This course will provide students with a forum to examine the history of the region from prehistoric times to the present. Particular attention will be paid to the Axumite, Zagwe, and Solomonic dynasties, to the India Ocean and Red Sea trade routes, to relations with Egypt, the Sudan, Somalia, and the Arabian Peninsula, and to the adoption of Middle Eastern religions. U of T has a rich collection of unique online resources, including Mazgaba Se’elat (user ID and password: student), a database of 75,000 original images of Ethiopian art and culture; the entire collection of 219 manuscripts (18,000 folios) from the 15th-century monastery of Gunda Gunde, and a growing collection of interviews with craftsmen currently involved in chiseling out churches from the rock.