Editing Tigray Region (section)

=== 3rd millennium to 1st century BC ===
Tigray is often regarded as the cradle of Ethiopian civilization.<ref>{{cite web |last1=National Geographic |title=In search of the real Queen of Sheba, Legends and rumors trail the elusive Queen of Sheba through the rock-hewn wonders and rugged hills of Ethiopia. |website=[[National Geographic Society]] |date=3 December 2018 |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/mysterious-queen-sheba-legend-church-archaeology |access-date=4 August 2021 |archive-date=4 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804123314/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/mysterious-queen-sheba-legend-church-archaeology }}</ref> Its landscape has many historic monuments. Three major monotheistic religions, [[Judaism]], [[Christianity]] and [[Islam]] arrived in Ethiopia through the [[Red Sea]] and then Tigray.

Given the presence of a large temple complex and fertile surroundings, the capital of the 3,000-year-old kingdom of [[Dʿmt]] may have been near present-day [[Yeha]].<ref name="Thurstan612">{{citation|last=Shaw|first=Thurstan|title=The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TmUwjhQX-rcC&pg=PA612|year=1995|page=612|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-11585-8|access-date=10 July 2017|archive-date=27 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327025526/https://books.google.com/books?id=TmUwjhQX-rcC&pg=PA612|url-status=live}}</ref> Dʿmt developed irrigation schemes, used the [[plough]], grew [[millet]], and made [[Iron Age|iron tools and weapons]]. Some modern historians, including Stuart Munro-Hay, Rodolfo Fattovich, Ayele Bekerie, [[Cain Felder]], and [[Ephraim Isaac]] consider this civilization to be indigenous, although [[Sabaeans|Sabaean]]-influenced due to the latter's dominance of the [[Red Sea]]. Others, including Joseph Michels, Henri de Contenson, Tekletsadik Mekuria, and Stanley Burstein, have viewed Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaean and indigenous peoples.<ref name="Munro-Hay57"/><ref name="Tihama">Nadia Durrani, ''The Tihamah Coastal Plain of South-West Arabia in its Regional context c. 6000 BC–AD 600 (Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 4)'', Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005, p. 121 {{ISBN|978-1-84171-894-1}}</ref> The most recent research, however, shows that [[Ge'ez language|Ge'ez]], the ancient Semitic language spoken in Tigray, Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in ancient times, is not likely to have been derived from [[Sabaean language|Sabaean]].<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East|first1=Andrew|last1=Kitchen|first2=Christopher|last2=Ehret|first3=Shiferaw|last3=Assefa|first4=Connie J.|last4=Mulligan|date=August 7, 2009|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences|volume=276|issue=1668|pages=2703–2710|doi=10.1098/rspb.2009.0408|pmid=19403539|pmc=2839953}}</ref> There is evidence of a Semitic-speaking presence in Tigray, Eritrea and northern Ethiopia at least as early as 2000 BC.<ref name="Tihama"/><ref>Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert; ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'', "Ge'ez", Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, p. 732</ref> It is now believed that Sabaean influence was minor, limited to a few localities and disappearing after a few decades or a century, It may have represented a trading or military colony, in some sort of symbiosis or military alliance with the civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-[[Kingdom of Aksum|Aksumite]] state.<ref name="Munro-Hay57"/><ref>{{Cite journal|title=The First Millennium BC in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia and South-Central Eritrea: A Reassessment of Cultural and Political Development|author=Phillipson, David W.|year=2009|journal=The African Archaeological Review|volume=26|issue=4|pages=257–274|doi=10.1007/s10437-009-9064-2|jstor=40389405|s2cid=154117777}}</ref>

After the fall of Dʿmt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller, unknown successor kingdoms. This lasted until the rise of one of these polities during the first century BC, the [[Kingdom of Aksum|Aksumite Kingdom]], which succeeded in reunifying the area<ref>Pankhurst, Richard K.P.; ''Addis Tribune'',
"[https://web.archive.org/web/20060109162335/http://www.addistribune.com/Archives/2003/01/17-01-03/Let.htm Let's Look Across the Red Sea I]", 17 January 2003 (archive.org mirror copy)</ref> and is, in effect, the ancestor of medieval and modern states in Eritrea and Ethiopia using the name "Ethiopia" as early as the 4th century.<ref name="Munro-Hay57">{{cite book|url=http://www.dskmariam.org/artsandlitreature/litreature/pdf/aksum.pdf|title=Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity|publisher=University Press|year=1991 |location=Edinburgh|page=57|first=Stuart|last=Munro-Hay|access-date=February 1, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130405215144/http://www.dskmariam.org/artsandlitreature/litreature/pdf/aksum.pdf|archive-date=April 5, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Paul B. Henze 2005">Henze, Paul B. (2005) ''Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia'', {{ISBN|1-85065-522-7}}</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2024}}