[CPProt.net] Abysinia and the Ethiopian Strategic Background analysis

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Abysinia and the Ethiopian Strategic Background analysis 
Is it true Menilek, the son of Biblical King of Israel?

September 30, 2005

Richard Pankhurst

The return to Ethiopia of the Tabot looted from Maqdala by the British in
1868 has caused several beloved readers to beg me to postpone my articles on
Ethiopia's twentieth century confrontation with the European powers, and
write something about Tabots and Manbara Tabots.

Introduction

Before doing so I think two points are in order: Firstly, now that the
Episcopal of Scotland has returned the Tabot found in Edinburgh, we wonder
when the British Museum will disgorge the ten Tabots in its possession
likewise looted from Maqdala.

Secondly, now that the Episcopal Church, motivated by a most praise-worthy
belief in justice, has, of its own free will, carried out this act of
restitution, we wonder how long the Italian Government will continue to
violate its supposedly solemn agreement, signed with the Ethiopian
Government in 1997, to return the Aksum obelisk looted on Mussolini's
personal orders in 1937.

But to return to the Tabot question!

Ethiopian Legend about the Ark Legend in Ethiopia, since early times, has
had it that one of the country's first rulers was Makeda, the Queen of
Sheba, who travelled to King Solomon, the Biblical King of Israel, to learn
of his wisdom. On returning to her country she bore him a son, by name
Menilek, who later visited his father in Jerusalem. The Jewish king, it is
claimed, begged the young man to remain with him as his heir, but Menilek
insisted on returning to his mother in Ethiopia. Solomon sadly agreed, but,
declaring him his first-born child, insisted that he should be accompanied
home by the first-born son of the High Priest, as well as the first-born of
the principal men of state.

Menilek and the children of Israel duly departed, but before they did so
they are said to have purloined the Ark of the Covenant, which they wanted
to take with them into Ethiopia as "they could not live without it". Menilek
was not privy to the plot, but when told about it some days after their
departure from Israel, supposedly declared that as they had succeeded it
"must have been the will of God". Drawing of three Manbara tabots, at the
church of Golgotha, at Lalibla This tradition is embodied in the "Kebra
Nagast", or Glory of Kings, an early fourteenth century Ethiopian national
epic, which has been described by Professor Edward Ullendorff, perhaps the
doyen of Ethiopian studies, as "the foremost creation of Ethiopic
literature".

The story has more than one version, and finds interesting expression in one
of the most popular of Ethiopian traditional paintings: "strip cartoons" of
Sheba's visit to Solomon. The legend of Sheba's visit to Solomon was widely
cited in the Ethiopian royal chronicles, and is also referred to in Emperor
Haile Sellassie's two Ethiopian Constitutions, of 1931 and 1955, which state
that the monarch must be of that descent. In the first Solomon is mentioned
before the Queen; in the second, Sheba before the King!

The tradition that the Ark embodying the Almighty's commands to Moses had
been reported at least a century before the "Kebra Nagast" when the very
early thirteenth century Armenian writer Abu Salih wrote: "the Abyssinians
possess the Ark of the Covenant"

The Tabot, or Altar Slab

The above tradition also finds expression in an important feature of
Ethiopian Orthodox Church life: the existence in every Ethiopian church of
at least one Tabot, or altar slab, which is considered as a symbolic
representation of the Ark of the Covenant. The Tabot is in fact so important
that it is this Ark - and not the church building - which is consecrated,
and which gives sanctity to the building in which it is placed. This can
most vividly be seen at the Temqat, or Epiphany, celebrations at Gondar when
the city's Tabots are taken into the Fasiladas palace with the pool.

The significance of the Tabot is likewise evident from the fact that
churches are sometimes referred to by the name of the Tabot: An eighteenth
century land charter of Emperor Takla Giyorgis states for example that this
ruler granted land to "the tabot of Gabre'el at Adwa". Because of its
sanctity the Tabot is invariably housed in the central section of the
church: the "Qedus Qedusan", or Holy of Holies, into which none but the
clergy may enter. The Tabot plays moreover a major role in church ritual.
The Tabot, as many readers will have seen this Temqat, is thus covered in
costly cloth, and carried around with much singing and ritual dancing, the
beating of drums and staffs or prayer sticks, and the slow and elegant
rattling of sistra.

This practice, as many commentators have noted, is strongly reminiscent of
the Biblical passage which tells of King David and the people dancing in
front of the Ark. Tabots, always honourably shrouded in specially chosen
vestments, are taken out of their churches each year on especial occasion,
most notably on the eve of Temqat, when they are carried to a river or lake
beside which they spend the night before the main celebrations on the
morrow. Tabots are likewise carried around on Saints' days, as well as on
military campaigns when they accompanied the soldiers.

One of the most celebrated Tabots, now housed at the Medhane Alem church on
the opposite side of the road from Addis Ababa University, and the institute
of Ethiopian Studies Museum, accompanied Emperor Haile Sellassie during his
exile in Bath, England, in 1936-41.

The Tabot is conventionally a small slab of wood - or occasionally stone -
two and a half inches or more thick, and ranging from perhaps six inches by
five to sixteen inches by ten in length and width. It is often engraved with
one or more cross, or sometimes with a representation of Christ in the form
of a lamb, or of the Virgin and Child. There is usually an inscription, in
Ge'ez, indicating the Biblical personage or Saint to which it is dedicated,
and sometimes the Ge'ez words for Alpha and Omega.

Few will, however, ever read such words, for the Tabot is invariably closely
closeted, and, despite its above-mentioned peregrinations, will never be
seen except by officiating priests. Despite its religious and cultural
importance, the Tabot is usually but simply decorated. Tabots, because of
the veneration in which they were held, have seldom been described. One of
the first to do so was the seventeenth century Jesuit Manoel Barradas. He
says Tabots were "commonly of wood, some well wrought and incised or
painted... other are of stone, white and beautiful like marble" He claims to
have seen one which was unusual in bearing the names of no fewer than seven
Saints.

The Manbara Tabot, or Altar

The Tabot is traditionally kept in a Manbara Tabot, which is a kind of Altar
Chest, in a sense comparable to an Altar. There are two basic firms. The
simplest consists of a single hollow wooden cube with a hinged door and four
small legs. The more complex version are formed out of three similar cubes,
arranged horizontally, likewise with four feet. Only the lowest cube will,
however, be used as a repository for the Tabot. Some other Manbara Tabots
are designed more in the shape of "sentry boxes". Some such Manbara Tabots
may nowadays be man-high, and indeed sometimes so tall that it may be
difficult to pass them through a church door.

Manbara Tabots are in many cases beautifully carved, and painted with consid
erable skill. Because of the awe with which they are regarded they are
seldom seen by either lay Ethiopians or visiting foreigners. It is, however,
possible to see new ones at the studios of church artistscommissioned to
produce them - and one such artifact found its way into the Ashmolean Museum
in Oxford.

For the same reason relatively little has been written about Manbara Tabots.
Perhaps the first reference is in the chronicle of the early seventeenth
century Adal conqueror, Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, better known a Ahmad Gragn,
or the Left-handed, which tells of his men breaking into the church of
Atronsa Maryam, in Amhara, where his men came across one such artifact, with
four legs, weighing no less than a thousand ounces. With the above deviation
I trust, dear readers, to return next week to the ramifications of the
Tripartite Agreement of 1906, by which the three colonial powers sought to
partition the country into three spheres of economic interest, "in the
interest", as the British representative wrote, "of Whites as against
Blacks".

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