Ethiopian Emperors Family Tree (Solomonic Dynasty) | feat. From Nothing

hi this is jabari from the youtube channel from nothing i'll be guest narrating today and show you the family tree of the solomonic dynasty from ethiopia the solomonic dynasty claims to be the oldest dynasty in the world and traces its roots all the way back to the biblical king of solomon in this video i'll be starting with these legendary beginnings and tracing the line from the ancient kings of aksum to the medieval and modern emperors of ethiopia all the way to the current heirs to the ethiopian throne today i'll be using this family tree chart designed by matt which can be downloaded for free using the link in the [Music] description [Music] royal dynasties whether they be from africa europe asia etc often trace their origins back to some sort of legendary beginnings for example denmark traces its royal family back to the legendary viking named ragnar lotbrok and the imperial house of japan traces its lines back to a legendary emperor named jimmu connecting one's dynasty to a revered person from the distant past was a way to legitimatize one's rule in the present in the case of ethiopia when yakuno amlok defeated the zagway kings to become emperor it was claimed that he was simply re-establishing the rule of the dynasty that went all the way back to king solomon king solomon of course is a major character in the bible he was the son of king david and is said to have built the first temple in jerusalem according to most mainstream historians king david and solomon are considered to be legendary figures this means that they probably did exist but the stories we receive about them likely contain a lot of embellishments and exaggerations for example the archaeological evidence indicates that jerusalem was a rather small city during the time of solomon whereas the bible describes a very large and rich palace which would have had to been supported by a large population according to 1 kings chapter 10 a certain queen of sheba came to visit solomon because she had heard of his great wisdom in the biblical account they talked for a long time exchanged some expensive gifts and then she simply returned home however according to ethiopian tradition that's not all that happened in the quebra nagas which is ethiopia's national origin story the queen of sheba was named makeda and she and solomon had relations when she returned home she gave birth to a son named menelik who went on to become the first king of ethiopia menelik later went to meet solomon as an adult and was given the ark of the covenant which he brought back to ethiopia now if you've seen the indiana jones movie readers of the lost ark you will know what the ark supposedly looked like it was sacred to the ancient israelite people because it was said to hold the ten commandments inside but again all of this is legend it's impossible to know what really happened but it is possible that there is some sort of truth to the story what we do know is that just prior to the start of the common era a powerful kingdom did emerge in ethiopia known as aksum it replaced the earlier kingdom of kush as the dominant state south of egypt these are historical facts and there's a lot of archaeological evidence to back it up unfortunately though we don't have a lot of textual information about the various kings of aksum but we do have some starting with the first historically verifiable king zahakallah in the first century ce who may have also been known as zascalis a few generations after zahakala during the reign of king azana we know that christianity made its way to ethiopia through the work of saint frementius and the nine saints we also know that in the sixth century there was a oxumit king named caleb who expanded the oximite territory onto the arabian peninsula by conquering a kingdom there called himyar it is important to note that by this point there was regular trade going on between ethiopia and india and aksum was considered one of the greatest powers of its day according to oral tradition the oximite kingdom came to an end in the 9th century during the ring of king dylan na'aud supposedly an evil queen named gudit destroyed aksum burning all of its churches and had all male members of the royal family killed she then went on to reign for about 40 years after guditz we get the zagway dynasty which ruled ethiopia for over 300 years the first king mara takla heymanath married the daughter of the last king of aksum in order to provide continuity under the zagwood dynasty christianity was restored and many churches were rebuilt but then in the year 1270 we get yekuno amlac who i mentioned at the beginning of this video he overthrew the zagwood dynasty claiming that he was a descendant of a male child who had escaped gudet's slaughter therefore making him the true heir to the oximeter kings the solomonic dynasty was thus established and would go on to rule ethiopia for the next 700 years so even if we can't say for certain whether or not the solomonic line goes all the way back to king solomon we do know for certain that it goes back at least to 1270 and as far as dynasties go that still makes it one of the oldest and longest reigning dynasties in world history the ethiopian word for king is nagus but during the reign of the solomonic dynasty the rulers of ethiopia started using the title negusa nagast instead which means king of kings and was therefore equivalent to the word emperor there were a lot of solomonic emperors of ethiopia so i'm not going to go through each one instead we're just going to hit some of the highlights until we get closer to the present the next person i'll point out is emperor amda sayon the first who reigned from 1314 to 1344. he greatly expanded ethiopia's territory and it was during his reign that the k brandon of gost and several other great works of ethiopian literature were written a couple of generations down from amda sayon we get zara jacob which means seed of jacob he was also known as constantine the first after the death of his first wife he married a woman named eleni who had previously been a muslim princess whose lanes had been conquered and converted by after the death of her first husband she became an important political figure during the reigns of his sons and grandsons demonstrating that women had held positions of power throughout ethiopian history she died during the reign of daoa ii for whom she had originally served as a regent later in dallas reign he fought a major war against the nearby adal sultanate which was supported by the powerful ottoman empire but there was no clear winner in the war and the conflict just ended up weakening both sides and a pyrrhic victory it is at this point that the solomonic dynasty split into hundreds of several branches the two most important ones being the gandara branch and the shua branch so after dao at the second we get 5 more emperors from the main branch before the line moves to the gandara branch the first emperor from the gandara branch was susenos the first it was around this time that the aroma people started to migrate into ethiopia today the aroma comprised the largest ethnic group in the country cecinius was followed by thessalytus who was the person who was credited with founding the city of gandar and moving the capital there he built the facile gabby castle as well as the saint mary of zion cathedral which to this day is said to house the ark of the covenant thessalytus was followed by johannes the first and then by iyasu the first he also called the great initiated many administrative reforms and took a keen interest in religious matters however he ended up being assassinated by his own son and this eventually led to a period known as the zemene messephind which in english can be translated as era of princes or era of judges during this period central authority broke down and various regional princes held power instead with the emperor being more of a figurehead i would however like to point out another powerful woman who wielded power during this period mentaiwob she was the wife of iyasu the great's son pakafa and was the power behind the throne during the reigns of her son and grandson and even had herself crowned as co-emperor in total the era of princes lasted about 150 years until 1855 when t wildrose ii became the emperor and reunified the country so modern ethiopian history is usually considered to start with him his hold on power was tenuous and tough and therefore he reached out to the british for help but britain refused to send troops resulting in a conflict between the two countries whence he will just held the british ambassador and some british citizens hostage britain responded by sending a massive show of force on a rescue mission in total they sent 280 ships from india which included 13 000 soldiers and 44 war elephants the force landed via the red sea and it took them three months to march across the difficult terrain to the emperor's fortress in the end te wojo's committed suicide and britain successfully rescued the hostages however britain did not stay to occupy the country and ethiopia remained independent in fact ethiopia was the only country in africa that was not claimed by europeans during the time period known as the scramble for africa after tuojo's a descendant from the earlier zagway dynasty claimed the crown for a few years but then he was defeated by emperor johannes iv another descendant of the gandar branch however his appointed heir died shortly before him so after johannes iv there was a power struggle between these two men here rasman geisha johannes who had previously been known as the nephew of the emperor but later claimed to actually be the emperor's son and menelik ii menelik was the descendant of the powerful shua branch of the solomonic dynasty he was the son of highly malachor and the grandson of saleh salasi both of whom had been kings of yeshua prior to the reunification of the country under tiwo just the second eventually menelik ii won the power struggle with the help of his uncle darge saleh salasi and became the last confirmed male line descendant of the solomonic dynasty to rule as emperor early in his reign the italians attacked ethiopia but the ethiopians were able to successfully repel them because millek ii only had daughters the throne initially passed straight to his grandson iyasu v however iyasu was never actually crowned his father a powerful noble named michael had previously been muslim and there were concerns that iyasu might eventually come to support islam therefore his aunt judith became the reigning empress instead she had been married to the heir of johannes the fourth that i mentioned earlier however since ethiopia had always been ruled by a male suditi was given a regent the regent was this man here originally known as rastafari makanin rastafari was the member of the shua branch as well but through a female line so when emperor suditu died he became emperor under the name haile selassie the first there was actually another person ross casa son of darge saleh salasi who had a better claim but ross casa chose to support hale salasi highlight selassie ended up becoming one of the most dominant figures in african history during the 20th century he's also one of the few people in recent history to have an entire religion named after him rastafarianism developed in jamaica in the 1930s and became widely known in the 1970s through reggae artists like bob marley rastafarians believed that haile selassie was the messiah a reincarnation of god kind of like jesus but it's important to note that he himself did not believe this turning our attention back to history early in the reign of haile selassie the italians returned and tried once again to conquer ethiopia this time they were more successful and therefore the emperor had to escape to britain where he remained in exile until 1941. therefore from 1936 to 1941 the title of emperor was also claimed by the king of italy victory emanuel iii but during world war ii the british helped hailey selassie take back his country and he went on to reign for another 33 years up to 1974 and that year the country was taken over by communists who were known as the durge highly solasi's son was briefly declared emperor but by 1975 the monarch was considered abolished the exact details of what exactly happened to haile selassie were not known until the 1990s when the various communist regimes around the world fell including the one in ethiopia at that time it was discovered that haile selassie had been assassinated in 1975. in the year 2000 he was therefore given an elaborate state funeral since he was not given one back when he died today ethiopia is a democratic republic but the solomonic dynasty lives on through haile selassie's branch his grandson zera jacob is the most senior heir to the former throne however his cousin prince armia serves as president of the crown council and officially represents the former monarchy when needed so that was a look at the solomonic dynasty if you're interested to learn about more african dynasty matt's got a playlist for that i also invite you to check out my own channel from nothing for more videos about african history as well as the channel hidden history which has several videos about ethiopia in particular big shout out to hidden for helping give feedback on the script you can find the links to all these things in description thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: UsefulCharts

Views: 172,508

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Id: QKGAytshAq0

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 27 2020