The Glory of the Kings of Ethiopia is a modernization of the ancient Ethiopian text: the Kəbrä Nägäśt (also known as The Queen of Sheba and her only son Menyelek I).
According to the text, it was originally authored in Coptic, then translated to Arabic, and then back to Ge’ez. It is a collection of 117 chapters (each clearly authored at various points in time) outlining why Ethiopian emperors are divinely ordained to rule. The narrative centers on the Queen of Sheba’s journey to Jerusalem to meet Judah’s King Solomon, their resulting son Menelik, his subsequent transfer of the Ark of the Covenant back to Ethiopia whereupon he becomes king, and various stories outlining the country’s shift to Christianity afterwards (amongst other narratives). The oldest known copy sits in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which was translated to German in 1905 by Carl Bezold. In 1922, Sir E.A. Wallis Budge of the British Museum translated the work to English, with a subsequent edition released in 1932.
This modernization is based on the 1922 work, updating the Elizabethan-style language to an English more easily understood by a modern English reader and augmenting each chapter with new illustrations.
This project features a number of expected artifacts:
- A modernized, illustrated version of the text
- A limited run of physical books of the modernized version, printed in octodecimo format for collectors
- An electronic ebook version of the modernized tome for Kindles, Kobos, and other EPUB digital readers
- ✔︎ An electronic plain-text version of the modernized tome
- A gallery of the 117 illustrated prints used in the modernized version
- A new set of appendices containing:
- Known history and variations of the Kəbrä Nägäśt texts
- Visual timeline of events detailed in the Kəbrä Nägäśt
- Alternative organizational models for text
- Maps of regions detailed in the Kəbrä Nägäśt to contextualize for Western readers
- Recommended reading for further analysis and context
- This GitHub record showing the original 1922 text with a recording of every change committed in the modernization
- ✔︎ An updated plain-text electronic version transcribed from Budge’s 1922 text released with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- ✔︎ Submission of fixes to incorrect transcription and textual issues with Sacred Texts' copy of the 1922 text
- Stretch goals:
- ✔︎ Fund a higher-resolution scan of the oldest known copy of the Kəbrä Nägäśt in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
- A plain-text Ge’ez electronic version transcribed from the above copy, released with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- Updates for the 1932 edition, once it enters the public domain
- AI training models for ancient Ge’ez transcription
- AI training models for multiple generations of Ethiopian art
All proceeds from electronic book sales are intended for donation to a non-profit organization supporting sustainability and mitigating climate change for the Ethiopian people.