Source of the Blue Nile (Pedro Páez)
Fuente del Nilo Azul (Pedro Páez)
- Date
- 21 de abril de 1618 · confidence high
- Place
- Gish Abay, Amhara, Ethiopia
- Credited to
- Pedro Páez (Spanish Jesuit)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
The Jesuit Pedro Páez reached the sources of the Abbay (Blue Nile) near Gish Abay and described the spring and Lake Tana in his History of Ethiopia. It is the first direct European description of the headwaters of the Blue Nile.
James Bruce claimed to have discovered the source in 1770, but he acknowledged the earlier Jesuit visit, while minimising its scope; Páez did not publish his account (the History of Ethiopia was printed in 1905-06), which explains the priority dispute.
What it led to
- accounts that James Bruce claimed for himself in 1770
- European knowledge of Ethiopian geography
- the first Jesuit work on the history of Ethiopia