Gudit

[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.

[2] It has been conjectured that the form Gudit is connected etymologically with the Amharic word gud which connotes a range of meanings from "freak" and "monster" to "strange" and "wonderful".

"[6] Henze continues in a footnote: On my first visit to the rock church of Abreha and Atsbeha in eastern Tigray in 1970, I noticed that its intricately carved ceiling was blackened by soot.

[e] Modern historian Enrico Cerulli discovered Arabic documents that mention a Muslim queen named Badit daughter of Maya in the tenth century who reigned under the Makhzumi dynasty.

According to Steven Kaplan: Despite the Judith legend's popularity and its prominent position in the traditions of both Jews and Christians to this day, there appears to be several good reasons for rejecting the depiction of the tenth century queen of the Bani al-Hamwiyah as a Falasha.

Although some Ethiopic sources do portray Yodit as a Jewess, these generally identify her as a convert rather than the product of a well entrenched indigenous religious community.

[14]It was during the office of Pope Philotheos of Alexandria when Gudit started her revolt, near the end of the reign of the king who had deposed the Abuna Petros.

[18] The story is based on a Ge'ez tradition that she was a ruler who was exiled: With her Syrian husband Zānobis, she returns, and rallying people from her homeland in Hahayle, she destroys Aksum, and by decree declares that she had become Jewish and would persecute the Levites.