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Ethiopia is situated at the north end of the great African Rift Valley and has been the site of some amazing archaeological finds in recent years. In 1974, the archaeologist Donald Johansen was working near Hadar in the north-east of Ethiopia and discovered the human skeleton of a female dating back 3.2 million years, a member of the group Australopithecus afarensis. This female was named 'Lucy' by the digging team as the Beatles' hit "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" was playing in the camp at the time. To the Ethiopians, however, she is known as 'dinkenesh' or 'birkenesh' meaning 'wonderful'. The skeleton is now on view on the ground floor of the National Museum just above Arat Kilo in Addis Ababa. Other more recent finds near Hadar have served to confirm this part of the Rift Valley as a major site of early man's development. We know that the Ancient Egyptians traded in the Land of Punt for such commodities as gold, myrrh and ivory and this is thought to have been situated in the Horn of Africa of which Ethiopia is a part. Local tradition has the Queen of Sheba as an Ethiopian queen who travelled to King Solomon in Jerusalem. Their child, Menelik, was to be the first in the Solomonic line of Ethiopian emperors, eventually culminating with Emperor Haile Selassie in the 20th century. Tradition also says that Menelik brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Ethiopia and that it still exists under close guard in the St Mary Zion chapel in Axum. Before the birth of Christ was developed the language of Ge'ez, a kind of Latin and a forerunner of today's lingua franca Amharic. Ge'ez is still spoken by priests today. v Have you signed our Guestbook? Email | Top
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Challoner's, Fasiledes, Amersham, Buckinghamshire