Emperor Iyasu II

Berhan Sagad Iyasu, known to history as Emperor Iyasu II, was born on the twenty-first of October 1723 at Gondar, the son of Emperor Bakaffa (placed in this archive) and Empress Mentewab (placed in this archive) of the Qwaran Solomonic line. On the nineteenth of September 1730, upon the death of his father, he was raised to the imperial throne of Ethiopia while still a child of about seven years.

Because he came to power so young, real authority rested with his mother, Empress Mentewab, who was crowned co-ruler and governed with the counsel of her brother, Ras Welde Leul. Their partnership held the Gondarine heartland around Dembiya, Begemder, and Gojjam through decades in which the power of provincial lords was steadily rising against the crown.

His long reign preserved the cultural and architectural flowering of the Gondarine age, adorned by the great building works of the capital — most famously the Debre Tsehai Qwesqwam church and palace complex, founded and raised by Empress Mentewab herself between 1731 and its consecration in 1740. Iyasu loved the hunt and the embellishment of Gondar, and his arms met disaster in 1738 at the Dindar River against the Kingdom of Sennar, where sacred treasures were lost and had to be ransomed back.

Iyasu II died in late June 1755, and was laid to rest within the very sanctuary of Qwesqwam his mother had built; his son Iyoas I succeeded him. May the memory of this son of Gondar, keeper of a fragile peace in a proud and ancient realm, be held in honor.