Endnotes

1.

See Stuart C. Munro-Hay, The Quest for the Ark of the Covenant (London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2006); Irfan Shahid, “The Kebra Nagast in the Light of Recent Research,” Le Muséon 89 (1976), pp. 133–178.

2.

Jacques Faitlovitch, Journey to the Falasha (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1959), pp. 111–112 (Hebrew).

3.

See Alessandro Bausi and Alessandro Gori, Tradizioni orientali del “Martirio di Areta”: la prima recensione araba e la versione etiopica, edizione critica e traduzione. A cura di Alessandro Bausi e Alessandro Gori, presentazione di Paolo Marrasini, Quaderni di semitistica 27 (Florence: Dipartimento di linguistica, Università di Firenze, 2006), pp. 118–119.

4.

See Iris Gerlach, “Yeha: An Ethio-Sabaean Site in the Highlands of Tigray (Ethiopia),” in Alexander Sedov, ed., New Research in Archaeology and Epigraphy of South Arabia and Its Neighbors. Proceedings of the “Rencontres Sabéennes 15” Held in Moscow, May 25th–27th, 2011 (Moscow: State Museum of Oriental Art, 2012), pp. 215–240; Pawel Wolf and Ulrike Nowotnick, “The Almaqah Temple of Meqaber Ga’ewa Near Wuqro (Tigray, Ethiopia),” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40 (2010), pp. 367–380.

5.

Etienne Bernand, Abraham J. Drewes and Roger Schneider, Recueil des inscriptions de l’éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, vol. 1 (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1991–2000), pp. 72–73, 79–80. It has been suggested that the mention of Saba in these inscriptions refers to Sabaeans living in Ethiopia. See Christian Robin and Alessandro de Maigret, “Le grand temple de Yéha (Tigray, éthiopie) après la première champagne de fouilles de la mission française (1998),” Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres 142 (1998), pp. 791, 793.

6.

See Robin and de Maigret, “Le grand temple de Yéha,” pp. 789–794.

7.

Rodolfo Fattovich, “The Development of Ancient States in the Northern Horn of Africa, c. 3000 B.C.–A.D. 1000: An Archaeological Outline,” Journal of World Prehistory 23 (2010), pp. 163–165.

8.

Fattovich, “The Development of Ancient States,” pp. 154–155, 157–158.

9.

Two structures that have been identified as Aksumite temples have been discovered: one at Ushate Golo and one at Mekayiho. See Henri de Contenson, “Les fouilles à Ouchatei Golo, près d’Axoum, en 1958 (1957–1959),” Annales d’éthiopie 4 (1961), pp. 3–14; Rodolfo Fattovich, Andrea Manzo and Luisa Sernicola, “Report of the October–November 2008 Field Season of the Italian Archaeological Expedition at Aksum of the University of Naples l’Orientale,” (forthcoming). An Aksumite inscription possibly mentioning a temple has been discovered at Abba Pantalewon Monastery. See Gian Paolo Chiari, A Guide to Aksum and Yeha (Addis Ababa: Arada Books, 2009), pp. 168–169. However, even if some of these sites functioned as temples, they are all in the periphery of the city of Aksum and cannot be compared in terms of their monumental presence to the funerary stelae.

10.

Stuart C. Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1991), pp. 222–232.

11.

Stuart C. Munro-Hay and Bent Juel-Jensen, Aksumite Coinage (London: Spink & Son Ltd., 1995), pp. 122–139, Types 35–49.

12.

Munro-Hay, Aksum, pp. 224–229.

13.

Philip R. Amidon, The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia. Books 10 and 11 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), pp. x, 18–20 (Book 10.9–10.10).

14.

There is controversy regarding the nature of the Judaism practiced by the Himyarites. See Glen W. Bowersock, The Throne of Adulis. Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013), pp. 83–85; Paul Yule, Himyar. Late Antique Yemen (Aichwald: Linden Soft, 2007), pp. 88–102.

15.

See Chiari, A Guide to Aksum and Yeha, pp. 167–173, 241–249; David W. Phillipson, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia: Fourth–Fourteenth Centuries (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press), pp. 32–37, 42.

16.

Phillipson, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia, p. 195.

17.

Phillipson, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia, pp. 40–42, 46–47, 88–94.

18.

Munro-Hay, Aksum, pp. 227–229, 231–232; David W. Phillipson, Foundations of an African Civilisation. Aksum and the Northern Horn 1000 B.C.–A.D. 1300 (Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer Ltd., 2012), pp. 132–137.