Kandake
[7] The Kandakes of Meroe were first described through the Greek geographer's Strabo account of the "one-eyed Candace" in 23 BCE in his encyclopedia Geographica.
As seen in the Dream Stela of Tanawetamani, a large shawl was wrapped around the body with an additionally decorated cloak worn over the first; typically, a small tab-like element hanging below the hem touches the ground and has been interpreted as a little tail.
It was not until George Reisner excavated the royal cemeteries at El Kurru and Nuri in 1917-19 that archaeological material became available for studying Kushite queenship.
[10] At Nuri, the tombs of royal women are located on the west plateau, with more inscriptional information available at the site, linking the roles that the kings' mothers played in succession and their importance during the Kushite dynasty.
[11] The lunettes of the stelae of Tanawetamani, Harsiyotef, and Nastasen all provide iconographic and textual evidence of these kings' enthronement.
In bas-reliefs found in the ruins of building projects she commissioned, Shanakdakheto is portrayed both alone as well as with her husband and son, who would inherit the throne upon her death.
[15][16] Cassius Dio wrote that Kandake's army advanced as far as the Elephantine in Egypt, but Petronius defeated them and took Napata, their capital, and other cities.
Ethiopia has a long dynastic history claimed to be over three millennia from before 1000 BC to 1973, the year of the overthrow of the last Menelik emperor, Haile Selassie.
The Ethiopian monarchy's official chronicle of dynastic succession descends from Menelik I includes six regnant queens referred to as Kandake.
The conquest of Meroe by the Axumite King Ezana may well provide the historical fiction for the Ethiopian dynastic claim to the Nubian Kandakes and their kings, as it was from this point onwards that the Axumites began calling themselves "Ethiopians", a Greco-Roman term previously used largely for the ancient Nubians.
[26][27] The story is that when Alexander attempted to conquer her lands in 332 BC, she arranged her armies strategically to meet him and was present on a war elephant when he approached.
