Medri Bahri
Ethiopian province and Eritrean kingdom until the 19th c. / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Medri Bahri (Amharic: ምድሪ ባሕሪ, English: Sea Kingdom), known in Tigrinya as Mereb Melash,[1] was a kingdom which emerged from the weaking of the Ethiopian Empire in the Early Modern Period to the Italian conquest of the region. It was situated in modern-day Eritrea, and was ruled by a Bahri Negasi, also called the Bahr Negash in Amharic, or "king of the sea" in English.
Medri Bahri ምድሪ ባሕሪ | |||||||||||
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c. 1578-1879/1890 | |||||||||||
Capital | Debarwa (Until 17th century) Tsazega (17th century–19th century) | ||||||||||
Common languages | Tigrinya · Tigre · Beja · Ge’ez | ||||||||||
Religion | Orthodox Tewahedo | ||||||||||
Government | Elective monarchy | ||||||||||
Bahri Negasi | |||||||||||
• 1841–1879 | Ras Woldemichael Solomon | ||||||||||
Historical era | Early modern period | ||||||||||
• Established | ~1578 | ||||||||||
• Zara Yaqob creates the post of Bahri Negash | c. 1450 | ||||||||||
• independence from Ethiopia | 1578 | ||||||||||
1554 | |||||||||||
1869 | |||||||||||
1874-1876 | |||||||||||
• Invaded by Yohannes IV | 1879 | ||||||||||
• Invaded by the Kingdom of Italy | 5 February 1885 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Today part of | Eritrea Ethiopia |
In 1680, Medri-Bahri’s political process was described by the German scholar J. Ludolph as being a republican monarchy. This republican political process was found no where else in the Horn of Africa and was distinct to the kingdom of Medri Bahri.[2] During this timeperiod the Medri Bahri can, likewise, first be seen in foreign maps of the region depicting it and its Bahri Negasi as independent from Abyssinia.