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 Ethiopia a and the Horn of Africa, a s noted in a previous article1, have been the subject o over the centuries of considerable number of novels,  short stories, plays and poems. The present study, which is based on further investigation in an area scarcely charted with bibliographies, is designed to supplement, as well as to update, the earlier work. Both articles, it should be noted, are concerned  exclusively  with  works in languages other than those of the region. The latter deserve a study, or studies, of their own. Ancient Writings   The ancient Greeks, whose writings were
scarcely  covered in the earlier article,
used the term Ethiopia, as is well known, to designate all dark-skinned people
south of Egypt. They made many references to Ethiopia in their literature. In
the 9th century B .C. Homer in his Odessey writes of the Ethiopians as eschatoi
andron, or the most remote of men. In Book I of his Miad he has Zeus, the king of
the gods, leave heaven for twelve days, with all the other gods, to visit  the "blameless Ethiopians", while
the goddess Isis later goes to their country to participate in sacrificial
rites to the immortal gods. In the Odessey  the sea god Poseidon is likewise aid to have
" lingered delighted " at one of the banquets of the Ethiopians. To read the whole article click here |
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Richard Pankhurst - Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) |