The Mahdi Times The Mahdi Times July 2014 | Seite 45

Whereas the memory of Empress
Makeda is so pervasive and dominant in
Ethiopia’s historical and cultural
consciousness, there is virtually no
living memory of this great Empress in
Yemen. People of Yemen have no living
traditions on the Queen of Sheba or of
any dynasty based on this great
Empress of Africa. Thus Ethiopia
appears to be the more plausible centre
of her historical empire.

According to tradition, and the
Kebra Negast, this Empress had
inherited a far-flung and
powerful empire from her
father Anagbo and built it to
greater extents. Its reaches
stretched from Arabia to India.
Her capital was located on the Ethiopian
mainland and ruins of her palaces are
top line tourist attraction for anyone
who has ever visited Ethiopia.
Sheba/Saba appears to have been one of
her principalities that was established
in Arabia. It also served as a major trade
centre for the caravan route.
Without doubt, the Sabans were as
black-skinned as the Ethiopians whom
the Greeks thought were the blackest
people in the world. The Shebans were
an Ethiopian people, who had long lived
in fertile parts of the Arabian Peninsula
close to the coast of their African
homeland. Sheba was as much a part of
Ethiopia as Scotland is a part of Britain.
The Sabean, or Himyaritic, Kingdom
(the Homeritae of the classics) is
thought to have become increasing
independent of Ethiopia and to have

flourished either contemporaneously
(D. H. Mueller) or after (Glaser,
Hommel) the Minean Kingdom.
Its administrative center was Marib (the
Mariaba of the Arabian classics) famous
for its dam, the breaking of which is
often mentioned by later Arabic poets
and traditions as the immediate cause of
the fall of the Sabean power. Saba,
however was still prominent till about
300 A.D., when it was regained by the
African Ethiopians.

Kataban
A third kingdom was that of Kataban,
another Black African established
principality, which gave rise to the
modern Oman. The capital of Kataban
was named Timna and was located on
the trade route which passed through
the other kingdoms of Hadramaut, Saba
and Ma’in.
The chief deity of the Katabanians was
Amm, probable connected with Ammon
or Amun the chief God of Ancient Egypt
and the people called themselves the
“children of Amm” hence the modern
day Arabic name Oman a cognate of the
name Ammon.
Oman is one of those Gulf States still
predominantly African in phenotype
despite years of miscegenation. The
Katabans were shrewd international
traders of spices and perfumed which
were primarily sourced from Ethiopia
and Mozambique.