir Robert Napier had stormed the mountain fortress of Magdala, where the Emperor Tewodros II took his own life, and carried away hundreds of manuscripts from his library and the churches. The new emperor, Yohannes IV, wrote to the British government asking for one book in particular: the Kebra Nagast, the "Glory of the Kings". Without it, he wrote, his people would not obey him. A copy was returned. The book told how Ethiopia's kings descended from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and how the Ark of the Covenant came to Ethiopia.

The book

• Written in Ge'ez, the classical language of Ethiopia, in 117 chapters.
• According to its colophon, it was translated from Arabic (itself from Coptic) by a churchman named Yeshaq of Aksum, in the reign of the Solomonic dynasty's early kings; it is usually dated to about 1314–1322. Many scholars think it was largely composed in Ethiopia, drawing on older material, and that the translation claim adds authority. This is debated.
• It is framed as a discussion among the 318 Orthodox fathers of the Council of Nicaea about where the true glory of kings lies.

The story

• Makeda, Queen of Sheba, visits Solomon in Jerusalem, learns his wisdom and turns to the God of Israel (expanding 1 Kings 10).
• She bears Solomon's son, Menelik, who grows up in Ethiopia and later visits his father.
• Menelik returns with the firstborn sons of Israel's nobles, who secretly take the Ark of the Covenant with them. The glory of Zion passes from Israel to Ethiopia, the new chosen people.

The interactive book above follows the story and the book's own history.

Why it mattered

In 1270 a new dynasty took the Ethiopian throne claiming descent from Solomon. The Kebra Nagast gave this Solomonic dynasty its charter, and it ruled until 1974. Haile Selassie's 1955 constitution declared the emperor a descendant of Menelik. In the twentieth century the Kebra Nagast became important to Rastafari, who revere Haile Selassie as a descendant of Solomon and, for many, as divine.

Symbology and sacred encoding

The Ark and the tabot. Ethiopian tradition holds that the Ark rests in the chapel of St Mary of Zion at Aksum, guarded by a single monk and shown to no one (see V07). Every Ethiopian Orthodox church keeps a tabot, a consecrated tablet representing the Ark, without which a church cannot be consecrated. At the feast of Timkat the tabots are carried in procession, wrapped in cloth.

Zion. The book calls the Ark "Zion", and treats Ethiopia as the new Israel, a theme still central to Ethiopian Orthodox identity.

Sheba. The Queen of Sheba appears in the Bible, the Qur'an (as the Queen of Saba, later named Bilqis) and Jewish legend. The Kebra Nagast gives her a name and a son. Where Sheba was, in Arabia or Africa, is debated.

Connections

Eastern Orthodoxy (ch60), for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; Diaspora Religions (ch40), for Rastafari; Sacred Kingship (ch49). Compare the Ark of the Covenant (V07), and the Benin Bronzes (V64) for another restitution.

From The Divine Archives · https://getconexto.com/vault/kebra-nagast.html