This, the first volume of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge’s The History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, first published in 1928, presents an account of Ethiopian history from the earliest legendary and mythic records up until the death of King Lebna Dengel in 1540. Using a vast range of sources – Greek and Roman reports, Biblical passages, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Ethiopian chronicles – an enthralling narrative history is presented with clarity. This reissue will be of particular interest to students of Ancient Egyptian culture, religion and history.

Aksum and Nubia assembles and analyzes the textual and archaeological evidence of interaction between Nubia and the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, focusing primarily on the fourth century CE. Although ancient Nubia and Ethiopia have been the subject of a growing number of studies in recent years, little attention has been given to contact between these two regions. Hatke argues that ancient Northeast Africa cannot be treated as a unified area politically, economically, or culturally. Rather, Nubia and Ethiopia developed within very different regional spheres of interaction, as a result of which the Nubian kingdom of Kush came to focus its energies on the Nile Valley, relying on this as its main route of contact with the outside world, while Aksum was oriented towards the Red Sea and Arabia. In this way Aksum and Kush coexisted in peace for most of their history, and such contact as they maintained with each other was limited to small-scale commerce. Only in the fourth century CE did Aksum take up arms against Kush, and even then the conflict seems to have been related mainly to security issues on Aksum’s western frontier. Although Aksum never managed to hold onto Kush for long, much less dealt the final death-blow to the Nubian kingdom, as is often believed, claims to Kush continued to play a role in Aksumite royal ideology as late as the sixth century. Aksum and Nubia critically examines the extent to which relations between two ancient African states were influenced by warfare, commerce, and political fictions.

This is the second volume of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge’s narrative account of Ethiopian history, and continues the chronicle of the Kings of Abyssinia where the first volume ended: the death of Lebna Dengel in 1540. The list of kings ends with the Regent Rās Tafari, who still reigned at the time of first publication in 1928. Thereafter, the author devotes considerable attention to an overview of the cultural, social and political idiosyncrasies of the Ethiopian people: literature, spells and magic, architecture, ethnography, the alphabet, and a wide range of other engrossing topics. This material complements the narrative history, helping to situate the deeds of the kings and the fortunes of their people in a broader context.

Nubia had a rich pagan heritage, stretching back thousands of years. During probably the 6th century AD various factors led to the adoption of Christianity. This book charts this huge cultural transition and its impact.