Angot (Amharic: አንጎት, translated as "Neck," possibly referring to the province’s geography) was a historical province in northern Ethiopia. It was bordered on the west by Bugna and the Afar lowlands to the east and southeast, Ambassel to the southwest and Lasta to the north.

Angot was bordering Tigray Province on the north. Francisco Álvares wrote that the boundary between Angot and Tigray provinces was the Sabalete river located northeast of Lake Ashenge.[1][2]

Axumite History

Under the reign of Degna Djan, during the 10th century, the empire kept expanding south, and sent troops into the modern-day region of Kaffa,[3] while at the same time undertaking missionary activity into Angot. Emperor Dil Na'od is said to have relocated the capital to Ku'bar on the shore of Lake Hayq, south of Angot, and built the Istifanos Monastery. Aksum by that time was no longer the center of the Christian kingdom, and was instead a frontier town, threatened from the west and south by the Bete Israel and from the north by invading Beja tribes. Angot was a much more defensible position, a decision that proved wise when Beta Israel captured Aksum during Queen Gudit's invasion. The capital, called Ku'bar or Jarmi,[4] was probably located in southern Tigray or Angot, however the exact location of this city is currently unknown.[5]

Later history

Angot is mentioned as being north of Bete Amhara in the medieval period.[6] Angot was on the front line between Abyssinia and the Afar lowlands, and after multiple wars, was occupied by the Oromo tribes of Raya, Wollo and Yejju. In more recent times, it became part of Wollo Province and from 1994 it got split between the newly formed Amhara and Tigray regions. The northern parts of Angot (Raya Azebo) become part of Tigray, and the rest became part of the Amhara Region under the North Wollo Zone.

References

  1. ↑ Álvares, Francisco. "Narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Abyssinia during the years 1520-1527". Hakluyt Society: 115.
  2. ↑ Beckingham, C. F. (2017-07-05). The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John, being the narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520, written by Father Francisco Alvares. Volumes I-II. Routledge. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-351-54133-6.
  3. ↑ Werner J. Lange, ”History of the Southern Gonga (southwestern Ethiopia)“, Steiner, 1982, p. 18
  4. ↑ Munro-Hay, Stuart (1991). Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity (PDF). Edinburgh: University Press. p. 57. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 23, 2013. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  5. ↑ Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 36.
  6. ↑ Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 53.

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