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Taitu Bitul

Taytu Betul
Itege
Taicron.gif
Empress consort of the Ethiopian Empire
Tenure 10 May 1889 - 12 December 1913
Coronation 4 November 1889
Queen consort of Shewa
Tenure 1883 – 9 March 1889
Born Wälättä Mikael
c. 1851
Semien
Died 11 February 1918(1918-02-11) (aged 66–67)
Entoto, Shewa
Burial Ba'eta le-Mariam Monastery
Spouse Menelik II
Father Betul Haile Maryam

Taytu Betul (Amharic: ጣይቱ ብጡል? c. 1851 – February 11, 1918) (baptismal name Wälättä Mikael) was an Empress Consort of the Ethiopian Empire (1889–1913) and the third wife of Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia. She founded Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city.

Taytu Betul (or Taitu) was born in or around 1851, the third of four children in an aristocratic Ethiopian family that was related to the Solomonic dynasty. Her father, Ras Betul Haile Maryam was less well known than her uncle Dejazmach Wube Haile Maryam, who was the ruler of much of Northern Ethiopia in the 1840s, and a rival of Emperor Tewodros II. Her father's family were the ruling family of Semien province, claiming descent from Emperor Susenyos I. Her father is a grand son of Ras Gugsa, a member of the powerful ruling family of Yejju, which was of Oromo origin and had converted to Christianity from Islam, and which had ruled as Regents for the powerless Emperors in Gondar during the Zemene Mesafint ("Era of the Princes"). Taytu had the reputation of being fiercely proud of her lineage in Yejju, Semien and Begemder. After four failed marriages, Taytu Betul married King Menelek of Shewa, later Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia. Menelik II and Taytu Betul personally owned 70,000 slaves.


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