There is a significant amount of documentary evidence, as well as oral history, to support the story that the Axumite dynasty was harassed by a non-Christian queen, Gudit (c. 960), also Yudit or Judith, who laid waste to the city and countryside, destroyed churches and monuments, and attempted to exterminate the members of the royal House of David .

It is believed by many scholars that the warrior queen was ruler of the once-powerful kingdom of Damot , and that her rebellion represented an attempt by one of the indigenous Sidamo peoples of southern Ethiopia to avenge harsh treatment by the Christian regime, reassert their independence, and resist absorption by Christian north. It is said that this queen, Gudit, adopted the Jewish faith from her husband Zenobis, prince of a kingdom located to the north of Ethiopia on the Red Sea coast, and made it her mission to wipe out Christianity in Ethiopia.

While the evidence is strong for a queen who treated the Christian establishment harshly, her origins are obscure, partly due to her being identified in a text by a term that hasn't been definitively translated. She could be of a Jewish origin, could be a convert to Judaism by her husband, could be of pagan origins, and could be from the royal lineage. Most likely the story is some combination of these.

External link

• Reprinted Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography article on Gudit