Kingdom of Simien

Kingdom of Beta Israel in the Ethiopian Empire

The Kingdom of Simien (Hebrew: ממלכת סאמיאן), also known as the Kingdom of Beta Israel (ממלכת ביתא ישראל), was a semi-legendary Jewish kingdom said to have been located in the northwestern part of the Ethiopian Empire. The existence of such a kingdom somewhere in the Horn of Africa was first mentioned by the traveller Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century CE. A late Ethiopian-Jewish legend dates the establishment of a Kingdom of Simien to the 4th century CE, right after the Kingdom of Aksum turned to Christianity during the reign of Ezana. Local history holds that, around 960, a Jewish Queen named Gudit defeated the empire and burned its churches and literature.

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