Kandake

"Candace" redirects here. For other uses, see Candace (disambiguation).

Kandake or Kentake was the title for queens regnant of the ancient Kingdom of Kush in the Nile Valley. It is a derivative of Candace, a Meroitic language term for "queen" or "queen-mother".[1]

Biblical usage

In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, a treasury official of "Candace, queen of the Ethiopians", returning from a trip to Jerusalem, met with Philip the Evangelist:

Then the Angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which is desert. And he arose and went: And behold, a man of Ethiopia, an Eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem to worship.[2]

The queen concerned may have been Amanitore.

He discussed with Philip the meaning of a perplexing passage from the prophet Isaiah.[3] Philip explained the scripture to him and he was promptly baptised in some nearby water. The eunuch 'went on his way, rejoicing',[4] and presumably therefore reported back on his conversion to the Kandake.

Alexandrian legend

A legend in the Alexander romance claims that Candace of Meroë fought Alexander the Great.[5] In fact, Alexander never attacked Nubia and never attempted to move further south than the oasis of Siwa in Egypt.[6][7]

The story is that when Alexander attempted to conquer her lands in 332 BC, she arranged her armies strategically to meet him and was present on a war elephant when he approached. Having assessed the strength of her armies, Alexander decided to withdraw from Nubia, heading to Egypt instead. Another story claims that Alexander and Candace had a romantic encounter.

These accounts originate from "The Alexander Romance" by an unknown writer called Pseudo-Callisthenes, and the work is largely a fictionalized and grandiose account of Alexander's life.[8] It is commonly quoted, but there seems to be no historical reference to this event from Alexander's time. The whole story of Alexander and Candace's encounter appears to be legendary.[8][7]

Warrior queens

Pliny writes that the "Queen of the Ethiopians" bore the title Candace, and indicates that the Ethiopians had conquered ancient Syria and the Mediterranean.[9]

In 25 BC the kandake Amanirenas, as reported by Strabo, attacked the city of Syene, today's Aswan, in territory of the Roman Empire; Emperor Augustus destroyed the city of Napata in retaliation.[10][11]

Bas-reliefs dated to about 170 B.C. reveal kentakes Shanakdakheto, dressed in armor and wielding a spear in battle. She did not rule as queen regent or queen mother, but as a fully independent ruler. Her husband was her consort. In bas-reliefs found in the ruins of building projects she commissioned, Shanakdakheto is portrayed both alone as well as with her husband and son, who would inherit the throne by her death.

Four African queens were known to the Greco-Roman world as the "Candaces": Amanishakhete, Amanirenas, Nawidemak, and Malegereabar.

Kandakes of Kush

See also

References

  1. ↑ Fage, John. A History of Africa. Routledge. p. 115. ISBN 1317797272. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  2. ↑ Acts 8:26-27
  3. ↑ Isaiah 53:7-8
  4. ↑ Acts 8:39
  5. ↑ Jones, David E., Women Warriors: A History, Brasseys, Inc.; (2000)
  6. ↑ Goldenberg, David M. (2003). The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton University Press. p. 64.
  7. 1 2 Morgan, J.R. and Stoneman, Richard (1994). Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context. Routledge. pp. 117–118. ISBN 0-415-08507-1.
  8. 1 2 Gutenberg, David M. (2003). The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11465-X.
  9. ↑ Turner, Sharon (1834). The Sacred History of the World, as Displayed in the Creation and Subsequent Events to the Deluge: Attempted to be Philosophically Considered, in a Series of Letters to a Son, Volume 2. Longman. pp. 480–482. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  10. ↑ Nubian Queens in the Nile Valley and Afro-Asiatic Cultural History - Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Professor of Anthropology, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston U.S.A, August 20–26, 1998
  11. ↑ E. A. Wallis Budge (2003), Cook's Handbook for Egypt and the Sudan, Part 2 (reprinted ed.), Kessinger Publishing, p. 737, ISBN 9780766148024

External links

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