Friday, November 30, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Ancient mosques and fortressess reward visitors to this UNESCO World Heritage site
Mini mosque shares space inside a tree. (edited)
By Anita Powell, Associated Press
Last update: October 19, 2007 – 5:49 PM
HARAR, Ethiopia - For 1,000 years, this city on a hilltop has been a center of Islamic faith in the Horn of Africa, with a forbidding 13-foot-tall wall surrounding ancient mosques and serpentine alleyways.
Harar leaders now hope it can become a center of tourism, as well.
"The future of Harar is tourist attraction," said regional president Murad Abdulhadi.
Harar was named a UNESCO World Heritage site last year, joining some of the world's top landmarks, such as the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China and the Acropolis in Greece.
It is also the fourth holiest city in Islam -- behind Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. And some consider Harar the birthplace of coffee. Its aroma wafts through the cool air of the Ethiopian highlands.
Some of Harar's attractions defy easy explanation, such as the old man who hand-feeds about 50 hyenas every night, treating them like obedient kittens.
New hotels on the rise
But the city, which lies about 250 miles from the capital, Addis Ababa, lacks modern amenities and sufficient water. With only a few hotels and the nearest airport more than an hour's drive away, moving Harar into the future is an ambitious plan.
Abdulnasser Idriss, who heads Harar's tourism department, acknowledges the city faces problems in accommodating more than the 4,500 tourists who go there each year.
To speed development, the regional government has given a 10-year tax break to anyone interested in building tourist facilities. Federal officials plan to make Harar and its neighboring city, Dire Dawa, part of an advertising campaign to lure tourists from neighboring Djibouti.
Ethiopian officials would not say how much has been invested so far, but construction is everywhere: unfinished hotels and restaurants dot the road leading into the main part of the city.
Oil baron Sheik Mohammed Alamoudi, believed to have invested more than $1 billion in his native country, has sent a team to Harar at the request of regional officials to investigate potential to build the city's first luxury hotel.
The city is also planning a $34.5 million water project that will increase Harar's available water supply more than sevenfold. Each resident now gets five gallons of water per day.
But what Harar lacks in modern amenities it more than compensates for in ancient wonders: nearly 100 old mosques, fortress-style walls, alleyways filled with ancient homes.
Rimbaud lived in Harar
French poet Arthur Rimbaud lived in Harar in the late 1800s. The airy, colorful house where he resided is now an art gallery showing modern photography and Ethiopian crafts.
Abdurahman Ibrahim, 38, who lived in Harar as a child but recently returned for a visit, said the city has become much more alluring to tourists.
"Everything has changed," said the Toronto resident. "Most of the things for the better. The city has grown so much. The road is better. The electricity is better. The water is better."
Still, as Harar moves further into the modern world, many locals say they're proud of the past.
According to Zeydan Bekri, a lifelong Harari, "The basic thing is we want to protect this culture, to keep it as it is for the next generation."
Friday, November 23, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
From Ancient Greece to Samuel Johnston
From Ancient Greece to Samuel Johnston
by Richard Pankhurst
(Source: Addis Tribune)
Ethiopia has long attracted the interest of European creative writers, who have referred to the country in innumerable different ways in their novels, short stories, plays, poems and songs. The object of the present paper is to examine such creative literature chronologically and to place it in historical context.
These works should all be in the Ethiopian Studies Library of the future!
The Ancient Greeks
The first Europeans to employ the term Ethiopia were the ancient Greeks, who used the word to designate all dark-skinned people south of Egypt. The classical authors of Greece made many references to the country. Homer, in the 9th. century BC, wrote in the Odyssey of the Ethiopians as eschatoi andron, or the most remote of men. In Book I of the Iliad he makes Zeus, the king of the gods, leave heaven for twelve days, with all the other gods, to visit the "blameless Ethiopians", while the goddess Iris goes to their country to participate in sacrificial rites to the immortal gods. In the Odyssey the sea god Poseidon is likewise said to have "lingered delighted" at one of the feasts of the Ethiopians.
Almost half a millennium later, in the 5th. century BC, the Greek dramatist Aeschylus had Io, the wandering woman of Prometheus Bound, travel to "a far-off land". It was inhabited by "a nation of black men", who lived near "the fountain of the sun" and the "river Aethiops".
Later again, in the 1st. century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus observed that the Greek hero Hercules and the Greek god of wine Bacchus were both "awed by the piety of the Ethiopians.
"Loved by the gods"
Later once again, in the 7th. century AD, the Byzantine writer Stephanus Placidus reiterated that the Ethiopians were "loved by the gods because of their justice, and adds:
"Juniper frequently leaves heaven and feasts with them [the Ethiopians] because of their justice and the equity of their customs. For the Ethiopians are said to be the justest of men and for that reason the gods love their abode frequently to visit them".
Such passing references to Ethiopia and the Ethiopians may be supplemented by a more comprehensive Greek work set in Ethiopia, which dates from the 3rd. century AD. It was the romance Aethiopika, which tells of the travels south of Egypt, in all probability to Nubia, of the hero, Theagenes, and heroine, Chariclea. This work was translated into many languages. The earliest and best known version, in English, was translated by Thomas Underdowne, and was first published in London in 1587, with the title An Aethiopian History of Heliodorus.
The Land of Prester John
Medieval European interest in Ethiopia owed much to the belief that it was the mysterious Land of Prester John, as well as the country from which the Queen of Sheba left on her famous visit to Jerusalem. These two beliefs led to the emergence of a considerable literature featuring Ethiopia.
One of the first creative writings about the Land of Prester John was an Italian poem by Giulano Dati, in praise of an unnamed ruler of Ethiopia. It appeared in a small pamphlet entitled Lagran Magnificentia del Preste Ianni Signore dell India Maggiore & della Etiopia, i.e. "The Great Magnificence of the Prester John, Lord of the Greater India and of Ethiopia" (Florence, 1500), which was illustrated with wood-cuts.
The widespread belief in Italy that Ethiopia was in fact the Land of Prester John found expression shortly afterwards in the Italian author Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was published in 1515-33. It has its hero flying over the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia.
This was followed half a century later by an anonymous Spanish novel about the loves of an imaginary Ethiopian prince called Luzindaro, who claims he is a prisoner of love.
This work first appeared in a volume entitled Processo de Cartas de Amores... i.e. "Process of Maps of Loves" (Venice, 1553), and was later translated into French, with the more explicit title La complainte et avis, que fait Luzindaro prince d'Ethiopie e l'encontre d'amour, et une dame, i.e. "The Complaint and Advice which Luzindaro, Prince of Ethiopia, made the Encounter with Love, and a Lady" (Antwerp, 1561).
French interest in Ethiopia was shortly afterwards enhanced by the arrival in Europe of an Ethiopian envoy Zaga-za-Ab. This inspired the composition of an anonymous French comic story, La reine d'Ethiopie. Historique Comique. i.e. "The Queen of Ethiopia. Comic Story" (Paris 1570). which was set in the Ethiopian court. The author, clearly wishing to distinguish Ethiopians from negroid Africans, insists that the hero of the story had an aquiline nose and was "without thick lips".
British interest in Prester John led to the publication a generation later of the first English work on the subject. Edward Weble's Rare and Most Wonderful Things (London, 1590).
This was followed by the publication of a further French fictional work on Prester John: Philippe d'Alcripe's La nouvelle fabrique des excellents traits de verite, i.e. "The Novel makes Excellent Qualities of Truth" (Rouen, 1620?). It was long afterwards reprinted in Paris with further information on the Land of Prester John in 1853.
The Queen of Sheba
The legendary account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, which impinged on European awareness of Ethiopia, was a further important source of creative writing . One of the earliest literary works on the theme was an anonymous German poet Zwolff Sibylle weissagungen... Die Kunigin von Saba, Kung Solomo gethane Propheccie, i.e. "Twelve Wise Sayings of the Sybils...The Queen of Sheba, King Solomon according to Prophesy" (Frankfurt, 1531) which was enlivened with wood-cuts.
More important, however, was a full-length play on the subject by the renowned Spanish author Dom Pedro Caldéron de la Barca. This work, entitled La Sibila del Oriente, y Gran Regna de Saba, i.e. "The Sybil of the East, or Great Queen of Sheba" (Madrid, 1750), placed the Queen indisputably in Ethiopia - but, curiously, unlike many of his works, has never been translated into English.
Rasselas
The travels of the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits in late 16th. and early 17th. century gave rise to a new European interest in Ethiopia. The renowned British author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, who had translated the memoirs of one of the Jesuits, Jeronimo Lobo, wrote his famous allegorical novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, in 1759. Based largely on Lobo's account, it told the story of Prince Rasselas and his sister Nekayah. They reputedly lived in an Ethiopian "happy valley", where, before their eventual escape, they were "confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty" - until their possible succession to the throne was decided.
Johnson's allegory, over the next two centuries, ran into many translations. These included Bengali in 1833, and in Ethiopia's national language Amharic, in 1946-7.
Johnson's Rasselas also soon inspired a today little-known British authoress, Ellis Cornelia Knight, to write a kind of sequel to it. Entitled Dinarbas: A Tale being a Continuation of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, it appeared in London in 1770, and told of the Ethiopian prince's supposed subsequent travels to Egypt. There he is said to have befriended a young local nobleman called Dinarbas, whose name became the title of the book. This work also ran into several editions, the last in 1823.
French awareness of Ethiopia subsequently resulted in the publication in Paris, in 1789, of yet another literary work set in Ethiopia. Entitled Grandor ou le heros abissin, histoire héros-politique, "i.e. Grandor or the Abyssinian Hero, History of a Political Hero", it told of the imaginary travels of an Ethiopian nobleman called Grandor, and - particularly relevant in the year of the French Revolution - included passages on subjects then bitterly debated in contemporary France, such as Aristocracy, Despotism, and Democracy.
by Richard Pankhurst
(Source: Addis Tribune)
Ethiopia has long attracted the interest of European creative writers, who have referred to the country in innumerable different ways in their novels, short stories, plays, poems and songs. The object of the present paper is to examine such creative literature chronologically and to place it in historical context.
These works should all be in the Ethiopian Studies Library of the future!
The Ancient Greeks
The first Europeans to employ the term Ethiopia were the ancient Greeks, who used the word to designate all dark-skinned people south of Egypt. The classical authors of Greece made many references to the country. Homer, in the 9th. century BC, wrote in the Odyssey of the Ethiopians as eschatoi andron, or the most remote of men. In Book I of the Iliad he makes Zeus, the king of the gods, leave heaven for twelve days, with all the other gods, to visit the "blameless Ethiopians", while the goddess Iris goes to their country to participate in sacrificial rites to the immortal gods. In the Odyssey the sea god Poseidon is likewise said to have "lingered delighted" at one of the feasts of the Ethiopians.
Almost half a millennium later, in the 5th. century BC, the Greek dramatist Aeschylus had Io, the wandering woman of Prometheus Bound, travel to "a far-off land". It was inhabited by "a nation of black men", who lived near "the fountain of the sun" and the "river Aethiops".
Later again, in the 1st. century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus observed that the Greek hero Hercules and the Greek god of wine Bacchus were both "awed by the piety of the Ethiopians.
"Loved by the gods"
Later once again, in the 7th. century AD, the Byzantine writer Stephanus Placidus reiterated that the Ethiopians were "loved by the gods because of their justice, and adds:
"Juniper frequently leaves heaven and feasts with them [the Ethiopians] because of their justice and the equity of their customs. For the Ethiopians are said to be the justest of men and for that reason the gods love their abode frequently to visit them".
Such passing references to Ethiopia and the Ethiopians may be supplemented by a more comprehensive Greek work set in Ethiopia, which dates from the 3rd. century AD. It was the romance Aethiopika, which tells of the travels south of Egypt, in all probability to Nubia, of the hero, Theagenes, and heroine, Chariclea. This work was translated into many languages. The earliest and best known version, in English, was translated by Thomas Underdowne, and was first published in London in 1587, with the title An Aethiopian History of Heliodorus.
The Land of Prester John
Medieval European interest in Ethiopia owed much to the belief that it was the mysterious Land of Prester John, as well as the country from which the Queen of Sheba left on her famous visit to Jerusalem. These two beliefs led to the emergence of a considerable literature featuring Ethiopia.
One of the first creative writings about the Land of Prester John was an Italian poem by Giulano Dati, in praise of an unnamed ruler of Ethiopia. It appeared in a small pamphlet entitled Lagran Magnificentia del Preste Ianni Signore dell India Maggiore & della Etiopia, i.e. "The Great Magnificence of the Prester John, Lord of the Greater India and of Ethiopia" (Florence, 1500), which was illustrated with wood-cuts.
The widespread belief in Italy that Ethiopia was in fact the Land of Prester John found expression shortly afterwards in the Italian author Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was published in 1515-33. It has its hero flying over the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia.
This was followed half a century later by an anonymous Spanish novel about the loves of an imaginary Ethiopian prince called Luzindaro, who claims he is a prisoner of love.
This work first appeared in a volume entitled Processo de Cartas de Amores... i.e. "Process of Maps of Loves" (Venice, 1553), and was later translated into French, with the more explicit title La complainte et avis, que fait Luzindaro prince d'Ethiopie e l'encontre d'amour, et une dame, i.e. "The Complaint and Advice which Luzindaro, Prince of Ethiopia, made the Encounter with Love, and a Lady" (Antwerp, 1561).
French interest in Ethiopia was shortly afterwards enhanced by the arrival in Europe of an Ethiopian envoy Zaga-za-Ab. This inspired the composition of an anonymous French comic story, La reine d'Ethiopie. Historique Comique. i.e. "The Queen of Ethiopia. Comic Story" (Paris 1570). which was set in the Ethiopian court. The author, clearly wishing to distinguish Ethiopians from negroid Africans, insists that the hero of the story had an aquiline nose and was "without thick lips".
British interest in Prester John led to the publication a generation later of the first English work on the subject. Edward Weble's Rare and Most Wonderful Things (London, 1590).
This was followed by the publication of a further French fictional work on Prester John: Philippe d'Alcripe's La nouvelle fabrique des excellents traits de verite, i.e. "The Novel makes Excellent Qualities of Truth" (Rouen, 1620?). It was long afterwards reprinted in Paris with further information on the Land of Prester John in 1853.
The Queen of Sheba
The legendary account of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, which impinged on European awareness of Ethiopia, was a further important source of creative writing . One of the earliest literary works on the theme was an anonymous German poet Zwolff Sibylle weissagungen... Die Kunigin von Saba, Kung Solomo gethane Propheccie, i.e. "Twelve Wise Sayings of the Sybils...The Queen of Sheba, King Solomon according to Prophesy" (Frankfurt, 1531) which was enlivened with wood-cuts.
More important, however, was a full-length play on the subject by the renowned Spanish author Dom Pedro Caldéron de la Barca. This work, entitled La Sibila del Oriente, y Gran Regna de Saba, i.e. "The Sybil of the East, or Great Queen of Sheba" (Madrid, 1750), placed the Queen indisputably in Ethiopia - but, curiously, unlike many of his works, has never been translated into English.
Rasselas
The travels of the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits in late 16th. and early 17th. century gave rise to a new European interest in Ethiopia. The renowned British author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, who had translated the memoirs of one of the Jesuits, Jeronimo Lobo, wrote his famous allegorical novel The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, in 1759. Based largely on Lobo's account, it told the story of Prince Rasselas and his sister Nekayah. They reputedly lived in an Ethiopian "happy valley", where, before their eventual escape, they were "confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty" - until their possible succession to the throne was decided.
Johnson's allegory, over the next two centuries, ran into many translations. These included Bengali in 1833, and in Ethiopia's national language Amharic, in 1946-7.
Johnson's Rasselas also soon inspired a today little-known British authoress, Ellis Cornelia Knight, to write a kind of sequel to it. Entitled Dinarbas: A Tale being a Continuation of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, it appeared in London in 1770, and told of the Ethiopian prince's supposed subsequent travels to Egypt. There he is said to have befriended a young local nobleman called Dinarbas, whose name became the title of the book. This work also ran into several editions, the last in 1823.
French awareness of Ethiopia subsequently resulted in the publication in Paris, in 1789, of yet another literary work set in Ethiopia. Entitled Grandor ou le heros abissin, histoire héros-politique, "i.e. Grandor or the Abyssinian Hero, History of a Political Hero", it told of the imaginary travels of an Ethiopian nobleman called Grandor, and - particularly relevant in the year of the French Revolution - included passages on subjects then bitterly debated in contemporary France, such as Aristocracy, Despotism, and Democracy.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Mengistu Lema
click here for amargna Mengistu Lema ( Amharic)
(by mengistu lemma, &
Translated by Michael Coke)
Under the clear moon deep in the night,
While like the star her eyes shone bright,
Under the clear moon deep in the night,
While like the star her eyes shone bright,
‘Kiss her!Kiss her!Embrace her!’ they said;
His purpose was this, and the youth was compelled-
Her waist and her neck in his arms he held,
And his lips drew up to her mouth in dread.
Although her pointed thorn-like breasts were firm,
He felt her slap across his temples burn.
As her whip-like hand began to fight-
Under the clear moon, deep in the night:
Woe to the beginner, and to the learner woe,
Oh, to carry out orders, and advice to know!
(by mengistu lemma, &
Translated by Michael Coke)
Under the clear moon deep in the night,
While like the star her eyes shone bright,
Under the clear moon deep in the night,
While like the star her eyes shone bright,
‘Kiss her!Kiss her!Embrace her!’ they said;
His purpose was this, and the youth was compelled-
Her waist and her neck in his arms he held,
And his lips drew up to her mouth in dread.
Although her pointed thorn-like breasts were firm,
He felt her slap across his temples burn.
As her whip-like hand began to fight-
Under the clear moon, deep in the night:
Woe to the beginner, and to the learner woe,
Oh, to carry out orders, and advice to know!
Friday, November 09, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
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