1931 (1923) ETHIOPIA Emperor Haile Selassie I & LION 50 Matonas Coin i113856

Description

Item:
i113856
Authentic Coin of:
Ethiopia
Haile Selassie I - Emperor: 2 April 1930 - 12 September 1974
1931 (1923)
Nickel 50 Matonas 26mm (6.99 grams)
Reference: KM# 31, Schön# 27
፲፱፻፳፫ ቀዳማዊ፡ኀይለ፡ሥላሴ፡ንጉሠ፡ነገሥት፡ዘኢትዮጵያ። ፶ ማቶኛ።, Portrait of Haile Selassié I, the last emperor of Ethiopia, facing right.
50 ሞዓ፡አንበሳ፡ዘእምነገደ፡ይሁዳ፡, Lion of Judah facing right.
Coin Notes:
Blank planchets for this type were manufactured by Mond Nickel Company in 1932, 1933, and 1934. Of the total mintage, 422,462 were minted in 1933 and 1,198,794 were minted in 1934.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Haile Selassie I
(Ge'ez: ቀዳማዊ ኀይለ ሥላሴ,
romanized:
Qädamawi Häylä Səllasé
,
born
Tafari Makonnen
; 23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. Prior to his coronation, he had been the Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia from 1916. He is a defining figure in modern Ethiopian history, and the key figure of Rastafari, a religious movement in Jamaica which emerged shortly after he became emperor in the 1930s. He was a member of the Solomonic dynasty who traced his lineage to Emperor Menelik I, supposedly the son of King Solomon and Makeda the Queen of Sheba.
Haile Selassie attempted to modernize the country through a series of political and social reforms, including the introduction of Ethiopia's first written constitution and the abolition of slavery. He led the failed efforts to defend Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and spent the period of Italian occupation in exile in England. He returned to lead Ethiopia in 1941 after the British Empire defeated the Italian occupiers in the East African campaign. He dissolved the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which was established by the UN General Assembly in 1950, and integrated Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia while fighting to prevent their secession.
His internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations. In 1963, he presided over the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor of the African Union, and served as its first chairman. He was overthrown in a 1974 military coup by a Marxist–Leninist junta, the Derg. Selassie died on 27 August 1975.
Among some members of the Rastafari movement, Haile Selassie is referred to as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate. This distinction notwithstanding, Haile Selassie was a Christian and adhered to the tenets and liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. The Rastafari movement was founded in Jamaica sometime around 1930 and its followers are estimated at between 700,000 and one million as of 2012.
He has been criticized by some historians for his suppression of rebellions among the landed aristocracy (the
mesafint
), which consistently opposed his reforms; some critics have also criticized Ethiopia's failure to modernize rapidly enough. During his rule the Harari people were persecuted and many left the Harari Region. His regime was also criticized by human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, as autocratic and illiberal. Late during his regime, the Oromo language was banned from education, public speaking and use in administration The Amhara culture dominated throughout the eras of military and monarchic rule. The Haile Selassie government relocated numerous Amharas into southern Ethiopia where they served in government administration, courts, church. Following the death of Hachalu Hundessa in June 2020, the Statue of Haile Selassie in Cannizaro Park, London was destroyed by Oromo protesters, and his father's equestrian monument in Harar was removed.
The
Lion of Judah
(Hebrew: אריה יהודה‬
Aryeh Yehudah
) is a Jewish national and cultural symbol, traditionally regarded as the symbol of the Israelite tribe of Judah. According to the Torah, the tribe consists of the descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The association between Judah and the lion can first be found in the blessing given by Jacob to his son Judah in the Book of Genesis.
The Lion of Judah is also mentioned in the Book of Revelation, as a term representing Jesus, according to Christian theology. The lion of Judah was also one of the titles of the Solomonic Emperors of Ethiopia. It was depicted on a map of the Upper Nile published in 1683 by the Italian Jobi Ludolfi describing the Lion of Judah symbol as the Royal Insignia of the Ethiopian empire. The Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia lasted three thousand years according and has its patrilineal origin in the Israelite Royal House of Judah. The Lion of Judah served as the hereditary title of the Solomonic Ethiopian emperors including Menelik and Haile Selassie and was depicted on the flag of Ethiopia from 1897 to 1974. Due to its association with Haile Selassie, it continues to be an important symbol among members of the Rastafari movement.
The biblical Judah (in Hebrew:
Yehuda
) is the eponymous ancestor of the Tribe of Judah, which is traditionally symbolized by a lion. In Genesis, the patriarch Jacob ("Israel") gave that symbol to this tribe when he refers to his son Judah as a
Gur Aryeh
גּוּר אַרְיֵה יְהוּדָה, "Young Lion" (Genesis 49:9) when blessing him. In Jewish naming tradition the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case. The Lion of Judah was used as a Jewish symbol for many years, and as Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, in 1950 it was included in the Emblem of Jerusalem.
Ethiopian history
Ethiopia's history as recorded and elaborated in a 13th-century treatise, the
Kebre Negest
, asserts descent from a retinue of Israelites who returned with Makeda, the Queen of Sheba from her visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem, by whom she had conceived the Solomonic dynasty's founder Menelik I. As Solomon was of the tribe of Judah, his son Menelik I would continue the line, which according to Ethiopian history was passed directly down from king to king until Emperor Haile Selassie I (ostensibly the 225th king from King David) was deposed in 1974.
Both Christian and Jewish Ethiopian history have it that there were also immigrants of the Tribes of Dan and Judah that accompanied Makeda back from her visit to Solomon; hence the Ge'ez motto
Mo`a 'Anbessa Ze'imnegede Yihuda
("The Lion of Judah has conquered"), included among the titles of the Emperor throughout the Solomonic Dynasty. It is unknown whether John of Patmos was directly aware of this hereditary title when he penned it into the text of the prophecy.
The Lion of Judah motif figured prominently on the old imperial flag, currency, stamps, etc. and may still be seen gracing the terrace of the capital as a national symbol. After the collapse of the Communist Derg in 1990 and the increase of Western-style political freedoms, a minor political party bearing the name
Mo'a Anbessa
made its appearance.
Rastafari movement
The Lion of Judah is a prominent symbol in the Rastafari movement. It represents Emperor Haile Selassie I as well as being a symbol of strength, kingship, pride and African sovereignty. Rastafari consider the mention of "The Lion of Judah" in Genesis 49:9 and Revelation 5:5 of The Bible to refer to Emperor Haile Selassie I. Rastafari hail Haile Selassie I with the titles "KING of Kings, LORD of lords, Conquering Lion of Judah, Elect of God, the Light of the World".The phrase appears in the New Testament in Revelation 5:5: "And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." This is widely regarded as a reference to Jesus among
Christians.
Many Christian organizations and ministries use the lion of Judah as their emblem or even as their name.
Ethiopia
(/ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/; Amharic: ኢትዮጵያ,
ʾĪtyōṗṗyā
), oromo: Itiyoophiyaa, somali: Itoobiya, Hebrew: אתיופיה -officially the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
(የኢትዮጵያ ፌዴራላዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ሪፐብሊክ,
yeʾĪtiyoṗṗya Fēdēralawī Dēmokirasīyawī Rīpebilīk
), is a country in the northeastern part of Africa, popularly known as the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northwest, and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With over 102 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populous nation on the African continent. It occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi), and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa.
Some of the oldest skeletal evidence for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East and places beyond. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era. Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia's governmental system was a monarchy for most of its history. In the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, followed by the Ethiopian Empire circa 1137. During the late 19th-century Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was one of two nations to retain its sovereignty from long-term colonialism by a European colonial power. Many newly-independent nations on the continent subsequently adopted its flag colours. The country was occupied by Italy in 1936 and became Italian Ethiopia (part of the Italian East Africa) until 1947. Ethiopia was also the first independent member from Africa of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations. In 1974, the Ethiopian monarchy under Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Derg, a communist military government backed by the Soviet Union. In 1987, the Derg established the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, but it was overthrown in 1991 by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been the ruling political coalition since.
Ethiopia and Eritrea use the ancient Ge'ez script, which is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is approximately seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A majority of the population adheres to Christianity (mainly the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and P'ent'ay), whereas around a third follows Islam (primarily Sunni). The country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, also resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s. Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromo, Amhara, Somali and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. Additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are also spoken by the nation's Nilotic ethnic minorities.
The nation is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile west, its forests, and numerous rivers, and the world's hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are the largest continuous mountain ranges in Africa, and the Sof Omar Caves contains the largest cave on the continent. Ethiopia also has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Additionally, the sovereign state is a founding member of the UN, the Group of 24 (G-24), the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77 and the Organisation of African Unity. Its capital city Addis Ababa serves as the headquarters of the African Union, the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Standby Force, and many of the global NGOs focused on Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia experienced civil conflicts and communist purges, which hindered its economy. The country has since recovered and now has the largest economy (by GDP) in East Africa, having the largest population in the region.
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