The Text That Justified a Dynasty for Six Centuries

The Kebra Nagast's claim that Ethiopia's rulers descend directly from Solomon through Menelik I underwrote the legitimacy of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty from the text's compilation in the 14th century until the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, making it one of the longest continuously politically consequential religious narratives anywhere in the world, cited explicitly in Ethiopian royal chronicles and even, in modified form, in the 1955 Ethiopian constitution, which affirmed the emperor's descent from the Solomonic line.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has long maintained that the actual Ark of the Covenant described in the text still resides today in a chapel at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Aksum, guarded by a single dedicated monk who alone may view it, a claim the church treats as an article of faith rather than a matter open to independent verification and that has never been tested by outside examination. The text also carries significant weight well beyond Ethiopian Orthodoxy, since the Rastafari movement, which emerged in Jamaica in the 1930s, drew directly on the Kebra Nagast's Solomonic genealogy in recognizing Haile Selassie as a messianic figure, making this medieval Ethiopian chronicle a living scriptural touchstone for a modern religious movement thousands of miles from its origin. Scholars generally read the narrative as legendary rather than historical, noting no independent evidence corroborates either the Queen of Sheba's visit as described or the Ark's removal to Ethiopia.