Gudit

Gudit (Ge'ez: ጉዲት) is the Classical Ethiopic name for a personage also known as Yodit in Tigrinya, and Amharic, but also Isato in Amharic, and Ga'wa in Ţilţal.^[1] The person behind these various alternative names is portrayed as a powerful female ruler, probably identical to Māsobā Wārq, the daughter of the last Aksumite king, Dil Na'ad, mentioned in an early Arabic source.^[a] She is said to have been responsible for laying waste the Kingdom of Aksum and its countryside, and the destruction of its churches and monuments in the 10th century AD in revenge for the church having cut her breast off and selling her into slavery. If she is the same as the Tirda' Gābāz in other Ethiopian sources,^[b] she is also said to have attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty.^[c] The deeds attributed to her are recorded in oral tradition and in a variety of historical narratives.

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