Abiy cAddi 2; CARLO CONTI-ROSSINI, "Note di other learning institutions, a hospital, clinics, Lit.: KinBibl 59f., no.

agiografia etiopiea. lAbiya KgziJ, Arkaledes e Gabra-lyasus", telephone and electric services. RSO 17, 1938, 409-52; BORIS TURAIEV, Issledovamya v Estimated population in 1978 was about 7,500, oblasli agwlogichcskib istochnikov istoni F.fiopii ('Res but the construction and demographic boom in the Held of Ethiopian Hagiologica] Sources'), St. Petersburg 1902, 100-17. continues till today. Michel van Esbroeck Src: interviews with abba A Y Y A L A TASI' A , age 85, August 2001, 'Abiy cAddi; mamhar G A B R A CABIYA 3GZIJ DASTA, age 76; ato QlRQOS G A B R A MADHHN, age 71; Gmda 281; CENTRAL STATISTICAL OFFICE (ed.), Ethiopia. Statistical Abraha Abstract, Addis Ababa 1978, 31. Tsegay Berhe G. Libanos Between 531 and 542 A.D. JA. (under this name known from the Arabic as BRH in South Arabian sources), reportedly an Ethiopian soldier c and former slave, deposed the Sabaean aristocrat Abiya 3gzP 1 J l c c C A.3. (1(l.f: hlHh) was a 14* cent. Ethiopian SMYF W [VSumyafa Aswa ], who had been saint. According to the fictivc spiritual genealogy appointed as Ethiopian vassal king in Saba" after killed the Jewish king (BritLib, Orient. 695, fol. 74v), CA.3. has to be 3lla Asboha (^Kaleb) had J J placed between a certain Yahrayanna 3gziJ and Du Nuwas (/ Yusuf As ar Yat ar). Kaleb's efforts /"Arkalados, his second successor as abbot, under to regain supremacy over South Arabia were in whom LA.3.'s hagiography (/' Gddl) was written. vain, but after his death A. agreed to pay tribute Therefore CA.H. must have lived in the first half to his successor (Procopius I, 20). He died at an of the 14th cent. His Acts report that he per- unknown date after 553 A.D. Later Arabic formed miracles in the monasteries of Saq"al and sources expand A.'s story with semi-mythical of a great Salamge, in /Waldnbba, where he looked for a details, including his construction c J "hidden church", K"alsagadu, Mergasa Ayba, church at al-Qulays (San a ) and his expedition to where he prevented the ruler (mdk" dnnm) of conquer /"Mecca in the "Year of the Elephant". A. is attested in four Sabaean inscriptions: Amba Sanayti from attacking the sayyum of Tamben. CA.H. died on 19 Gmbot in his monas- 1) In C1H 541 (543 A.D.) T3RH [=A.J put down tery of Dabra Madhanit. The sayyum of Maratta revolts, repaired the dam and received Aksumite, and his followers, who wanted to plunder it Byzantine, Sasanian (Persian) and North Arabian shortly after the saint's death, were forced to flee embassies. A. held two titles:' zly I mlkn I 'g'zyn by miraculous thunder and lightning. I rmhs I zbymn (cf. Kropp 1991; Miiller The collection of miracles (only one of them 1978:65ff.; s. ill.) and the late-Sabacan title: mlk I posthumous) attached to the biography of CA.3., sb' I w(d)[r]ydn I whdrmwt I wymnt (/) appears to reflect a much later period, after ase w"rbhm[ii)} I t(%v)dm I wthm(t) 'king of Saba" /7Av\ YaLsqob (since the famous monastery of and Du-Raydan and Hadramawt and Yamanat abba Takla Haymanot is mentioned as /"Dabra and the bedouins of the highland and the coast'. Libanos, and not as Dabra Asbo), or even later, 2) In Ry 506 (547 A.D.) JBRH put down revolts after Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-Gazi's invasion. These of Central-Arabian tribes and negotiated with miracles expand the influence of the saint into cAmr Ibn al-Mundir . southern Ethiopia - into the regions of Amhara, 3) An inscription found near Ry 506 of a high Goggam and Sawa. official of king A. mentions mlk I brh (cAbdel C The Gddl of A.3. was copied in the same ms. Monem 1988). as that of Arkalados (BritLib, Orient. 695, fol. 1- 4) Ja 544-547 (553 A.D.) describes repair-work at J 74, a codex from the 18th cent.). The ms. has been the dam; in Ja 546/2-4 BRH is mentioned. described by Turaiev (1902) and by Conti Rossini (1938). The ms. Orient. 700 has a more recent copy of the life, and Conti Rossini found a third ms. in Ethiopia (s. Raineri 1986, no. 176). The G'ddl has not yet been published. Src: WrBriMus 180, ms. 271 [Orient. 695]; 183f., ins. 277 [Orient. 700]; OSVALDO RAINERI, "Libri di uso prevalentemente liturgico tra i manoseritti 'Cerulli etiopici' della Vaticana", Ephcmendcs Liturgicae 100, 2, 1986, 171-85, here A fragment of inscription CIH41, from Staatliches Museum no. 176 [Cerulli Etiopico 68]. fur Volkerkunde (ed.) 2000:270. 42

Abraha Tasamma Src: PROCOPIUS, De hello Persico, tr. by HENRY nessmen. In 1949 he organized the biggest bus BRONSON DEWING, London 1957, I, XX; CIH 541 (ill.); company in Eritrea, known as the S.A.T.A.E. ALBERT JAMME, "Inscriptions des alentours de Mareb I", (Societa Anonima Trasporti Automobilistici di Cahiers de Byrsa 5, 1955, 275-79, nos. Ja 544-47; GONZAGUE RYCKMANS, "Inscriptions sud-arabes, Eritrea), of which he later became chairman. dixieme serie", Le Museon 66, 1953, 275-84, no. Ry 506; His interests also extended to painting, which STAATLICHES M U S E U M FUR VOLKERKUNDE (ed.), Im he pursued in the 1920s and 1930s, developing Lande der Konigin von Saba, Miinchen 2000, 270 (ill.). the technique of combining Eritrean themes and Lit.: ALFRED FELIX LANDON BEESTON, "Notes on the Mureighan Inscription", BSOAS 16, 2, 1954, 391f.; style with those of Western art. He was equally S A Y E D CABDEL MONEM, "Emendations to the Bir Mu- engaged in social activities. From 1949 onward, rayghan Inscription Ry 506 and a New Minor Inscrip- he was an active member (and at one point tion from there", Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian chairman) of the Eritrean Children Welfare Studies 18, 1988, 131-43; MICHAEL KlSTER, "The Cam- Society. He was also president of the Arbitral paign of Huluban. A New Light on the Expedition of Abraha", Le Museon 78, 1965, 425-36; MANFRED Court, which dealt with conflicts between Christian highlanders and Muslim lowlanders. . KROPP, "Abreha's Names and Titles", Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 21, 1991, 135-44; WALTER Furthermore, A.T. was a lucid thinker and an W. MULLER, "Abessinier und ihre Titel und Namen in eloquent speaker with a great interest in liberal-, vorislamischen siidarabischen Inschriften", Neue Ephe- ity, freedom and the improvement of social life. meris fiir Semitische Epigraphik 3, 1978, 159-68; ID., Because of this he entered politics by joining the "Abreha", in: Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopadie der Antike, founding members of the first Eritrean political Stuttgart - Weimar 1996, 30f. (Lit.). Alexander Sima movement, the /Mahbar faqri hagar,-in 1941. Following dissension among the leading politicians in the wa'ala ('convention') at Bet Gargas in 1946, in the next year he founded the Abraha Tasamma /Liberal Progressive Party which eventually gazmac A.T. (h-ttW- -f-rt"?, b. 1901, d. coalesced with other small parties to form the 1967) was an Eritrean intellectual, businessman Independence Party in 1950. He was elected to and politician. A.T., the first-born son of ra's the Constituent Assembly in 1952 and subse/"Tasamma, received both the traditional church quently contested for the highest post of Chief and Western education in his youth before Executive, for which /Tadla Bayru did not enrolling in the Italian school of agriculture in forgive him. He was subsequently accused of /Mandafara. After graduation he continued his being involved in an assassination plot and was church education, which included Amharic, a imprisoned, though there was hardly any eviskill that became useful' at certain points in his dence for such a crime. The unjust treatment he career. In 1,918-29 he acted as the secretary and suffered served as a bad omen for the representative of his father while at the same / Eritrean-Ethiopian Federation, which he time administering the district of Haddagti. He voiced openly in a speech declaring that it could also governed various districts in his own right. never function. In 1955, he filed a case of reIn 1940-41, the Italian colonial administration dress with the Supreme Court of Eritrea for the appointed him counsellor to the governor of injustice he had suffered, but in vain. The ImpeAmhara governorate. Returning to Eritrea after rial Ethiopian government, with which he was the war, he served as district governor until unpopular, dominated the political arena, and 1948, when he was appointed assistant to the he withdrew altogether from politics and dedipolitical secretary of the /British Military Ad- cated himself to "business, agriculture, and ministration in Asmara. He was promoted to community improvement" (KilHDic 28). the post of-counsellor in the same office in June 1950. In April 1952, he was appointed as secre- Lit.: ErDizBio 3ff.; JORDAN GEBRE-MEDHIN, Peasants and tary of internal affairs under the British Ad- Nationalism in Eritrea. A Critique of Ethiopian Studies, Trenton 1989, 83, 93ff., 161f.; E D W A R D U.LLENDORFF, ministration of Eritrea. From the Bible to Enrico Cerulli. A Miscellany of Ethiopian A.T. was versatile in his interests and skills, and and Semitic Papers, Stuttgart 1990 (AeF 32), 199; KilHDic he engaged himself in various activities including 28f.; SHUMET SlSHAGNE, Discord and Fragmentation in Politics, 1941-1981, Ph.D. thesis, University of experimentation with various imported plants, Eritrean Illinois 1992, 85, 100, 250-55; TEKESTE NEGASH, Eritrea plumbing, lumbering, etc., particularly in his and Ethiopia: the Federal Experience, Uppsala 1997, 84, home district. Since the 1930s, he had also be- 86ff., 90, 95, 97,102. Bairu Tafia come one of the most successful Eritrean busi43