Ethiopia's emperors held their brothers and sons on Amba Geshen for life until Ahmad ibn Ibrahim's army took the mountain in 1540

Ethiopia's Solomonic emperors kept their brothers, sons and other male relatives on Amba Geshen, a flat-topped mountain, so they could not raise rivals to the throne. The first certain record is from the reign of Jin Asgad^†. A prince stayed until he was called to rule or died. Zara Yaqob spent almost 30 years there before he took the throne in 1434^†. The Portuguese priest Francisco Alvares, in Ethiopia from 1520 to 1527, wrote that "all his sons should be shut up in a mountain," held by "great guards, and great captains." He wrote that on the emperor's death "the eldest born inherited," though support among the nobles also counted. He saw a brother of the emperor caught after an escape; people said he would die or be blinded. The emperors also kept their treasury on the mountain. In 1446 Zara Yaqob placed a fragment of the True Cross there. The forces of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi failed to take Amba Geshen in 1531 and 1533 and took it in 1540. The Futuh al-Habasha, his campaign chronicle, records churches burned and monks and priests killed. Later emperors at Gondar used another mountain, Wehni, for the same purpose. In 2026 Amba Gishen is a pilgrimage site. Its churches of God the Father and Mariam were rebuilt after 1540.