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Gudit (Ge'ez: Yodit, ''Judith'') is a semi-legendary, non-Christian, Beta Israel queen (flourished c.960) who laid waste to Axum and its countryside, destroyed churches and monuments, and attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling Axumite dynasty. Her deeds are recorded in the oral tradition and mentioned incidentally in various historical accounts. Information about Gudit is contradictory and incomplete. Paul B. Henze wrote, "She is said to have killed the emperor, ascended the throne herself, and reigned for 40 years. Accounts of her violent misdeeds are still related among peasants in the north Ethiopian countryside."〔Paul B. Henze, ''Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia'' (New York: Palgrave, 2000) p. 48〕 Henze continues in a footnote: On my first visit to the rock church of Abreha and Atsbeha in eastern Tigray in 1970, I noticed that its intricately carved ceiling was blackened by soot. The priest explained it as the work of Gudit, who had piled the church full of hay and set it ablaze nine centuries before.〔Henze, ''Layers of Time'', p. 48 n.14. His visit among others to various churches in Ethiopia can be read (here ). 〕 There is a tradition that Gudit sacked and burned Debre Damo, which at the time was a treasury and a prison for the male relatives of the king of Ethiopia; this may be an echo of the later capture and sack of Amba Geshen by Ahmed Gragn.〔Recorded by Thomas Pakenham, ''The Mountains of Rasselas'' (New York: Reynal, 1959), p. 79.〕 ==Ethnicity== Carlo Conti Rossini first proposed that the account of this warrior queen in the ''History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria'', where she was described as ''Bani al-Hamwiyah'', ought to be read as ''Bani al-Damutah'', and argued that she was ruler of the once-powerful kingdom of Damot, and that she was related to one of the indigenous Sidamo peoples of southern Ethiopia.〔Conti Rossini's argument is taken from Taddesse Tamrat's summary in ''Church and State in Ethiopia (1270 - 1526)'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, p. 39〕 This would agree with the numerous references to matriarchs ruling the Sidamo polities.〔See O.G.S. Crawford, ''Ethiopian Itineraries, circa 1400-1524'' (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1958), p. 81f for examples.〕 If Gudit did not belong to one of the Sidamo peoples, then some scholars, based on the traditions that Gudit was Jewish, propose that she was of the Agaw people, who historically have been numerous in Lasta, and a number of whom (known as the Beta Israel), have professed an Israelite pre-Ezra Judaism since ancient times. If she was not of Hebrew, Israelite or Jewish origin, she might have been a convert to Judaism by her husband, or pagan.〔Edward Ullendorff, ''The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People'' second edition, (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 60ff.〕 Local traditions around Adi Kaweh where she allegedly died and was buried indicate her faith was pagan-Hebraic,rather than Israelite or Jewish (2009 ). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gudit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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