ʾAbbāy
Solomon Gebreyes
Names
አባይ፡↗ normalized: ʾAbbāy↗ ዓባይ↗ normalized: ʿAbbāy↗ ዓባዊ፡↗ normalized: ʿAbbāwi↗ alt: Blue Nile↗ Ṭānā↗ Ethiopia↗ White Nile↗ Nile↗ Gihon↗ Garden of Eden↗ Cush↗ Egypt↗ Ethiopia↗ Ethiopia↗ Ethiopia↗ ʾOgāden↗ Ethiopia↗ Ethiopia↗ Egypt↗ Egypt↗ Ethiopia↗
አባይ፡gez
ዓባይgez
ዓባዊ፡gez
alt: Blue Nileen
History
history: The Blue Nile is a river originating at Ṭānā↗ in Ethiopia↗ . With the White Nile↗ , ʾAbbāy becomes one of the two major tributaries of the Nile↗ . It has been identified by some Ethiopians as the river Gihon↗ mentioned as flowing out of the Garden of Eden↗ as it is mentioned in the Bible encircling the entire land of Cush↗ . The Blue Nile has been a bone of contention historically in the long multifaced Ethiopian-Egyptian relationship. While Egypt↗ depended on Ethiopia↗ for its waters, Ethiopia↗ depended on the Egyptian Coptic Church as the sources of patriarchal Authority and her metropolitan. This mutuality has shaped events since the 11th century. It reached an early crisis during the time of King Lālibalā↗ whom the Egyptian suspected diverting the river, even though his kingdom never reached ʾAbbāy. It was ʾaṣe role: title ↗ who first occupied the basin of the ʾAbbāy and began spreading Christianity there. The Medieval emperors of the Solomonic dynasty, especially Dāwit I↗ , Yǝsḥāq↗ and Zarʾa Yāʿqob↗ went asserting Ethiopia↗ 's control of the river as a tool in her international relations. Though the threat of blocking the ʾAbbāy proved very effective for centuries in safeguarding the appointment of the Egyptian metropolitans, in practice, a diversion, or even the use of ʾAbbāy waters was never attempted. Under Mängǝśtu Ḫaylä Maryam↗ especially during 1977-1978 ʾOgāden↗ war Ethiopia↗ returned to direct threats about blocking ʾAbbāy. However, a more constructive dialogue between Ethiopia↗ and Egypt↗ has begun in the 1990s. While Egypt↗ still insists on her historic rights over all waters Ethiopia↗ persists in demanding her equitable share in a river she had once thought to dominate.
Secondary Bibliography
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Solomon Gebreyes Beyene 2016. Chronicle of King Gälawdewos (1540-1559): Critical Edition and Annotated Translation PhD Dissertation, Hamburg: Universität Hamburg (2016).
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Conzelman, W. El., ed., 1895. Chronique de Galâwdêwos (Claudius) roi d’Éthiopie, Bibliothèque de l’École pratique des hautes études, Sciences philologiques et historiques, 104 (Paris: Librairie Émile Bouillon, Éditeur, 1895).
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Erlich, H. 2003. ‘Abbay’, in S. Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, I (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003), 27a–28b.
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Erlich, H. 2002. The Cross and the River: Ethiopia, Egypt and the Nile (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002).
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Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, S. 2015. ‘The Chronicle of Emperor Gälawdewos (1540-1559): a source on Ethiopia’s mediaeval historical geography’, in A. Bausi, A. Gori, D. Nosnitsin, and E. Sokolinski, eds, Essays in Ethiopian Manuscript Studies: Proceedings of the International Conference Manuscripts and Texts, Languages and Contexts: the Transmission of Knowledge in the Horn of Africa, Hamburg, 17–19 July 2014, Supplement to Aethiopica, 4 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), 109–118. page 109-118
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Huntingford, G. W. B. 1989. The Historical Geography of Ethiopia From the First Century AD to 1704, ed. R. Pankhurst, Fontes historiae africanae, Series Varia, 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). page 23, 24, 30, 31, 33, 34, 52, 68, 69, 71-73, 79-81, 88, 92, 93, 95, 96, 105, 119, 129, 133, 138-144, 147, 152-154, 156-159, 164, 165, 167, 169, 172, 173, 175-177, 181, 186, 188, 190, 191, 197, 198, 200-202, 204-213, 216, 217, 219-222, 224-229, 232, 234, 250, 256
Other
PhD Dissertation
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