Fun and Interesting Facts about Ethiopia

Here are a few neat things I have discovered about Ethiopia.

1) Did you know that a large portion of the Ethiopian population claims descent from King Solomon of Jerusalem and Makeda, the queen of Sheba? And that they converted to Judaism after the son of Makeda was born, and claim that the final resting place of the Ark of the covenant is at a chapel in the holy city of Aksum. Aksum was considered the captial of Ethiopia at one point in history.

2) Did you know that approximately half of the Ethiopian population is Christian? They converted to Christianity 400 years after the birth of Christ, were the first to declare Christianity as the national religion, and the first to mint coins with a Cross on them.

3) did you know that, for many years, Ethiopa's rulers were female? And that Alexander the Great stopped in his conquest at the border of Ethiopia because he did not want to be defeated by the woman ruling at the time.

4) Did you know that Ethiopa has never been conquered, except once, for a brief period of time?

6) Did you know that Ethiopa has a thirteen-month calender and a different way of counting the hours of the day?

7) Did you know that, in contrast to what we think of when we imagine Ethiopia, it is a land full of lush green pastures, forests, and lakes? And that it has one of the world's tallest waterfalls, and is the source of the blue nile?

8) Did you know that the Mursi tribe, one of the fiercest in Africa, famous for the women wearing lip-plates, is native to Ethiopa? And that the face plates were meant to protect from slave-traders. They began the practice in order to appear less attractive to those who might capture and sell them.

9) Here are some photo galleries of Ethiopia:
pictures

more pictures

10) Here are some blogs relating to Ethiopian adoption:

http://ethiopia.adoptionblogs.com/
http://babyethiopia2006.blogspot.com/
http://meetdawit.wordpress.com/
http://www.uforkestra.com/pages/member_doug.php

Hope this is as interesting to everyone as it is to me... I've been having a lot of fun :)