BEGEMDER

'Begemder' (also 'Gondar' or 'Gonder' after its capital) was a province in the northwestern part of Ethiopia. There are several proposed etymologies for this name. One is that it came from ''Bega'' (Beja) plus ''meder'' (land) (meaning land of the Bega or Beja), as an inscription of Emperor Ezana of Aksum describes his movement of 4400 conquered Beja to a not yet located province named ''Matlia''.^[1] Another is that the first two syllables come from the Ge'ez ''baggi`'' for sheep (Amharic ''beg''), although sheep have never been pastured there, and Beke believes that they could never be raised there. Beckingham and Huntingford note that Begemder originally applied to the country east of Lake Tana, where water is scarce, and conclude, "The allusion to lack of water suggests Amharic ''baga'', "dry season", as a possible source of the name."^[2]
The earliest recorded mention of Begemder was on the Fra Mauro map, (c.1460), where it is described as a kingdom. Emperor Lebna Dengel, in his letter to the King of Portugal (1526), also described Begemder as a kingdom but one that was part of his empire.
Following the restoration of Ethiopian rule, in 1942 Semien was added to Begemder. With the adoption of the constitution in 1995, Begemder was divided between the new ethnic regions (or ''kilil''): a strip in the southwest corner became part of the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region, another strip in the northwestern corner became part of the Mi'irabawi Zone of the Tigray Region, and the remainder became the core of the Amhara Region.

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References

1. Munro-Hay, Stuart. ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'' (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), pp. 48.
2. C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford, ''Some records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646'' (London: Hakluyt Society, 1954), pp. 230f

See also

★ History of Ethiopia

★ Subdivisions of Ethiopia