By Abdi A. (Asst. Prof.

Jan. 2024

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 Outlines
 1.1. Meaning, Nature and Uses of
History
 1.2. Sources and Methods of Historical
Study
 1.3. Historiography of Ethiopia and
the Horn
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 The term “Ethiopia and the Horn” refers to

that part of Northeast Africa, which is
linked linguistically and culturally.
 It include countries like Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, and Somalia.
 The major physiographic features of the
region: are a massive highland complex of
mountains and plateaus divided by the
Great Rift Valley and surrounded by
lowlands, semi-desert, deserts and tropical
forests along the periphery.
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 The diversity of the terrain led to regional

variations in climate, natural vegetation, soil
composition, and settlement patterns.
 As with the physical features, people living
across the region are remarkably diverse:
 they speak a vast number of different
languages,
 profess to many distinct religions,
 live in a variety types of dwellings, and
 engage in a wide range of economic activities.

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 Therefore, the history of Ethiopia and the
Horn has been shaped by contacts with
others through commerce, migrations, wars,
slavery, colonialism, and the waxing and
waning of state systems. Yet, the evolution of
human history owed much to geographical
factors notably location, landforms, resource
endowment, climate and drainage systems
which continue to impact, as incentives and
deterrents, the movement of people and
goods in the region.

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 Meaning of History
? What is History?
Etymological Definition:
 The term history derived from a Greek word
“Istoria”, meaning, “inquiry” or “knowledge
acquired by investigation”.
 Accordingly, history is both inquiry conducted by
the historian and the fact of the past in which he
inquires.
 The first use of the term is attributed to one of
the ancient Greek historians, Herodotus (c. 484–
425 B.C), who is often considered the “father of
history.” 7
Its ordinary definition:
 History deals with human past events or simply,
what human beings did in the past.
 Past events include interactions, trade, war, life style,
activities, beliefs, developments and decline.
 Scholars who write about history are called
historians. They tell us that history began about
5,500 years ago when people first began to write.
 However, the study of human past begins in
prehistory.
 What is Prehistory?
 Prehistory is the study of distant events before

human society developed the art of writing. It is

being studied by Prehistorians
Its academic definition:
 Academically, history can be defined as an
organized and systematic study of the past.
 The study involves the discovery, collection,
organization, and presentation of information
about past events.
 It is a discipline in which we learn about what
people did in the past.
 It is the study of past events, present situation

and prediction of the future relating to social,

economic, technological and political
developments.
 It is the totality of the thoughts, sayings and
deeds of people who lived in the past.
 Out of the totality of the past, only small part is
recorded. While this recorded part is called
history, the remaining unrecorded part is
prehistory
 Therefore, history means facts of the past which
are kept in writing, which exists independently
of the historian (objectivity) and still awaits to be
recorded.
? What does it mean by objectivity?
 Objectivity refers to writing historical facts as
they are without addition or subtraction,
meaning, identifying the real or significant event
 ? Why do we learn history?
 We learn history in order to know about past
peoples deeds and by doing so we try not to
repeat the mistake of the past.
 ? How different is history from story?
 Story is an account of past event. As such, it
seems as if story and history the same. However,
their difference come to light when:
 Story can be both an account of imaginary
events (difference) and real events (similar) which
case it became historical information
1. It is the study of human society and its
interaction with the natural environment.
2. It is the study of change and continuities. It
studies changes in the development of
societies (political, economic, social and
cultural life of past societies.)
3. It uses periodization (time sequences and
chronology): Ancient History, Medieval and
Modern period History.

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 ?

Answer:
 What differentiates history from other disciplines
is that while the latter study the interaction
between humans and their environment in the
present state, history studies the interaction
between the two in the past within the framework
of the continuous process of change taking
place in time.
 Peoples live in the present and they plan for
and worry about the future. But the thing is,
?

Why we bother with the past while living

in the present and anticipating what is
yet to come?

Because:

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1. History Helps Better Understand the Present
2. History Provides a Sense of Identity
3. History Provides the Basic Background for
Other Disciplines
4. History Teaches Critical Skills
5. History Helps Develop Tolerance and Open-
Mindedness
6. History Supplies Endless Source of
Fascination
7. It Gives Lesson
1. History Helps Better Understand the Present
 History is the only significant storehouse of
information available for the examination and
analysis of how people behaved and acted in the
past.
 People need to produce some sort of account of
their past because it is difficult to understand
problems that face humanity and society today
without tracing their origins in the past.
 In such case historical background is therefore
essential for a balanced and in-depth
understanding of many current world situations.
2. History Provides a Sense of Identity
 Knowledge of history is indispensable to
understand who we are and where we fit in the
world.
 Meaning that: as memory is to the individual,
history is to the society. An individual without
memory finds great difficulty in relating to
others and in taking intelligent decisions. A
society without history would be in similar
condition.
 Therefore, it is only through sense of history
that communities define their identity, orient
them, and understand their relationships with
the past and with other societies.
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3. History Provides the Basic Background for
Other Disciplines
 Historical knowledge is extremely valuable in
the pursuit of other disciplines such as
literature, art, philosophy, religion,
sociology, political science, anthropology,
economics, etc.
 Next to geography, history is referred to as a mother of other fields
4. History Teaches Critical Skills
 It teaches research skills, locating and
evaluating sources, making coherent
arguments, interpretation skills, etc.
 Studying history helps students to develop key
research skills. These include how to find and
evaluate sources; how to make coherent
arguments based on various kinds of evidence
and present clearly in writing.
 These analytical and communication skills are
highly usable in other academic pursuits.
Gaining skills in sorting through diverse
interpretations is also essential to make
informed decisions in our day-to-day life.
5. History Helps Develop Tolerance and Open-
Mindedness
 Studying different societies in the past is like
going to a foreign country, which contributes
to rid ourselves of some of our inherent
cultural provincialism.

 History gives broad perspectives to know and

appreciate cultures and values which we may
not belong to.
6. History Supplies Endless Source of
Fascination
 Exploring the ways people in distant ages
constructed their lives involves a sense of
beauty and excitement, and ultimately another
perspective on human life and society.

7. It Gives Lesson
 People learn a lot from the past experience and
events
 Why We Study History?
 We study history because history helps us to:
 know about the past, understand the present
and foresee the future developments.
 be better thinkers and informed citizen,
 understand people and society,
 develop tolerance and open-mindedness,
 understand change and how the society we live
in is came to being,
 promote self-understanding,
 assess good and bad values done by our
ancestors,
 correct mistakes of the past done by our
ancestors,
 teaches somebody to love his/her identity, and
history
 broaden our intellectuality,
 teach and learn causes and effects of
economic, political and social problems,
 understand the existence of different customs,
laws and institutions,
 teach and learn about the transformation of
habits and innovations (change and continuity),
 pursuit other disciplines like literature, art,
religion, anthropology, sociology and
archeology,
 have broad understanding about national and
international issues, democratic principles
and nationalism,
 develop the necessary skill for collecting data,
analyzing data or information to reach at real
conclusions,
 get a great mental training and
 foster or promote national feeling.
 There are many key elements to be considered
in the study of history.
 Among these, the three key elements are:
Sources, Presentation of Facts, and Objectivity
A) Sources of History
 In historical writing, every statement must be
supported by evidences arising from sources,
because; historians are not creative writers like
novelists.
 History is supported by evidences and can only
be written on the basis of information collected
from sources.
 ? So, What is Source of History?
 Historical sources are the main way that we can
interact with and understand more about past
events.
 Sources form the reliable bridge that connects
the historian to the past.
 They are instruments that bring to life what
appear to have been dead.
 Therefore, where there are no sources, there is
no history.
 Historical sources can be broadly classified into:
Primary sources, Secondary sources, and
Oral Traditions.
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1. Primary Sources:
 Are original materials that give us firsthand
information.
 Have direct relations and closer to the events
they describe both in place and time
 They are more reliable than secondary sources.

 They are surviving traces of the past available to

us in the present.
 Examples: inscriptions, manuscripts, ornaments,
diaries, letters, minutes, court records and
administrative files, travel documents, maps,
photographs, Autobiography (life history),
video and audiovisual materials, artifacts such as
coins, fossils, weapons, utensils, and buildings &
monuments.
2. Secondary Sources:
 They are sometimes regarded as historical
reconstructions because what the historian does
is reconstructing the past on the basis of the
available sources preferably or by using primary
ones.
 They are second hand published accounts or

 They are products or accounts of historian

based on primary sources.
 They are less reliable than primary sources.

 They do not have direct relations to the events

they describe both in space and time. Because:
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 They are written long after the event has
occurred, providing an interpretation of what
happened, why it happened, and how it
happened, often based on primary sources.
 Hence, they are interpreted, or analyzed or
reconstructed sources.
 Examples : articles, books, history textbooks,
senior-essays, thesis, dissertations, novels,
poems, plays, Biographies, published and
unpublished papers, dictionaries, encyclopedia
3. Oral Traditions
 Are information transmitted by word of mouth
from generation to generation
example: folk songs and folk sayings.
 Oral sources are especially valuable to study
and document the history of non-literate
societies.
 They can also be used to fill missing gaps and
verify written words.
 Can be both primary and secondary sources of
history. That means, eye witness information is
primary source while re-told eye witness
information is secondary.
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B) Presentation of Facts
 Before we start writing history, it is necessary
to have a clear understanding of the originality
and meaning of our evidences. Otherwise,
there is the possibility of misrepresentation or
wrong interpretation of historical evidences.
 Once sources are evaluated and understood,
facts should be presented on paper(writing
history). Care should be taken during
presentation because the manner of
presentation highly affects the quality of
historical writing.
C) Objectivity
 Another key element in the study of history is
objectivity or writing unbiased or undistorted
history; because, the lessons of the past are
valued only if they are based on truth or
accurate history.
 Objectivity does not mean only identifying real
facts but it also includes presenting what all the
facts say without any bias.
 Objectivity is the utmost or maximum duty or
responsibility of historians to present the reality
as they really were, and the way the really
occurred.
Critical Analysis of Sources:
 For the history of Ethiopia and the Horn,
historians use a combination of the sources
described above.
 However, whatever the source of information-
primary or secondary, written or oral- the data
should be subjected to critical evaluation before
used as evidence.
 Primary sources have to be verified for their
originality and authenticity because sometimes
primary sources like letters may be forged.
 Secondary sources have to be examined for the
reliability of their reconstructions.
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 Oral data may lose its originality and
authenticity due to distortion through time.

 Therefore, it should be crosschecked with other

sources such as written documents to
determine its accuracy or authenticity.

 In short, historians (unlike novelists) must find

evidence about the past, ask questions of that
evidence, and come up with explanations that
make sense of what the evidence says about
the people, events, places and time periods
they study about.
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? What is historiography?
Historiography can be defined as the history of
historical writing, studying how knowledge of the
past, either recent or distant, is obtained and
transmitted.
It evaluates:
 Sources

 Methods

 Writers background, objectivity, bias

 Historical interpretation

 Historiography is can be studied as ancient,

medieval, and modern period historiography.
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 Ancient period historians included: Herodotus and
Thucydides (c.455-400 B.C.E.) of ancient Greece and
Sima Qian (145–86 B.C.E.) of ancient Chinese.
 Despite such early historiographical traditions, history
emerged as an academic discipline in the second half
of the 19thC first in Europe and subsequently in other
parts of the world.
 The German historian, Leopold Von Ranke (1795–
1886) (“father of modern historiography”), and his
colleagues established history as an independent
discipline in Berlin with its own set of methods and
concepts by which historians collect evidence of past
events, evaluate that evidence, and present a
meaningful discussion of the subject.
The Historiography of Ethiopian and the Horn:
 The earliest known reference that we have on
history of Ethiopia and the Horn:
1) The Periplus of the Eritrean Sea: written in the
first century A.D by an anonymous author.
2) The Christian Topography: composed by
Cosmas Indicopleustes, (a Greek sailor, in the
sixth century A.D.)
 It describes Aksum’s trade and the then
Aksumite king’s campaigns on both sides of
the Red Sea
 It also narrates the final stages of the
consolidation of the Aksumite hegemony over
much of Horn and south Arabia.
 Inscriptions aside, the earliest written Ethiopian
material dates from the seventh century A.D.
 (earliest inscription were in Sabean, then Geez, later in Greeek languages)

 Hagiographies (life of saints) originating from the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Islamic religions.
 Chronicles (an indigenous tradition of history
writing) in Ge’ez tongue first appeared in the
14th C. and continue (sometimes in Amharic) into
the early 20th C.
 Examples of surviving chronicles are the Glorious
Victories of Amde-Tsion (the earliest surviving)
and the Chronicle of Abeto Iyasu and Empress
Zewditures (the last surviving).
 Written accounts of Arabic-speaking visitors
which could provide useful information on
various aspects of the region’s history:
 For example, Al-Masudi and Ibn Batuta described
the culture, language and import-export trade in
the main central region of the east African coast
in the 10th and 14th C .
 Shihab al Din (Yemeni writer) who composed
document titled Futuh al Habesha (the Conquest
of Abyssinia) and recorded the conflict between
the Christian kingdom and the Muslim
principalities in the 16th century.
 Al-Haymi, who led a Yemeni delegation in 1647
to the court of Fasiledas (r. 1632-67) and
provided us first-hand account.
 The Prester John of the Indies, composed by a
Portuguese priest, Francisco Alvarez who
accompanied the Portuguese mission to the
court of Lebne-Dengel in 1520.
 The German, Job Ludolf (1624-1704), known as
the father of Ethiopian studies in Europe in the
17th C wrote Historia Aethiopica (translated
into English as A New History of Ethiopia).
 James Bruce’s Travels to Discover the Source of
the Nile in the 18th C.

 August Dillman published two studies on

ancient Ethiopian history in the 19th C.

 Compared to Ludolf, Dillman demonstrated all

markers of objectivity in his historical research
endeavors.
 In 20th C. : Aleqa Taye Gebre-Mariam, Aleqa
Asme Giorgis and Debtera Fisseha-Giorgis
Abyezgi (Church Historian).
 Later, Negadrases Afework Gebre-Iyesus and
Gebre-Hiwot Baykedagn joined them.
 Afework wrote the first Amharic novel, Tobiya, in
Ethiopian history while Gebre-Hiwot has
Atse Menilekna Ityopia (Emperor Menilek and
Ethiopia) and Mengistna Yehizb Astedader
(Government and Public Administration) to his
name.
 Unlike chroniclers, these writers dealt with a
range of topics from social justice, administrative
reform and economic analysis to history.
 The most prolific (productive) writer of the early
20th C. Ethiopia was, however, Blatten Geta Hiruy
Wolde-Selassie.
 He published four major works namely:
 Ethiopiana Metema (Ethiopia and Metema),
 Wazema (Eve),
 Yehiwot Tarik (A Biographical Dictionary) and
 Yeityopia Tarik (A History of Ethiopia).
 In contrast to their predecessors, Gebre-Hiwot
and Hiruy exhibited relative objectivity and
methodological sophistication in their works.
 Unfortunately, the Italian occupation of Ethiopia
interrupted the early experiment in modern history
writing and publications.
 After liberation, Tekle-Tsadik Mekuria formed a
bridge between writers in pre-1935 and Ethiopia
professional historians who came after him.
 He made better evaluation of his sources than his
predecessors.
 Yilma Deressa’s Ye Ityopiya Tarik Be’asra
Sidistegnaw Kifle Zemen (A History of Ethiopia in the
Sixteenth Century) addressed the Oromo population
movement and the wars between the Christian
kingdom and the Muslim sultanates as its main
subjects.
 The1960s: was the period of professionalization
of history in Ethiopia.
 b/c: history emerged as an academic discipline.
 Historical studies as a full-time occupation began
with the opening of the Department of History in
1963 at the then Haile Selassie I University, now
Addis Ababa University.
 In other parts of the Horn, the professionalization
of history is a post-colonial phenomenon.
 With the establishment of independent nations, a
deeper interest in exploring their own past quickly
emerged among African populations, perhaps
stimulated by reactions to decades of education in
an alien imperial historiography.