The Kebra Nagast: Ethiopia's Book of the Glory of Kings

There is a story told in Ethiopia that begins with a queen. Her name is Makeda, and she rules a wealthy kingdom. Hearing of the wisdom of King Solomon of Israel, she travels to Jerusalem with a great caravan of gifts. She is so impressed by Solomon's wisdom that she converts to the worship of his God. Before she leaves, Solomon and Makeda have a son. That son, Menelik, will grow up to become the first king of a dynasty that ruled Ethiopia, according to tradition, for nearly three thousand years, and he will bring with him to Ethiopia the most sacred object in the world: the Ark of the Covenant. This story is told in the Kebra Nagast.

What is the Kebra Nagast?

The Kebra Nagast (Kəbrä Nägäśt) means "The Glory of the Kings" in Ge'ez, the classical language of Ethiopia, whose script we explored in our story on the Ge'ez script. It is a long work, divided into 117 chapters, that combines stories from the Bible, Jewish and Christian traditions, Islamic sources and Ethiopian legends.

Its central story concerns the Queen of Sheba, whom the Bible mentions briefly in the Book of Kings as a queen who visited Solomon with gifts. The Kebra Nagast develops this short biblical story into an epic in which the queen is Ethiopian, called Makeda, and her son with Solomon becomes the founder of Ethiopia's royal line.

The story

In outline, the Kebra Nagast tells how:

1. Makeda, Queen of Sheba, hears of Solomon's wisdom from a merchant named Tamrin, and travels to Jerusalem.
2. She learns from Solomon, and abandons the worship of the sun for the God of Israel.
3. Solomon tricks her into spending the night with him, and she conceives a son.
4. She returns home and gives birth to Menelik (Bayna Lehkem, "son of the wise man").
5. As a young man, Menelik travels to Jerusalem to meet his father. Solomon recognises him and wishes him to stay, but Menelik wants to return home. Solomon sends with him the firstborn sons of Israel's nobles.
6. Before leaving, these young men secretly take the Ark of the Covenant from the Temple and bring it to Ethiopia. When Solomon discovers the loss, it is too late: God's favour has passed to Ethiopia.
7. Menelik becomes king, establishing the Solomonic dynasty, and Ethiopia becomes the new Zion, God's chosen kingdom.

When was it written?

According to its own colophon, the Kebra Nagast was translated into Ge'ez in the early 14th century by a group of scholars led by a church official named Yeshaq of Aksum, from an Arabic version that was itself said to be translated from Coptic. Scholars debate how much of the work was translated and how much was composed in Ethiopia, but most agree that it took its present form around this time, drawing on older traditions.

Kings and legitimacy

The timing matters. In 1270, a nobleman named Yekuno Amlak overthrew the Zagwe dynasty, the builders of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, and claimed descent from the ancient kings of Aksum, and through them from Solomon and Sheba. The Kebra Nagast gave powerful support to this claim, presenting the new Solomonic rulers as the rightful heirs of a sacred line.

For the next seven centuries, Ethiopian emperors used the story to justify their rule. The Ethiopian constitution of 1955 stated that the emperor's line descended "without interruption" from Menelik I, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The last emperor, Haile Selassie I, overthrown in 1974, was regarded as the 225th ruler of the line.

The Ark in Aksum

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church holds that the Ark of the Covenant is kept today in a chapel beside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Aksum, guarded by a single monk who never leaves its precincts; no one else is permitted to see it. This belief is a matter of faith; no outsider has been allowed to see the object, and historians cannot verify the claim.

Every Ethiopian Orthodox church contains a tabot, a consecrated replica of the tablets of the Ark, without which the church cannot be consecrated. At the festival of Timket (Epiphany), the tabots are carried in procession through the streets.

History or legend?

The Kebra Nagast is best understood as a religious and political epic, not a historical record. Archaeologists and historians, such as David Phillipson, note that there is no archaeological evidence for an Ethiopian kingdom in the time of Solomon (the 10th century BCE), and that the story of Sheba may refer to a kingdom in south Arabia (Saba, in present-day Yemen), which had strong links with ancient Ethiopia. Yet the Kebra Nagast remains a work of great literary and religious importance.

Rastafari and beyond

The Kebra Nagast has had a powerful influence beyond Ethiopia. In Jamaica, the Rastafari movement, which emerged in the 1930s and regarded Haile Selassie as a divine figure, drew on the Kebra Nagast's story of Ethiopia as Zion. English translations, especially that of E.A. Wallis Budge (1922), circulated widely.

Why it matters

The Kebra Nagast shows how stories can shape nations. Through the tale of Makeda, Solomon and Menelik, it gave Ethiopia a sacred identity as the chosen land of the Ark, legitimised a royal dynasty for seven centuries, and inspired faith from Aksum to Kingston. Whether one reads it as scripture, history or legend, it remains one of Africa's most influential books.

Further reading

• E.A. Wallis Budge (trans.), The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kebra Nagast) (Oxford University Press, 1922)
• Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 (Clarendon Press, 1972)
• David W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the Northern Horn, 1000 BC–AD 1300 (James Currey, 2012)