Such links, together with archaeological evidence, have conditioned research to the entire region. Perhaps inevitably, Ethiopia is seen by many as little more than an African outpost of an essentially Asiatic Semitic culture. This ignores, however, the effect of the other main ethnic component of Ethiopia and of the Horn of Africa as a whole - the Agaw, the Somali and the Oromo, who speak Hamitic, also sometimes referred to as Cushitic, languages and whose cultural contribution has also been immense.

New findings suggest that both the Semitic and Hamitic language families may derive from a single ancestral tongue, Hamito-Semitic, which originated in the eastern Sahara - before it became a desert - and not Asia.

Curiously corroborated in certain respects by the Old Testament, this view suggests that climatic changes in ancient times prompted a migration across the Red Sea out of Africa and that the Semitic peoples of the Middle East - notably the Jews and the Arabs - owe their origins to this primordial exodus. Other speakers of the Hamito-Semitic tongue, however, moved southwards to colonise the Horn. There, possibly because of the divided nature of the region's dramatic landscapes, increasing linguistic and cultural specialisation led to the emergence of distinct ethnic groups.

Throughout many thousands of years, the tribes on the Arabian peninsula and those who stayed in Africa maintained some contact, with substantial movements perhaps in both directions. Thus, South Arabians such as the Habashat may well have been returning to an already established Semitic homeland.

Recorded histories in which Ethiopia is mentioned date back more than 4,000 years. The earliest records were compiled by two ancient centres of human civilisation, Persia and Egypt - both of which saw the Horn of Africa as an emporium of much-prized tropical products. Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions indicate that the Pharaohs obtained frankincense and myrrh from Ethiopia as long ago as 3,000 years before the birth of Christ. Trade with India also began in remote antiquity - the Horn has supplied the subcontinent with vast quantities of ivory from time immemorial.

Ancient contacts such as these nurtured and strengthened the emerging Semitic culture of northern Ethiopia, creating a kingdom that dominated the vital crossroads of Africa and Asia for almost a thousand years. Conducting its foreign trade through the Red Sea port of Adulis, the kingdom's capital was Axum - described by Nonnosus, Ambassador of the Roman Emperor Justinian, as the greatest city of all Ethiopia.