Menelik I

According to the Kebra Nagast, Ethiopia's national epic compiled in its surviving form around the 14th century, Menelik I was the son of Queen Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and King Solomon of Israel, conceived during her legendary visit to Jerusalem. His name is traditionally understood to derive from the Arabic "Ibn al-Hakim," meaning "son of the wise man."

The Kebra Nagast recounts that Menelik was raised in his mother's kingdom before travelling to Jerusalem as a young man to meet his father, who welcomed him and urged him to remain and eventually rule over Israel. Menelik chose instead to return home, and the tradition holds that he departed accompanied by the sons of prominent Israelite nobles, along with the Ark of the Covenant, which the Ethiopian Orthodox Church maintains has resided in Aksum ever since, guarded within the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.

Menelik I is traditionally regarded as the founding emperor of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty, a royal line that Ethiopian monarchs claimed descent from for centuries, down to the modern era's final Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, whose full royal title invoked this same Solomonic lineage. While modern historians view the detailed narrative primarily as a later legitimising text for the dynasty, the tradition remains foundational to Ethiopian national and religious identity to this day.