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• in both Ge’ez and the
modern Ethiopian Semitic
languages (Amharic and
Tigrinya), the country has long
been called Ītyōṗṗyā.
• Ītyōṗṗyā is generally
thought to be derived from the
Greek “Ethiopia.”
• But in another source , the
“Book of Aksum, a Ge’ez
chronicle first composed in the
15th century, states that the
name is derived from
‘Ityopp’is,’ a son of Cush,
son of Ham who according to
legend founded the city of
Axum.”
ĪTYŌṗṗYĀ.
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AETHIOPIANS
Ancient Aethiopia (Greek:
Αἰθιοπία Aithiopia) first
appears as a geographical
term in classical documents
in
reference to the upper Nile
region, as well as all certain
areas south of the Sahara
desert and south of the
Atlantic Ocean.
Its earliest mention is in the
works of Homer.
• The Greek historian
Herodotus specifically uses
the appellation to refer to
such parts of Africa as were
then known within the
inhabitable world.
•(Aithiops), meaning "burnt-face", was
used as a vague term for dark-skinned
populations since the time of Homer.
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AETHIOPIANS
• The ancient Greeks used
“Libya” as the continental
place name for the african
landmass.
• They called peoples living
further to the south
“Ethiopians” (or
Aethiopians), just as they
called the lands below the
Sahara “Ethiopia,” including
the upper Nile Valley south of
Aswan.
•The ancient Greeks also used “Ethiopia”
to signal other unknown or quasi-mythical
lands located to the south or east of the
Mediterranean.
•As a result, even parts of India came to be
regarded as “Ethiopia” in some accounts.
“Ethiopia” often
functioned as a synonym
for the Nubian kingdom
of Kush (or Meroë).
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AETHIOPIANS-Greek and medieval literature
Several notable personalities
in Greek and medieval
literature were identified as
Aethiopian, including several
rulers, male and female:
Memnon and his brother
Emathion, King of Arabia.
Cepheus and Cassiopeia,
parents of Andromeda, were
named as king and queen of
Aethiopia.
•other ancient Greek
commentators believed that
the "Aethiopian O lympus"
was where the gods lived
when they were not in
Greece.
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ETHIOPIA
• In the early modern period, European
geographers generally located Ethiopia in the
unknown (to them) African interior.
• In certain circumstances, however, they
applied the name to sub-Saharan Africa as a
whole.
• As a result, the eastern South Atlantic was
commonly dubbed the “Ethiopian Ocean” (or
Sea) through the 1700s.
• In European usage, “Ethiopia” did not refer
to the modern country of that name until the
second half of the twentieth century.
• Previously, the Ethiopian kingdom (or
empire) was generally called “Abyssinia,” a
term derived from the Arabic ethnic designation
“Habesh.”
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Aethiopian Sea
Aethiopian Sea, Æthiopian Ocean[1] or
Oceanus Æthiopicus; Arabic: ﺍﻟﺑﺣﺭﺍﻷﺛﻳﻭﺑﻲ(
was the name given to the southern
part of the Atlantic Ocean in classical
geographical works. The name appeared in
maps from ancient times to the turn of the
19th century.
The name Aethiopian
Sea to refer to the
ocean was related to
referring to large
swathes of the
continent of Africa
as Aethiopia.
Nowadays the
classical use of the
term has become
obsolete, as the
modern nation of
Ethiopia is located in
the northeastern
area of Africa and not
near the actual
Ethiopic Ocean.
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Aethiopian Sea
By the 17th century
John Seller divided the
Atlantic Ocean in two
parts by means of the
equator. He named the
northern portion of the
Atlantic "Mar del Nort"
and the southern part
"Oceanus Æthiopicus"
in his Atlas Maritimus
published in 1672.
Edward Wright did not
label the North Atlantic at
all but called the portion
south of the equator the
"Aethiopian Sea" in a
map that was published
posthumously in 1683.
10. THE MIGRATION OF PLACE NAMES: AFRICA, LIBYA, ETHIOPIA
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•The historical displacement of place names is especially
prominent in Africa.
•“Africa” itself is a prime example.“Afri”
was originally a Latin term for either the Carthaginians, a
people of Phoenician descent, or a group of their Berber
neighbors;
•According to Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannen, africa used to be called
Alkebu-lan.
•And later on it was renamed to africa after part of the continent
was conquered by a roman general scipio africanus.
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•In the late classical European imagination, the area
called “Africa” gradually expanded.
•By medieval times, the word had come to denote one
of the three major divisions of the world, alongside
Europe and Asia.
•under Roman rule, the
province of Africa
encompassed modern
Tunisia and part of
northwestern Libya.
•After the Muslim
conquest, the same
area came to be called
Ifriqiya in Arabic.