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Ethiopia together with Eritrea and the southeastern part of the Red Sea coast of Sudan, it is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt (or "Ta Netjeru," meaning land of the Gods), whose first mention dates to the twenty-fifth century BC. Around the eighth century BC, a kingdom known as D'mt was established in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with its capital at Yeha in northern Ethiopia. Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is now known to not have derived from Sabaean, and there is evidence of a Semitic speaking presence in Ethiopia and Eritrea at least as early as 2000 BC.
After the fall of D'mt in the fifth century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms, until the rise of one of these kingdoms during the first century BC, the Aksumite Kingdom, ancestor of medieval and modern Ethiopia, which was able to reunite the area. At various times, including a fifty-year period in the sixth century, Axum controlled most of modern-day Yemen and some of southern Saudi Arabia just across the Red Sea, as well as controlling southern Egypt, northern Sudan, northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and northern Somalia.
The Gobi is a large desert region in northern China and southern Mongolia. The name Gobi is pinyin; while pin means "spell(ing)" and yin means "sound(s)"), is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. For example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by b and p are distinguished from each other (by aspiration) in a manner different from that of both English (which has voicing and aspiration) and of French (which has voicing alone). Other letters, like j, q, x or zh indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English.
Ethiopia has 84 indigenous languages.
The Kingdom of Aksum, the first verifiable kingdom of great power to rise in Ethiopia, rose during the first century BC. The Persian religious figure Mani listed Axum with Rome, Persia, and China as one of the four great powers of his time. It was in the early 4th century AD that a Syro-Greek castaway, Frumentius, was taken to the court and eventually converted king Ezana to Christianity, thereby making it official. For this accomplishment, he received the title "Abba Selama". The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first nations to officially adopt Christianity, when St. Frumentius of Tyre, called Fremnatos or Abba Selama ("Father of Peace") in Ethiopia, converted King Ezana during the fourth century AD. Many believe that the Gospel had entered Ethiopia even earlier, with the royal official described as being baptised by Philip the Evangelist in chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles.
The name "Ethiopia" (Hebrew Kush) is mentioned in the Bible numerous times (thirty-seven times in the King James version), and is in many ways considered a holy place. Ethiopia is also mentioned many times in the Qu'ran and Hadith. While most Ethiopians accept that these are references to their own ancient civilisation, pointing out that the Gihon river, a name for the Nile, is said to flow through the land, most modern scholars believe that the use of the term referred to the Kingdom of Kush in particular or Africa outside of Egypt in general- biblical Kush was a large part of land that included Northern Ethiopia, Eritrea and most of present day Sudan. In addition, the Cushitic peoples, who live around the Horn of Africa and today comprise the Somali, Afar, Oromo and several other tribes, are popularly asserted to be the offspring of the Biblical Cush. That the Biblical term was also applied to parts of Arabia is suggested by Genesis, where Cush is the eponymous father of certain tribal and ethnic designations that tend to point to Arabia. Babylonian inscriptions mention the Kashshi or Kassites, and it was once held that this signified a possible explanation of Cush, the ancestor of Nimrod in Genesis chapter 8. Although it is still alleged by some that the several references to Cush in the Old Testament do not refer to Ethiopia, Cushites of East Africa, including Aksum in Ethiopia, branched out and settled in Arabia or elsewhere.
Six Arabian tribes are also sons of Cush.
The Book of Axum, an Ethiopian chronicle dating from the country's Christian era, states that the name is derived from "'Ityopp'is", a son (unmentioned in the Bible) of Cush, son of Ham who according to legend founded the city of Axum. Cush was the eldest son of Ham, brother of Canaan and the father of Nimrod, mentioned in the table of nations" in the Book of Genesis (X. 6) and in I Chronicles (I: 8), usually considered the eponym of the people of Kush. Six Arabian tribes are also sons of Cush. In Genesis Cush was the father of the Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. He is also the father of Nimrod. Another person named Cush in the Bible was a Benjamite, mentioned only in Psalm 7, and believed to be a follower of Saul. Josephus gives an account of the nation of Cush, who is the son of Ham and the grandson of Noah. "For of the four sons of Ham, time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and by all men in Asia, called Chusites." (Antiquities of the Jews Numbers I:6.) The wife of Moses was a Kushite according to the Book of Numbers. The locality of this area has been questioned, with some believing it refers to countries south of the Israelites, and others stating it refers to part of Africa, such as Ethiopia, in ancient inscriptions written as Kesh. Samuel Bochart maintained that it was exclusively in Arabia; Friedrich Schulthess and Heinrich Gesenius held that it should be sought in Africa.
The first Muslims arrived in Ethiopia as early as 615 A.D. when Prophet Mohammed sent some of his followers across the Red Sea to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia, which was ruled by a pious Christian king. These refugees were welcomed with great hospitality by the Axumite king. When the adversaries of the prophet asked the Negus to extradite them he refused and provided them with asylum. This flight of early Muslims to Ethiopia is regarded as the First Hijra in Islamic history. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of the Prophet Muhammad, was from Ethiopia. There are numerous indigenous African religions in Ethiopia, mainly located in the far southwest and western borderlands.
At various times, including a period in the 6th century, Axum controlled most of modern-day Yemen just across the Red Sea.