Early written records of Ethiopia are so scarce that its history can only be reconstructed with the aid of the relatively few foreign contemporary documents available, by conjecture based on surviving legends, and from later histories compiled by Christian writers who do not attempt to conceal their prejudices. Although, by the time of Ezana in the fourth century, the Axumite civilisation had reached an advanced stage of development, there are very few written records before this time and none at all from Jewish sources. There are no references in contemporary writings to Jews dwelling in the Axumite empire as there are for south Arabian Jewry, and the Mishnah and Talmud, which might have been expected to mention such an outlying Jewish community, are silent on the subject. Nor do the Beit She'arim tombs in Israel, which shed some light on the Jews of Himyar, give us a clue. The Falashas themselves maintain that they used to possess records which described their early history but they have either been destroyed or hidden. They continue to hope that one day their archives - if indeed they exist - will be recovered.

There are no epigraphic records of a Jewish community living south of Aswan between the time of the Elephantine settlement and the quasi-mythological tale of Eldad ha-Dani - a gap of thirteen centuries. The explanation could be that we are not so much following a movement of people, such as the expulsions from Spain and their resettlement elsewhere, as a spread of ideas, like the dissemination of early Christianity or the diffusion of learning after the fall of Constantinople. Such unspectacular developments are sometimes recorded in contemporary documents which deteriorate or are destroyed. Thus, we should have known nothing of the Elephantine community if it had not been for the chance discovery of the Aramaic papyri; and the Dead Sea Scrolls lay hidden, unsuspected, for nearly two thousand years. Who knows what is yet to be found or, in the case of Meroe, still awaits interpretation?

(1)Israel in Europe, quoted by Hay, ibid.