![Haile Selassie I in his limousine during his state visit to Bern on 25 November 1954. His headdress is decorated with a lion’s mane.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/haile-selassie-in-der-schweiz-titel-300x225.jpg)
Emperor Haile Selassie, God of the Rastafarians
Emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975), who was crowned ‘King of Kings’ in Addis Ababa in 1930, was believed in Ethiopia to have been chosen by God. The Rastafarians in Jamaica even ‘recognised’ him as their Messiah and God. A look at the dual ‘careers’ of a 20th-century figure who was as remarkable as he was controversial.
![Tafari (left) and his father, before 1905.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/tafari-und-sein-vater-vor-1905-198x300.jpg)
![Ras Tafari Makonnen (left) and Empress Zewditu, 1917.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/zewditu-and-favored-priest-223x300.jpg)
Coronation of the ‘King of Kings’
The coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie I, 1930. YouTube
Offspring of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon
![Solomon meets the Queen of Sheba: detail of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise at the Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence, 1425-52.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/die-konigin-von-saba-trifft-konig-salomon-300x180.jpg)
![National flag of the Ethiopian Empire of the Lion of Judah in the period 1897-1936 and 1941-1974.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/nationalflagge-des-kaiserreichs-athiopien-dem-lowen-judas-in-der-zeit-von-1897-bis-1936-und-1941-bis-1974-300x200.jpg)
Meanwhile, in Jamaica
![Time Magazine, 6.1.1936, Volume XXVII, No 1, cover.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/haile-selassie-time-cover-1936-228x300.jpg)
Haile Selassie and the Rastafarians
Video of Emperor Haile Selassie landing in Jamaica for his state visit in 1966. YouTube
Reggae, the music of the Rastafarians
Bob Marley singing ‘War’. YouTube
Downfall and death in the mid-1970s
![T-shirts featuring Haile Selassie for sale in Harlem, New York, 2021.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/t-shirts-mit-haile-selassie-zum-verkauf-in-harlem-new-york-2021-300x200.jpg)
Haile Selassie’s immortality
![Chronixx (left) with members of his band in front of the main entrance to Jegenstorf Castle. The triangle hand sign means ‘Power of the Trinity’ – the English translation of the Amharic regnal name ‘Haile Selassie’.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/chronixx-jegenstorf-300x300.jpg)