Amazing Sites In Axum, Ethiopia
Mar 05, 2004
MANY sites around the world testify to the efforts of mankind to secure immortality. Such a place is Axum in northern Ethiopia, which is readily accessible by Ethiopian Airways.
By Craddock Williams
MANY sites around the world testify to the efforts of mankind to secure immortality. Such a place is Axum in northern Ethiopia, which is readily accessible by Ethiopian Airways. Axum’s modern airport is reached after an hour’s flight from Addis Ababa.
At Axum, tourists flock to see the astonishing array of antique stelae and solid rock obelisks, clustered conveniently on a single site not far from the town centre.
With few clues as to their origin, their mystery is all, but total matched and offset by the sheer sculptural quality surviving from such a distant past, for they must date back at least 4,000 years.
The largest standing stela rears 23 metres into the sky, leaning slightly to the right. At its base are hollows carved into its plinth, where we guess, oil lanterns illuminated its carved façade at night.
A second stela was taken to Rome by Mussolini’s Italian troops during his Imperial rape of Ethiopia in the 1930s, but we are told, is to be returned soon to Axum by a the modern and enlightened Italian government.
The largest stela, weighing an estimated 500tons, fell at some distant date in history and lies broken in seven pieces. Its tip, presumably a moon-shaped crescent like the standing obelisk, is no longer visible, perhaps because it disintegrated on impact. It clearly hit and must have knocked over the uncompleted structure of vast solid rocks you see 33 metres from its base.
How, when and why did this stela fall? Was it pushed over by Nubian invaders? Did it fall when the Axumite kingdom fell?
Was there an earthquake? Was its roughly-hewn base, barely two metres long, an insufficient foundation to keep the vast solid pillar upright? No answers are forthcoming from the guides.
You cannot help feeling sorry for those remote Axumite creators, and proud too of their persistence and care in attempting to errect such a monument to man’s longing for immortality.
Carved on all four of its sides with great precision, are the features of what appear to be the 13 stories of a building, non unlike the high-rise tower houses of the Yemen. At its base, as at the base of the standing stela, are recessed doorways, carved in the solid rock. On them are latches, similar to the wooden latched on the doors of the houses in the Yemen.
But these latches are solid. The doors do not open. What do they signify? Do these strange pillars presage the skyscrapers mankind has since archived with modern engineering?
Among the other amazing sights in Axum are the queen of Sheba’s bath, open for all to see, which looks now more like a small town reservoir, where housewives gather to collect water and wash clothes.
And between the two churches of St. Mary, old and new, a building said to house the original Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments, the tabot, carved in stone and brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai to chasen the errant tribes of Israel. In Axum, the Ark and the commandments are now, as they have always been, closely guarded from public view, however much you may want to see them, by a single monk, centuries of secretive mysticism, a red velvet curtain, and a padlocked gate.
For those interested in Historical and Religious mysteries, Axum has much to offer.
Ends
MANY sites around the world testify to the efforts of mankind to secure immortality. Such a place is Axum in northern Ethiopia, which is readily accessible by Ethiopian Airways. Axum’s modern airport is reached after an hour’s flight from Addis Ababa.
At Axum, tourists flock to see the astonishing array of antique stelae and solid rock obelisks, clustered conveniently on a single site not far from the town centre.
With few clues as to their origin, their mystery is all, but total matched and offset by the sheer sculptural quality surviving from such a distant past, for they must date back at least 4,000 years.
The largest standing stela rears 23 metres into the sky, leaning slightly to the right. At its base are hollows carved into its plinth, where we guess, oil lanterns illuminated its carved façade at night.
A second stela was taken to Rome by Mussolini’s Italian troops during his Imperial rape of Ethiopia in the 1930s, but we are told, is to be returned soon to Axum by a the modern and enlightened Italian government.
The largest stela, weighing an estimated 500tons, fell at some distant date in history and lies broken in seven pieces. Its tip, presumably a moon-shaped crescent like the standing obelisk, is no longer visible, perhaps because it disintegrated on impact. It clearly hit and must have knocked over the uncompleted structure of vast solid rocks you see 33 metres from its base.
How, when and why did this stela fall? Was it pushed over by Nubian invaders? Did it fall when the Axumite kingdom fell?
Was there an earthquake? Was its roughly-hewn base, barely two metres long, an insufficient foundation to keep the vast solid pillar upright? No answers are forthcoming from the guides.
You cannot help feeling sorry for those remote Axumite creators, and proud too of their persistence and care in attempting to errect such a monument to man’s longing for immortality.
Carved on all four of its sides with great precision, are the features of what appear to be the 13 stories of a building, non unlike the high-rise tower houses of the Yemen. At its base, as at the base of the standing stela, are recessed doorways, carved in the solid rock. On them are latches, similar to the wooden latched on the doors of the houses in the Yemen.
But these latches are solid. The doors do not open. What do they signify? Do these strange pillars presage the skyscrapers mankind has since archived with modern engineering?
Among the other amazing sights in Axum are the queen of Sheba’s bath, open for all to see, which looks now more like a small town reservoir, where housewives gather to collect water and wash clothes.
And between the two churches of St. Mary, old and new, a building said to house the original Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments, the tabot, carved in stone and brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai to chasen the errant tribes of Israel. In Axum, the Ark and the commandments are now, as they have always been, closely guarded from public view, however much you may want to see them, by a single monk, centuries of secretive mysticism, a red velvet curtain, and a padlocked gate.
For those interested in Historical and Religious mysteries, Axum has much to offer.
Ends