Imagine the wonderful surprise. One of my granddaughters had made a piece of pottery that was to be the Castle of Presbyter John. I could not believe that my granddaughter was so well educated. She knew who Presbyter John was. She credits her knowledge to a high school advanced placement class on world history.
So how do I know who Presbyter John was?
In the early 60’s, when I was a graduate student in economics, I was hired one summer to spend months in the University of California library reading every single book and looking at every map of Africa as reported by any European or Arab prior to 1850. There were over 186 such books and maps of which I was able to study more than 140 in five languages. These were usually books written by explorers. My research was the core data for all future economic books on the economic history of Africa. The client was Professor Marvin Miracle.
Among several explorers who were in East Africa, the subject of Presbyter John was mentioned regularly. From the earliest Portuguese in 1600 to Germans in the late 1700s there was a constant search for Presbyter John. Presbyter John was a mythical character from the 1100’s in medieval Europe. He remained important because it was believed that he had a magical Christian empire in Eastern Africa.
In fact, Ethiopia had been Christian since the fourth century.
We still see the remnants of this issue in the Muslim killing of Egyptian Copts.