Reference: Ethiopia

ETHIOPIA is tr of the Heb. Cush, which is derived from Kosh, the Egyp. name of Nubia (beginning at the First Cataract). The cultivable land in this region is very meagre. The scanty and barbarous population of the valley and the deserts on either side was divided in early times among different tribes, which were completely at the mercy of the Egyptians. Individually, however, the Sudanese were sturdy warriors, and were constantly employed by the Pharaohs as mercenary soldiers and police. In the time of the New Kingdom, Cush southward to Napata was a province of Egypt, dotted with Egyptian temples and governed by a viceroy. With the weakening of the Egyptian power Cush grew into a separate kingdom, with Napata as its capital. Its rulers were probably of Egyptian descent; they are represented as being entirely subservient to Ammon, i.e. to his priests, elected by him, acting only upon his oracles, and ready to abdicate or even to commit suicide at his command. We first hear of a king of Ethiopia about b.c. 730, when a certain Pankhi, reigning at Napata and already in possession of the Egyptian Thebaid, added most of Middle Egypt to his dominions and exacted homage from the princes of the Delta. A little later an Ethiopian dynasty (the XXVth) sat on the throne of the Pharaohs for nearly fifty years (b.c. 715