- History before the Christian Era: [1-12]
1) Four-legged apes evolved to two-legged apes about 5 to 6 million years ago in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia.
2) Two-legged apes continued to evolve until Homo sapiens appeared about 200,000 years ago.
3) God likely breathed the spirit in the first human about 200,000 years ago in Ethiopia.
4) About 50,000 years ago humans dispersed out of Africa . The skin color of humans is an adaptation strategy for survival at pertinent latitudes developed over many years.
5) 10,000 to 12,000 years ago the Semitic language propagated from Ethiopia through Egypt to the Middle East from which sprang the Hebraic and Arabic languages.
6) Some researches interpret that Enoch, the grandfather of Noah, was an Ethiopians because the full text “Meshafe Henok” (Enoch 1, or the Ethiopic Book of Enoch) is preserved only in Ge’ez but not in any other language. These same people suggest that the Ge’ez is quite an ancient script. Others suggest that Enoch 1 and another book called Enoch 2 ( the “Secretes of Enoch”, the full text of which is in Slovanic) were written in the Christian era.
7) The names of an Ethiopian royal family, King Cepheus, Queen Cassiopeia, and their daughter Andromeda are given to constellations in the northern sky and are preserved for posterity. The story of the family is found in Greek mythology, while some researchers suggest that there is more to the story and further interpret that ancient Ethiopians were astronomers.
8) Ethiopians, called Punt, traded with pharaoanic Egypt by arriving in boats as depicted on tombstones beginning about 2450 BCE.
9) Prophet Moses who was fostered in an Egyptian pharaoh's palace, and later led the exodus of Israelites out of Egypt, was married to an Ethiopian. He was ordered by God to construct the Arc of the Covenant at Mount Sinai . By about 950 BCE King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem . However, the Arc of the Covenant was not Present in the Temple in 578 BCE when the Iraqi king, Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the Temple . Later, the Persian king, Cyrus, allowed the construction of the Second Temple . That Temple was destroyed in AD 70 by the Roman emperor, Titus. The Temple was rebuilt for a third time. The Arc of the Covenant was never available to be placed in the Second or the Third Temple .
10) The Arc of the Covenant from Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem likely arrived in Lake Tana in the first millennium BCE. The queen of the South (Negista Azeb) that Christ said will stand in judgment of the people of Jerusalem is believed to refer to Ethiopia whose queen had the Arc of the Covenant. Ethiopian legend asserts that the Queen was Makda and that she lived at Aksum . She visited Solomon, and they had a son, Menelik I. Menelik I along with the first born of the Israelis, so the legend goes, brought the Arc of the Covenant to Ethiopia . Those people then are the fathers of the Beta Israel or Felasha (Ethiopian Jews) and other Ethiopians. Some authors consider that the Arc of the covenant likely came about 500 BCE.
11) In the 1st Millennium BCE there is archeological evidence, which indicates that people of South Arabian type had lived in Ethiopia . At least one researcher has proposed that Arabs as well as Jews immigrated southward to Ethiopia during the period of Nebuchadnezzar. The Arabs then migrated eastward from Ethiopia to South Arabia . However, most researches believe that South Arabians migrated westward to Northern Ethiopia. In whatever form the South Arabians, commonly known as Sabaeans and named for one of the provinces in South Arabia, might have relocated to Ethiopia, they had interacted with northern Ethiopians or the Puntites.
12) Ethiopians of northern and central Ethiopia reorganized to form the Pre-Aksumite D’MT kingdom. This was a thriving and literate society. However, when Egypt fell to the Greeks pursuant to the conquest by Alexander the Great, the inter-connection between South Arabia and Ethiopia was stopped. That connection was started again in the Christian era.
HG: Revised 11/1/2010
