Regnal lists of Ethiopia are recorded lists of monarchs who are claimed by tradition to have ruled the territory of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the historical territory of the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian Empire. These lists are often recorded on manuscripts or orally by monasteries and have been passed down over the centuries.
Many surviving physical regnal lists, as well as recorded oral lists, chronicle the line of kings beginning with Menelik I to the Solomonic dynasty. According to tradition, Menelik is believed to be the son of queen Makeda (the Biblical Queen of Sheba) and king Solomon. The rulers that followed Menelik were the kings of Axum, the Zagwe dynasty and the Solomonic dynasty. Some traditions record monarchs who reigned before Menelik. These regnal lists were used to prove the longevity of the Ethiopian monarchy and to provide legitimacy for the Solomonic dynasty until its fall from power in 1974. Eritrea became de facto independent from Ethiopia in 1991, and thus literature on regnal lists before this usually referred to them simply as "Ethiopian" and/or "Axumite" regnal lists. These lists were also referred to as "Abyssinian" because Abyssinia was a term used historically to refer to the highland areas of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Traditions and origins of the lists Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions record a range of different monarchs from earlier times whose existence has not been verified by modern-day archeology. Their stories and legends may have elements of truth but it is unclear to what extent this is the case. Numerous king lists have been recorded either on manuscripts or via oral tradition. However, surviving information on the kings prior to the reign of emperor Yekuno Amlak (1270–1285) is often scattered, incomplete or contradictory. The king lists that do refer to pre-1270 Ethiopia rarely match completely with one another. This variation is likely because the lists were compiled over a long time period across several different monasteries. It is also possible that the variations in succession order could be due to tampering with the lists after the 13th century that resulted from "dynastic quarrels" and "ideological re-readings" of the Axumite regnal lists.
Carlo Conti Rossini suggested the lists were compiled in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries following the restoration of the Solomonic dynasty and were compiled from Arabic documents, inscriptions on coins and monuments, and, in the case of some names, from South Arabian mythology.
The chronography found in the regnal lists and related documents "seem to have developed following some points of the biblical chronological framework". The most common quoted points in the chronography in the lists are: The time from Arwe to Makeda – c. 800 years From Makeda to Bazen (in whose reign Christ was born) – c. 1,000 years From Bazen to the "brother-kings" Abreha and Atsbeha – c. 400 years The reign of Gebre Meskel The Zagwe dynasty The accession of emperor Yekuno Amlak – 1270 CE
Regnal list variations
Historian Manfred Kropp noted that numerous regnal lists exist that date back to the 13th century and these are reliable documents. However, for the period before this there are only legendary memories of the Axumite rulers. Regnal lists were created to provide a connection between the Solomonic dynasty and the legendary Axumite kings while skipping the Zagwe dynasty. Such lists were written for the purpose of proving the legitimacy of the ruling Solomonic emperors and had information drawn from chronicles held in monasteries. Kropp believed that Ethiopian regnal lists were intended to fill in the gaps between major events, such as the meeting of Makeda and Solomon, the arrival of Frumentius and the beginning of the Zagwe dynasty. The great variation in names and order between regnal lists was likely because this process took place across several different monasteries and were also passed on orally.
Not all names on the regnal lists are Abyssinian in origin. Some names originate from South Arabian mythology, the religious language of Alexandria, and Greco-Roman sources, and transformed into local Abyssinian forms.
E. A. Wallis Budge commented that any written information on the period of Ethiopian history before the 13th century was "incomplete" and "untrustworthy". However, he felt that this was because any regnal lists or chronological works held in Axum were likely burned or destroyed before Yekuno Amlak ascended the throne in 1270. Budge noted that numerous regnal lists were known to exist in which the number and order of kings were rarely the same. He felt that it was clear that the chronographers of Abyssinia from the 13th and 14th centuries "did not know how many kings had reigned over [their country] from the time of Makeda [...] or the exact order of succession". Budge theorized that while the regnal lists showed evidence that they were based on legend and tradition, some parts of the list suggested that the scribes did indeed "[have] access to chronological and historical documents of some kind", including Coptic and Arabic texts which were possibly brought over by monks fleeing Egypt and Nubia during the time of the Arab conquests. Some lists began with Adam or David.
Spanish Missionary Pedro Páez believed that the reason for the differences in names on various lists was because the Ethiopian emperors used different names prior to their accession to the throne, and some lists used their regnal names while others listed their birth names. This was supposedly done in imitation of Menelik I, who was named David when he was crowned. E. A. Wallis Budge theorised that the existence of multiple king lists suggest that these represent rival claimants to the throne.
Studies and comparisons of the regnal lists
The book Chaldeae seu Aethiopicae linguae institutiones by Mariano Vittori was notable for being the first European book on Ge'ez grammar, and was published in Rome in 1552. There was a leaflet with a list of kings was included as an appendix containing 153 names up to emperor Lebna Dengel.
Two European missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries, Pedro Páez and Manuel de Almeida, visited Ethiopia and personally saw two different regnal lists on which they based their respective writings on the history of Ethiopia. The manuscripts likely dated to before 1620. Both Páez and de Almeida stated that the Ethiopian emperor lent them books from the church of Axum containing the regnal lists.
August Dillmann wrote an article comparing the regnal lists in 1853. Dillman compared three lists and simply named them as A, B and C. Dillmann believed that list A was the longest because it included all rulers, regents, co-regents, pretenders and even heads of individual parts of the empire, while lists B and C only had the most important names.
Carlo Conti Rossini attempted to co-ordinate and compare the large number of different regnal lists, bringing together 86 different lists from libraries in Ethiopia and Italian Eritrea. The lists were divided into eight groups based on similarities and number of kings, and they were categorized by the letters A to H. Rossini's list A, B and C match Dillmann's C, B and A respectively.
Across Rossini's different lists, no name appears on all lists and no individual list contains all recorded names. The most common names to appear on the lists are Menelik I, Bazen, Abreha and Atsbeha and Gebre Meskel.
Regnal lists of the Aksumite period The following section details the types of regnal lists that chronicle the rulers of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea before the Zagwe dynasty, covering both the legendary and historical periods of the Kingdom of Aksum.
Dillmann List A / Rossini List C
August Dillmann's List A and Carlo Conti Rossini's List C both begin with the legendary serpent king Arwe and end with the Axumite king Gebre Meskel, containing 91 names. The names and regnal lengths below are taken from these two lists. Reign lengths in italics are outliers that only appear on a few lists, and priority is given to reign lengths that appear on both Dillmann's and Rossini's lists. Names can vary greatly across regnal lists, so priority for names is also given to those that appear on both lists.
Dillmann noted that his list A could be found in the works of Mariano Vittori, James Bruce, Edmond Combes, Maurice Tamisier and Eduard Rüppell.
Dillmann believed that list A was the longest of the three he compiled because it included all rulers, regents, co-regents, pretenders and even heads of individual parts of the empire, while lists B and C only had the most important names.
Rossini's list C was based on 16 documents dating to the 16th–19th centuries. These include certain copies of the Kebra Nagast and regnal lists recorded by Pedro Páez, Manuel de Almeida and Mariano Vittori.
Because this list ends with Gebre Meskel and does not continue to the end of the Axumite kingdom, some writers chose to 'complete' the line of kings by using other lists. Dillmann noted that Eduard Rüppell continued by using list B, while Mariano Vittori used what Dillmann called list C. James Bruce's list diverges after the reign of Bazen and matches Dillmann's list C/Rossini's list A after this point.
The following table is mostly based on Dillmann's and Rossini's lists, but will also include information from these sources: Chaldeae seu Aethiopicae linguae institutiones by Mariano Vittori (1552). The second of three regnal lists recorded by Pedro Páez in his book História da Etiópia (1620). Páez believed this list contained the throne names kings took upon their accession, while he thought his first list contained birth names. A manuscript from Debre Libanos of unknown age has a similar line of succession to this list. Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (Volume 2) by James Bruce (1790). He had gathered information for his regnal list from local scribes, though did not believe they were trustworthy or that his regnal list was complete. A Voyage to Abyssinia (1814) by Henry Salt. After the joint reign of Abreha and Atsbeha, Salt's list diverges from Dillmann's list A/Rossini's list C and instead matches list B from both historians. Voyage en Abyssinie (Volume 3) by Edmond Combes and Maurice Tamisier (1838). Combes and Tamisier included two lists for the period from Menelik to Bazen. The first list is similar to James Bruce's list except it omits two rulers who reigned before Bazen, while the second list is similar to Henry Salt's list except it replaces Handadyo's name with "Zagdur" used by Bruce and mistakenly gives Gasyo 4 months of rule. Combes and Tamisier's list from Bazen to Abreha and Atsbeha is almost identical to Salt's list, including moving Abreha and Atsbeha's reign much earlier, except that Zegen and Rema (no. 39 and 40) are mistakenly counted as one ruler. Reise in Abyssinien (Volume 2) by Eduard Rüppell (1840). His list begins with Bazen and dates the period from the birth of Christ to the reign of Gebre Meskel as 5500 to 6214 A.M. (up to the year 714 on the Gregorian calendar). His list then continues in a way that matches the "List B" recorded by both Dillmann and Rossini. The first of two manuscripts held in the British Museum published in E. A. Wallis Budge's A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia Volume I (1928). This manuscript was filed under Oriental No. 821, fol. 28b. Budge did not quote any names before Ebna El-Hakim or after Abreha and Atsbeha. A list of kings provided by E. A. Wallis Budge which he dated to the period c. 360–550 from the end of Abreha and Atsbeha's joint reign to the beginning of Gabra Maskal's reign. Budge was unclear on the source of his information, and appears to combine information from different lists into this one. He believed these monarchs were "kinglets" who ruled parts of Ethiopia separate from other lines of kings between 360 and 480.