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The term Abyssinia is lately regarded with disfavour by
Eritreans and even some Ethiopians. We have received various
reports in this sense, and we would like to discuss the problem
because it seems inappropriate to let this word, with all its
history, nobility and fascination, fall into disuse. The term is
used today in the West with a mixture of respect and awe.
Abyssinia is derived from Habashat, one of the south Arabian tribes
that took part in founding the Kingdom of Axum, also known as the
Kingdom of the Habashat. The Abyssinians are the descendants of the
Axumites. In Arab the term habash means “mixture of
populations”. Abyssinia is the immense region occupying most of the
Ethiopian plateau, namely the area extending from the bastions
facing the Sudan
to all the Eritrean highland,
the provinces of Tigray,
Begemeder,
Gojam and
most of the
Shewa in Ethiopia.
In other words, all
the Ethiopian plateau north of
the
Hawash
river
and the Blue Nile.
It is now known that Semitic populations from Arabia settled on the
African highlands
in the first millennium BC and integrated with the local peoples,
giving rise to the Abyssinian stock, a
people with semitic features and dusky skin, much fairer than the other
African populations. These people founded the Kingdom of
Axum. About 50 BC an anonymous Levantine compiled a portulan
entitled “Circumnavigation of the Eritrean Sea”. Although in
those times the Eritrean Sea included the present Red Sea as well of
much of the Indian Ocean, the author dedicated few pages to the African
coasts compared to what he wrote about the coasts extending from Arabia
to India. This suggests that Africa was then rarely considered by
navigators. Adulis, situated opposite the “country of the Arabs”,
is the only city on the African coast mentioned in the
document. Adulis was known for trade in ivory, rhinoceros horns,
turtle shells, incense, myrrh, civet, cinnamon, elephants and slaves,
all products in great demand in advanced countries of the day.
The ruins of the port are still visible near Zula, a town on the
Eritrean coast about 40 km south of Massawa. The period of
prosperity of Adulis was in the IV century, when Axum, the capital of
the Axumite civilisation, was at its peak. The capital of Axum
was only 200 km from Adulis, but it was far enough to place it in a
completely different world. Indeed, although the maritime town
was the port of the horn of Africa, the ancient Ethiopians preferred
the climate of Axum, at an altitude of 2100 metres.
According to recent scholars, the fact that only one civilisation
developed in subsaharan Africa in prechristian times, namely that of
the ancient Abyssinians, was due solely to its geography. Abyssinia
is on one of the greatest high plains in the world. In a relatively
small space, it includes 50% of the mountains in Africa above 2000 m
in height and 80% of those over 3000 m. Thirty-one mountains are
more than 4000 m high, the highest, Ras Dashan, reaches 4620 m, and
about 60 peaks are over 3000 m. At such great heights and low
latitudes, spring weather is enjoyed all year round, there is plenty
of rain and fewer of the tropical diseases that devastate Africa.
Until a few decades ago, Abyssinia had the greatest number of plant
species in the world, many endemic, and the greatest variety of
birds, together with a vast assortment of animals and insects. The
great Ethiopian high plain is divided by the Rift Valley, where a
unique ecosystem hosts an enormous variety of animal and plant
species. This extraordinary place is where the human race first
evolved. Lucy was found in the Awash valley. The horn of Africa is
therefore the cradle of man.
Much later, when humans had populated all parts of the Earth, the
morphology of the plateau was practically impossible for aggressive
neighbouring peoples: its impenetrable mountains defended it to
north, east and west, while in the south, the Somali desert
discouraged intruders. These were all ingredients for the
development of what ancient historians knew as the Land of the
Habashat, a civilisation with writing and coins, that traded with
the rest of the world and built monuments that have lasted thousands
of years. The tallest of the famous obelisks of Axum is 33.5 metres
high, with a base measuring 3 x 2 m and a weight of more than
500
tons. It is the largest monolith ever cut, transported and erected
in antiquity. It remains a mystery how it was transported 4 km from
the quarry where its imprint is still visible. Even today, it would
be a technological and scientific challenge to transport and erect
it. The cult of the dead, the rich quality of life and the search
for knowledge brought renown to the Kingdom of Axum. According to
ancient Persian and Roman historians, Persia, Rome, Abyssinia and
China were the four great kingdoms at the time of Christ.
While the Ethiopian plateau had all the conditions for the birth of
civilisation, it is difficult to understand why nothing similar
developed in Kenya, where similar places with similar climate
exist. The reason is presumably that there was no immigration from
southern Arabia. There have therefore always been great
possibilities for life in the horn of Africa, but only on the
plateau, in Abyssinia, whereas on the coast and other low areas,
life has always been problematical because of heat and lack of
water.
Christianity reached Abyssinia not much later than it reached Rome,
but developed there much more readily, suggesting a receptivity that
only a great civilisation can create. The legendary Axumite
civilisation was short lived: 400 years after the arrival of
Christianity, namely in the 7th century AC, it was suddenly
eclipsed. The reasons were presumably many and not all of them have
yet been clarified. In the 7th century AC, there was a sudden
climatic change throughout Abyssinia. In the horn of Africa,
monsoons normally blow from SW in the period May-September,
followed by an inversion to northeasterlies from November to April.
These winds were exploited by Arabs and Indians to sail eastward in
winter and spring and return the following summer and autumn. We
now know that in the first century AC the monsoon also reached the
Ethiopian high plain, causing at least seven full months of rain
each year. This enabled at least two crops per year, often three,
and the growth of dense forests over at least half of the plateau.
Enormous quantities of water drained from the mountains towards the
deserts and the sea in large rivers that modelled the land and the
coastline. Near Adulis, two of these rivers extended the land and
silted up the sea, making navigation difficult. When the monsoons
suddenly ceased to reach the high plain in the 8th century, the wet
season was reduced to only three months of the year and annual
rainfall dropped sharply. Axum found itself without a port and with
serious drought problems, whence its decadence. The end of the
Kingdom of Axum was decreed by the Arab conquest of Egypt, which
removed Adulis from the trade route to India. The invasion by
the Beja tribes and the destructions brought from the Agaw queen
Gudit from Damot in the X century completed the fall of Axum.
Abyssinia remained
isolated from the rest of the world for nearly 800 years, until the
dynasty of the King of Gonder raised it from obscurity.
It is worth adding that in the year 400, Christianity came to
Abyssinia through Saint Frumentius and Abyssinia converted while
neighbouring populations remained “pagan”, later to be converted to
Islam.
When the Italians landed at Massawa at the end of the 19th century,
forests covered 30% of Abyssinia, and not much else had changed for
hundreds of years. The dominant people, of Christian religion, had
maintained a level of civilisation which they exploited to subjugate
the various Ethiopian tribes, and it was only with much effort that
they succeeded in holding together a kingdom three times the area of
France. The Italians arrived quietly, timid in their youth,
inexperienced in politics, ignorant of African affairs and colonial
missions, lacking the background and logistics of other colonialist
countries such as England and France. They were driven largely by
emulation, pride and fear of missing out on a slice of the black
continent. Ingenuous as they were, they stumbled into the only once
civilised part of subsaharan Africa and the only part that had
succeeded in defending itself for thousands of years against
intruders.
The Italian adventure in Eritrea lasted for various decades with
ups and downs, resolving suddenly between 1936 and 1941 with the
conquest of Ethiopia, followed almost immediately by loss of its
whole colonial empire. The history of Italian civilians in Eritrea
continued until the end of the 1970s, when hostilities between
Eritrea and Ethiopia forced Europeans to repatriate.
Today the term Abyssinia is rejected by Eritreans and some
Ethiopians and the ill defined borders of Abyssinia are no longer of
political significance. Abused by Italian colonialists, the term is
no longer pleasing to the present people of the horn of Africa.
However, in our opinion, this is not sufficient reason to delete a
term of universal importance. The people of the high plain should
be proud to be known as Abyssinians, no less than Mediterraneans are
known as Latins. Abyssinia is still an intelligent and ancient name
for the land of the legendary Habashat or Axumites, the Kings of
Gonder and the Christian culture in the horn of Africa. It could be a
good reason to forget the differences persisting among Abyssinian
people!
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