FOREWORD

H.R.H. STEPHEN MENGESHA (Prince Stephanos of Ethiopia)

ETHIOPIA HAS A GREAT LEGEND concerning King Solomon of Israel and the Queen of Sheba, whose name was Makeda and also Saba, for she was known by both names. There's some dispute, however, whether she was the Queen of Aksum and the Land of Sheba (which also included the southern Arabian peninsula), but she definitely settled in Aksum.
Of course, Makeda wasn't the first emperor or empress of Ethiopia, but there's a story that her father, Agabos, became ruler after he killed the King Cobra, which was an object of worship with the people sacrificing their children to it.
Agabos was succeeded by his daughter, Makeda, who visited Solomon in Jerusalem and they had a son whose name was Menelik (also Ibna Hakim, Bayna-Lehkem and David II) and he's the reason for the Ethiopian claim to the Solomonic Dynasty and it was this Menelik, who brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Aksum some 3,000 years ago.
This is found in the Kebra Negast (The Glory of the Kings of Ethiopia), which is an historical account of how Menelik and the sons of Jewish noblemen and the priest Zadok took the Ark and replaced it in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Later, the High Priest recognized that the Ark in the Temple is a replica and not the real thing, particularly, after the Israelites went to war with it and lost. Previously, they had never lost a war when they took the Ark with them.
Zadok then realized who the culprit was, but he wasn't about to implicate his son, Azariah. So he says, "it's lost."
It's never found in Israeli history after that. It simply disappears. This whole thing was hush-hush. It was completely forgotten.
ON THE ABYSSINIAN SIDE, it became very evident from the time of Menelik that there was great rejoicing when the Ark was brought to Aksum.
Again it's a challenge to any scholar to say what if it wasn't a fake; that Menelik didn't actually bring it to Ethiopia.
Ethiopian chronicles relate a lot of miracles that were performed because of its presence and it continued to gain great respect, so much so that emperor after emperor has come to acknowledge the presence of the Ark and bring their crowns to Aksum because they believe that's the place where they come face to face with their Creator.
The only one higher up than the Emperor of Ethiopia was the Creator and they believed the presence of the Ark was a justifiable cause to offer their crown. Its magnitude starts building into the nation's history; into church history and into the heritage of the country.
TODAY, I BELIEVE it is of monumental importance, for the building of the Third Temple, the cornerstone of the revival of the Jewish faith and the coming of all Jews to Israel.
It has been pursued by various people throughout history prior to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and during the Italian occupation (through the auspicies of the Roman Catholic Church) during the late 1930s and even after the restoration of my great grandfather, Emperor Haile Selassie, to the throne.
They're still looking for it even today.