MotF 57: My Name is Ozymandias

Note: The basic POD here is that Abraha, the Axumite Viceory over Yemen, doesn't declare for himself independent kingdom after defeating the rebellion of Dhu Nuwas. Therefore Yemen remains a core component of the Axumite Empire, which actually goes onto to expand a bit more into Southern Arabia. Roughly a century later the early Muslims under Muhammad take up Emperor Aṣḥama ibn Abjar's offer of refuge from the anti-Islamic Quraysh tribe during a much larger Hijarat. Eventually Islam becomes the dominant religion in the region, though Ethiopia itself falls, and over centuries of Islamic rule the early, and ITTL short-lived, history of Christianity in Ethiopia is largely forgotten.



(1) Habashat is an old name for Ethiopia, coming from the name of one of the larger ethnic groups in the region, the Habesha people.

(2) IOTL Athanasius of Alexandria only consecrated the first bishop of Ethopia, and its introducer to Christianity - Saint Frumentius.

(3) IOTL the first King of Axum that we know is Endubis, circa 300 AD, due to his reign featuring the first Ethiopian coins that we know of. "al-Amida" refers to OTL Ousanas, who is traditionally known in Ethiopia by the royal name of 'Ella Amida,' who is very likely the monarch to whom Frumentius first introduced Christianity. Note that Ousanas was merely a co-regent beside his brother, Wazeba.

(4) King "al-Aizan" refers to King Ezana, who was the son of Ousanas, and did conquer the Kush and Yemen. However his voyages to India are entirely fictional.

(5) King "St. al-S’baan" refers to King Kaleb, who was known by the royal name of 'Ella Asbeha,' which in turn was translated by Italian priests to 'Elesbaan.' IOTL Kaleb was the ruler of Axum who lost Yemen after Viceroy Abraha declared independence.

(6) King "al-Sehama" refers to King Aṣḥama ibn Abjar, which itself is an Arabic rendering of the royal name of 'Ella Seham.' Abjar is known to have offered sanctuary to the early Muslim communities, and indeed IOTL during the Hijarat several prominent Muslims fled Arabia to Ethiopia in the face of anti-Islamic raids by rival Arabian tribes, including one of Muhammad's daughters, Ruqayyah. Traditional Islamic histories of the Hijarat hold that Abjar converted to Islam soon after the arrival of this group; traditional Ethiopian histories state that Abjar did not, and indeed sent the Muslims back to Mecca after just one year. Abjar is the last Axumite King of which we have a solid historical record until the disintegration of the empire due to the rebellion of the Ethiopian Jews; even afterward due to the chaotic Ethiopian Dark Ages of the 9th-11th century we have no solid evidence of Ethiopian rulers until the foundation of the Zagwe dynasty in the early 12th century. IOTL the Ethiopian Empire's Solomonic dynasty however claimed to trace its roots to Abjar, by which time Christianity and the notion of an 'Ethiopian' nation were firmly rooted in the region.

Finally going to formally submit this.

Found on a blog from a different world than our own;

ABOUT ME
My name is Leigh Davison. I'm an anthropology student at QMU[1] but originally from New Ulster. I'm also interested in movies and music, the usual stuff. Proud nerd and MangOS user!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Sorry for not posting much lately, been really tied up with classes. Actually, I need to get to one right now! Well, not right now right now, but you get the picture. God do I need coffee after last night. Going to be studying overseas in the Rhineland, yay! With an anthropology field trip to Rome, double yay! But almost failed Dutch[2] class and needed to stay up until three in the morning studying, not yay! Now I barely slept and have all of half an hour to catch the trolley if I want time to go to the cafe to grab a scone and a cappuccino, which I need pretty desperately right now.

Since I've gotta keep this one so short, so I'll just share a really interesting article in this month's GeoLab I scanned.

Click to expand...

Notes;

[1] Unfortunately to the viewer, this abbreviation is common enough knowledge in this world to use without comment. Fortunately for the viewer, I'm here to tell you that QMU is Queen Margaret University in Boston, New Rutland, United Provinces of Labradoria.

[2] OTL German.

My thought is that the POD indeed is Norse explorers introduce ironworking, sheep, and the runic alphabet to New England in the 11th century. From what I could find, this is around the same time as corn became heavily cultivated in the region, and these factors cause a population explosion and the development of urbanization. Still, with only one big domesticate (And IIRC, Cows were the really nasty ones in terms of disease) they are still decimated by Eurasian diseases when the alt-Puritans arrive. The butterfly effect is used rather limitedly, mostly, I admit, out of laziness.

While the western borders of Quinecticutt and New Rutland resemble those of Connecticut and Massachusetts IOTL, they are actually several miles further east; the western border of Quinecticutt very loosely follows the western edge of the Housatonic River watershed.

Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, taken by Simon Burchell.

El mappo;

Again, busyness nearly leads to me forgetting to upload.
This is the result of a few conversations with friends. The first was basically complaining that the only history you really learn and is really instilled in public knowledge, is either the Roman Empire or the World Wars. Perhaps the French Revolution/Napoleon if you're lucky. The second was noting the fact that Nazi Germany was, quite rightly, still taken as the embodiment of evil, and how long it would be (if ever) until it was long enough ago to just be treated as another bit of history like the Roman Empire. The third was more speculation on the European Union.

So, from all of that comes this map, once again from the history department of the University of New Windsor. It's from a time far enough in the future studying the history of Europe. Note the absence of several continental empires; Charlemagne's, the Holy Roman Empire, Austria-Hungary etc... is intentional, the four empires shown are the ones ingrained into the culture and education as the first three are now.

Anyway, the map:

Not one of my more serious works, this is the result of a fondness for the Future Imperfect trope combined with a dilettante's knowledge of archeology and an ambiguous sort of apocalypse...