Comparison of Historiographical Frameworks
Materialism vs. Tradition: Why German philologists and the Ethiopian Court looked at the same names but saw two different empires. While one side sought a linear timeline verified by coins, the other maintained a stratified history of ancestral "Fathers" and rotational titles.
A comparative table contrasting the 19th-century "German School" (Littmann, Dillmann) against traditional Ethiopian historiography. It highlights differing views on the term Abna, the meaning of repetitive royal names, and the fundamental nature of chronology and source evidence (Inscriptions vs. Manuscripts).
