by
Damien F. Mackey
“Judith's father
King Gideon … the Jewish King of the Jewish Kingdom of Semuin married Esat
(Esther) the daughter of the Christian Solomonic Emperor … 930 AD.
Mar David …. in
about 948 decided to visit Fatimid Jerusalem ….
Mar David's wife
was a Bagratuni princess called Tamar …”.
Gideon,
David, Solomon[ic], Tamar, Judith, Simeon (“Semiun”), Esther, Jerusalem!
What
a horrible mish-mash of biblical names, BC time, all rolled up (like queen
Cleopatra), into a (time-defying magic) carpet, and then rolled out in AD time.
Tenth
century (c. 1000 BC) King David, for instance, rolled out into the tenth
century AD.
Judith the
Jewish Queen-Empress of Ethiopia
In the 10th century in Ethiopia in the
Jewish Kingdom of the Beni Hamwiyah (also called Beta Israel and Semuin) a long
line of Jewish kings had reigned since the 4th century. It was in the fourth
century that the Christian Solomonic Kingdom began while the Jewish branch
continued at Semuin. It is in the 10th century that the figure of the great
conquering Jewish Queen known as Judith or Gudit appears. She restores Jewish
rulership to the whole of [Ethiopia] under the Zagwe Dynasty. ….
I have already
suggested that this “Gudit” (or Judith) was simply a later appropriation of the
original Judith of Bethulia:
World Renowned Judith of Bethulia
The article
continues, introducing a second Tamar, the renowned Queen Tamara, and even a -
wait for it - Moses. Oh, and also, Aaron. Oh, and there’s a Ruben tossed in for
good measure:
Judith's father King Gideon (Gedajan)
the Jewish King of the Jewish Kingdom of Semuin married Esat (Esther) the
daughter of the Christian Solomonic Emperor Wedem Asfare around 930 AD.
Mar David the Khazar King of Taman's son Tzul (Zenobius / Tzul ben David
/Zavid) in about 948 decided to visit Fatimid Jerusalem and then to
head further south to Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopa. He visited the Kingdom of
Georgius II of Makhuria (Nubia) and where he took an additional name of
Georgius in honour of the great hospitality of the King. Mar David's wife was a
Bagratuni princess called Tamar the daughter of Bagrat II of Kartli (r.976-978)
and Abkhazia (978-1008) and his wife Rhipsime of Armenia sister of Ashot
III.
Historians have confused Bagrat II with
his grandson Bagrat III (the son of Empress Judith and Georgius Tzul). When
Gurgen (Bagrat II's natural father) died in 1008 it was the grandson
Bagrat III who became the King of all Georgia and his grandfather Bagrat II
died soon after.
Next Georgius Tzul
(Zenobius) visited the Jewish kingdom in Northern Ethiopia where
he married Gudit (Judith/ Gurandukht/ Duka) the daughter of King Gideon and
Queen Esther of the Falashas. Zenobius (Tzul ben David /Zavid) as a
trained and experienced Khazar warrior aided the Jews of Ethiopia in their
fight with the Christian south. However Georgius Tzul received word around 988
that his father's Khazar Kingdom of Taman was under attack and he left Ethiopa
to go to the aid of his father. Judith then led her Jewish warriors into battle
and established her son Mar Takla Haymanot on the Imperial Throne and she
married him to Masoba Warq the daughter of Dil Naod the last emperor of the
older Solomonic Christian Dynasty.
The Zagwe Dynasty was also known as the
House of Moses as they claimed male descent from Moses. However this Moses was
the Khazar King Moses (also known as Morovec and Marot) who was the ancestor of
Georgius Tzul of the Khazars. Other writers claimed that the Zagwe Dynasty
descended from Moses and Aaron and in fact the Khazar King Moses (Marot
/Marovec) was the father of King Aaron I (Aharon) of Khazaria. David the Khazar
King of Taman was a son of King Aaron II of Khazaria.
Leaving her eldest son on the throne
of Ethiopia Queen Judith went to join her husband in the Crimea with
two of her younger sons Bagrat and David. Through their Bagratuni blood through
their grandmother Tamar both of her sons were to become Kings -Bagrat III of
Georgia and David I of Lori.
Bagrat III's son George I of Georgia had
a daughter Gurandukht who married Prince Smbat of Lori a brother of King George
(Kyurike) II of Lori. Prince Smbat and Gurandukht's daughter was also called
Gurandukht and she married Alp Arshan the Muslim Sultan of the Great
Seljuks.
Prince Smbat of Lori and Princess
Gurandukt of Georgia also had a son called Ruben who was to become the first
Rubenid King of Armenia. His daughter Princess Rusudan of Armenia was the first
wife of King David IV the Builder of Georgia. King Ruben I of Armenia married
Euphrosyne of Polotsk the daughter of Vseslav Prince of Polotsk. Queen
Euphrosyne was the aunt of the famous St. Euphrosyne (Efrasinnia) of Polotsk.
Alp Arshan's daughter Gurandukht married
King Atraka of the Cuman-Kipchaks. Atraka's daughter Gurandukht was the second
wife of David IV King of the Georgians. David IV's daughter Gurandukht
(Judith/Gudit) married Prince Mairari of Ethiopa (son of the Jewish Emperor
Harbe of Ethiopia).
Prince Mairari of Ethiopa was the father
of Duka or Judith (possibly Qirwerne) who married Andronicus Komateros Doukas
(the Byzantine Ambassador to Jerusalem). The Doukas used in her husband's name
refers to his wife Duka (or Judith) rather than the Doukas family. An earlier
Andronikos Doukas was a son of Georgius Tzul (remembered as Gregoras Doukas in
some genealogies) and Judith (Duka/Guran-dukht) Queen-Empress of Ethiopa.
Andronikos was the father of Emperor Constantine X Doukas. The Kamateros family
had long been associated with the Khazars since their ancestor was the
chief engineer of the Khazar city of Sarkel.
Qirwerne (or Duka / Judith) is also said to be the
second wife of Grand Duke Iziaslav II of Russia. Many genealogists state that
she was the daughter of King Demetrius of Georgia whereas she was in fact
his niece by his sister Gurandukht. In fact Princess Duka and
Princess Qirwerne may not be the same person but two sisters or half sisters.
Duka or Judith being the Emperor Lalibela's sister who went to Jerusalem and
Constantinople with him and Qirwerne his half sister who tried to poison
him.
Duka and Andronikos's daughter was
Euphrosyne Kamertera Dukaina who married her kinsman the Byzantine Emperor
Alexius III Angelos. Queen Charlotte of England the wife of George III is a
direct female line descendant of Princess Duka of Ethiopia and Georgia.
Euphrosyne's sister Clementia (Kamartera / Clemencia) married Aimon I Count of Faucigny
and the direct female line ancestress of Mary Queen of Scots.
Another daughter of Duka (Gurandukt) was
also called Gurandukt who married Khuddan the King of Ossetia. Their daughter
Burdukhan (also called Gurandukt) married King George III of Georgia and she
was the mother of the famous Queen Regnant St. Tamara (Tamar) the Great of
Georgia ….
Had enough?
But it appears
that some aspects of the real Judith history have also been dragged into the
legends of Queen Tamara. For instance:
Tamar [Tamara] became the sole monarch in Georgia and was crowned a
second time at the Gelati cathedral near the city of Kutaisi. She was called a
“king” in their language as she ruled alone and not as a consort.
Cf. Judith 16:22: “Many
wished to marry [Judith], but she gave herself to no man all the days of her
life from the time her husband, Manasseh, died …”.
However, she was the first female rule in the country and that just
stoked the fires of rebellion in the nobility. In several stories, this is
glossed over in light of her later achievements. However, Tamar was
forced in short order to deal with the rebels and she did so in a decisive
manner. One legend tells of how she sent two women to stall the rebels by
pretending to negotiate long enough for her to gather her army.
Cf. Judith 10:11 “As
the two women were walking through the valley, an Assyrian patrol met them”.
They were eventually pardoned, but not until their titles and wealth had
been stripped.
Despite this violent beginning, Tamar wanted to rule well.
….
With the Church firmly behind her, Tamar married. Unfortunately,
the choice of Yuri, the son of Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal,
was disastrous. …. After his marriage was solemnized, Yuri was never
found sober and he was a mean drunk. Yuri was … constantly picking fights, sleeping with
anyone he could [manage] to get into bed …. Worse, he was constantly trying to
get the country into war with their Muslim neighbors for no other reason than
he was bored.
Cf. Judith 3:8 “… Holofernes
destroyed all their places of worship and cut down their sacred trees. He had
been ordered to destroy all the gods of the land …”.
Judith 12:10, 11: “… Holofernes … said to Bagoas, the
eunuch who was in charge of his personal affairs, ‘Go and persuade the Hebrew
woman, who is in your care, to come to my tent to eat and drink with us. It
would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to make love to a woman like that.
If I don't try to seduce her, she will laugh at me’.”
Judith 12:20: “Holofernes
was so charmed by [Judith] that he drank more wine than he had ever drunk at
one time in his whole life”.
Tamar was quietly consolidating her power, and soon had had enough of
her drunken ass of a husband and did the unthinkable. In a devoutly
Christian country where divorce was considered illegal, Tamar convinced the
Orthodox Church to give her a divorce from Yuri. He was accused of addiction to
drunkenness and sodomy and packed off to Constantinople.
Cf. Judith 13:8: “Then Judith raised the sword and struck
him twice in the neck as hard as she could, chopping off his head”.
[Yuri] attempted a couple of coup d’etats by raising mercenary armies
made up of wayward Vikings, Turks and disgruntled nobles.
Cf. Judith 2:14-18:
“So
Holofernes … called together all the commanders, generals, and officers of the
Assyrian army … he chose 120,000 of the best infantrymen and 12,000 of the best
mounted archers
and arranged them in battle formation. He also took along a very large number of camels, donkeys, and mules
to carry the equipment, as well as many sheep, cattle, and goats for food.
Every soldier received plenty of rations and a large payment
of gold and silver from the royal treasury”.
All [Yuri’s] attempts were put down by his ex-wife’s army, which was headed by
her new husband Prince David Soslan. ….
Cf. Judith 15:4-5:
“Uzziah
sent messengers to the towns of Betomesthaim, Bebai, Choba, and Kola, and
throughout the land of Israel to tell everyone what had happened and to urge
them to join in pursuing and destroying the enemy. When they received the message, they all attacked the Assyrians and
chased them as far as Choba, slaughtering them as they went. Even the people of
Jerusalem and others living in the mountains joined the attack when the
messengers told them what had happened in the Assyrian camp. The people of the
regions of Gilead and Galilee blocked the path of the retreating Assyrians and
inflicted heavy losses on them. They pursued them as far as the region around
Damascus”.
Queen
Tamara has to do it all over again:
Under her rule, the Georgia began reclaiming fortresses and districts
which had been previously conquered by the Ildenizids and the Shirvanshah.
Georgia’s military successes were so great, the Islamic world decided to send a
unified force to defeat them. It was led by Sultan Rukn al-Din, and to say he
was arrogant was an understatement. He sent Tamar a lovely letter stating his
intentions. He started off with a bang saying “every woman is feeble of mind,”
and went onto demand Tamar immediately surrender and either convert to Islam to
become his wife or stay Christian and become his concubine.
Shades of Judith and Holofernes again.
Well. Isn’t he sweet? The Georgian court wasn’t pleased with
this message, and in fact one of the nobles present when it was delivered
hauled off and punched the messenger. Despite these demands, Tamar did neither
of these things and promptly handed him his ass at the battle of Basiani.
Between battles, Tamar influenced much of Georgian culture. The national
Georgian epic, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, was said to be inspired by
her. The capital of Tblisi was flooded with gold and silver pouring in from
their conquered lands, and became an important crossroads between East and
West.
Cf. Judith 15:11: “It took the people thirty days to finish
looting the camp of the Assyrians. Judith was given Holofernes' tent, all his
silver, his bowls, his couches, and all his furniture. She took them and loaded
as much as she could on her mule; then she brought her wagons and loaded them
too”.
Judith 16:21, 23-24: “For the rest of her life [Judith]
was famous throughout the land of Israel….. Her fame
continued to spread …”.
[Tamara] also endowed many churches and monasteries, and in the
new monasteries the captured battle flags from the Muslim armies she conquered
hung as trophies.
Cf. Judith 16:19: “Judith dedicated to God all of
Holofernes' property, which the people had given to her. And as a special
offering in fulfillment of a vow, she presented to the Lord the mosquito net
which she had taken from Holofernes' bed”.
However, despite her warlike nature she was very concerned with doing
charitable works for her people.
Cf. Judith 16:23-24: “Before she died, Judith divided
her property among her husband's and her own close relatives and set her slave
woman free”.
[Tamara’s] burial place is also a mystery …. Other legends say her body
was taken to the Holy Land ….
Cf. Judith 16:23-24: “When she died in Bethulia at the
age of 105, she was buried beside her husband, and the people of Israel mourned
her death for seven days”.
Judith
was certainly buried in the Holy Land. We learn from 8:3 where was buried her
husband, Manasseh, beside whom Judith was buried:
“Manasseh
had suffered a sunstroke while in the fields supervising the farm workers and
later died in bed at home in Bethulia. He was buried in the family tomb in the
field between Dothan and Balamon”.
