Amha Iyasus

Amha Iyasus Kidane Kale, better known as Ammehayes (reigned c. 1744 – c. 1775), was a Meridazmach of Shewa, an important Amhara noble of Ethiopia. He was the son of Kidane Kale, and a sister of Goshu of Amhara.

The Meridazmach made a diplomatic visit to the Emperor's court at Gondar in 1771, during the first decades of the chaotic Zemene Mesafint ("Era of The Princes"), where the Scots explorer James Bruce met him. Calling him "Yasous", Bruce describes Amha Iyasus as "the son of the governor of Shoa", "a man from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age, tall, and of a just degree of corpulence, with arms and legs finely made; he had a very beautiful face, small features, and the most affable manners."

Mordechai Abir writes, "It was during the reign of Ammehayes that the reconquest of the territories held by the Galla really seriously began." He imported a number of firearms from the northern parts of Ethiopia, and used them to assert his primacy over his neighboring Christian states including Tegulet, Menz, Efrata and Bulga. He moved his capital to Doqaqit in Ifat, whence he raided the lands of the Afar to the east. He renewed the war with the Karayu Oromo, but had more success with the Abichu Oromo, conquering their tribes as far west as the Chia Chia river near Angolalla.

It was during his reign that Shewa conquered the Ankober area; according to Harold Marcus, he founded the "two important and still active churches", Qeddus Giyorgis in Ankober and Kidana Mehrat in Astit. He virtually exterminated the Oromo population between Debre Berhan and Ankober, resettling the area with Amhara colonists

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