Of Obelisks and Empire

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n the first century a.d., an unknown merchant recorded details of the Red Sea trade, and mentioned Adulis, the harbor of “the city of the people called Aksumites” to which “all the ivory is brought from the country beyond the Nile.”

The ruler of Aksum, he wrote, was Zoskales, who was “miserly in his ways and always striving for more, but otherwise upright, and acquainted with Greek literature.” Just two centuries later, the philosopher Mani (ca. a.d. 210–276) included Aksum as one of the four great empires, along with Rome, Persia, and Sileos (possibly China). And in 274, envoys from Aksum took part in the triumphal procession staged by the emperor Aurelian when he paraded the captured Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, fettered with gold chains, through Rome.

Today, Aksum is a dusty, regional market town of about 50,000 in northern Ethiopia.

If people have heard of it, perhaps it is on account of another queen: the Biblical Sheba.

According to the Kebra Nagast (Book of the Glory of the Kings), an early-14th-century compilation that chronicles Ethiopia’s rulers, Solomon and Sheba had a son, Menelik, who brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Aksum. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church maintains that the Ark is still kept within the precinct walls of the Church of Tsion (Mary of Zion) in Aksum.

Of Obelisks and Empire Royal monuments and ancient accounts recall the lost glory of an African kingdom

by Mark Rose photographs by Chester Higgins, Jr. But there is more to Aksum than legends of Sheba and the Ark. In 1980, it was added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites because of the vestiges of its past, scattered throughout and around the town: ancient cemeteries with royal tombs, villa-like residential complexes, inscriptions, and monolithic stelae and obelisks.

At times, tradition and belief mix uneasily with archaeology in Aksum. A year ago, a retired University of Hamburg archaeologist claimed that he had uncovered remains of Sheba’s 10th-century b.c. palace and possibly where Menelik placed the Ark. Headline writers produced breathless, Indiana Jones–inspired copy: “German ‘raiders’ on trail of the Ark.” But other German scholars, from the same university, quickly poured cold water on the story. Their terse statement noted, “The members and the head of the Ethiopian Studies Research Unit of Hamburg University consider the published identification as not scientifically proven.”

The site of these controversial excavations is on the western side of Aksum, where in the 1960s a French team dug a large residential complex dating to around a.d. 600–640.

It has traditionally been called the Palace of the Queen of Sheba, who is identified in Ethiopian accounts as Kandake Makeda. But there is no reason to believe that it—or the ancient reservoir at Aksum known locally as Sheba’s Bath—was in any way related to her.

And the evidence for a 10th-century b.c. palace below it is less than compelling. www.archaeology.org

The kingdom of Aksum, centered in what is now northern Ethiopia, was a world power in the first millennium Å At the empire’s height, monolithic obelisks were raised to mark the burials of rulers and nobility. One, at more than 100 feet and about 550 tons, fell and shattered as it was being erected in the fourth century.

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ksum’s rapid rise to power—a millennium after the time of Sheba—owes much to its location.

Not only was it in a position to dominate the ivory trade from the African interior, it also could control the sea route by which ships carried goods from the Mediterranean to markets along the Red Sea coast and beyond to India.

Aksum’s growing economic power was matched by a flexing of its military might. An inscription set up at Adulis by an unknown Aksumite king, possibly Sembrouthes (a.d.

240–270), catalogues his conquests and the expansion of his realm across the Red Sea into southwestern Arabia: Taken by Mussolini in 1937, the Aksum Obelisk was returned, in three pieces, in 2005.

Last year, it was reerected in its original position in a joint UNESCO, Italian, and Ethiopian project.

Aksum’s main cemetery boasted three massive fourth-century Å obelisks: one still standing (center) and one fallen (left), as well as the excavation (between them) for the third, repatriated from Italy and reerected last year.

Having after this with a strong hand compelled the nations bordering on my kingdom to live in peace, I made war upon the following nations, and by force of arms reduced them to subjection. I warred first with the nation of Gazê, then with Agamê and Sigyê, and having conquered them I exacted the half of all that they possessed. I next reduced Aua and Tiamô, called Tziamô, and the Gambêla, and the tribes near them, and Zingabênê and Angabe and Tiama and Athagaûs and Kalaa, and the Semênoi—a people who lived beyond the Nile on mountains difficult of access and covered with snow…. And I sent a fleet and land forces against the Arabitae and Cinaedocolpitae who dwelt on the other side of the Red Sea, and having reduced the sovereigns of both, I imposed on them a land tribute and charged them to make traveling safe both by sea and by land.

Acting now on the global stage, Aksum continued to extend its reach in the fourth century, justifying its inclu-

Archaeology • May/June 2009

Known as “The Mausoleum,” this multichambered tomb of the early fourth century Å was associated with the largest of Aksum’s obelisks. The tomb was investigated in the 1990s, but looters had ransacked it in antiquity.

sion in Mani’s list of world powers. Already in control of the Red Sea coast of Africa and its hinterland, as well as part of Arabia, the empire thrust decisively into Nubia during the reign of Ezana (a.d. 320–350). The king’s inscriptions found in Aksum relate his campaigns and betray no hint of mercy: Through the might of the Lord of All I took the field against the Noba [Nubians]…. And thereupon they fled and stood not still, and I pursued the fugitives 23 days, slaying them and capturing others and taking plunder from them, where I came; while prisoners and plunder were brought back by my own people who marched out; while I burnt their towns, those of masonry and those of straw, and seized their grain and their bronze and the dried meat and the images in their temples and destroyed the stocks of grain and cotton; and the enemy plunged into the river Seda, and many perished in the water, the number I know not, and as their vessels foundered a multitude of people, men and women, were drowned….

Inscriptions from the second half of Ezana’s reign, as well as surviving correspondence from the Roman emperor Constantius II, indicate that the king converted to Christianity from a hybrid religion based on local and Greco-Roman deities. Over the succeeding centuries, Christianity became the state religion. Under Ezana and his successors, from the fourth through sixth centuries, the Aksumite Empire reached its height, covering a territory the size of Spain. And it was in this period that the monumental granite stelae, Aksum’s greatest and most distinctive works, were created.

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ore than 1,000 stelae and obelisks remain in and around Aksum today. Early stelae were small, rough uncarved monoliths up to 10 feet in height and marked simple pit graves. In the first centuries a.d., the pit graves were replaced by shaft tombs marked by carefully smoothed stelae as tall as 33 feet with carved, rounded tops. The trend continued, with multichambered tombs and even larger and more elaborate markers in the third and fourth centuries. Dominating the royal and elite cemetery of Mai Hejja (Stele What is locally called the “Palace of the Queen of Sheba” is in fact a large residential complex of the sixth century Å Most archaeologists are skeptical of claims that early vestiges of Sheba’s villa have been found here.

www.archaeology.org

Park), near the Church of Tsion, are three colossal obelisks.

Numbered by archaeologists simply as Stelae 1–3, they were intended to form a single alignment, but only one remained standing into modern times. That one (Stele 3), about 75 feet tall and traditionally associated with King Ezana, was likely the first of the three to be erected. It was followed by Stele 2, which was slightly larger. Both of these, however, were dwarfed by Stele 1, a behemoth at about 108 feet and some 550 tons. Despite having successfully quarried this monolith and transported it about 2.5 miles to the site, erecting it proved too great a challenge for the Aksumite architects and engineers. At some point in the process, the stele toppled, crashing to the ground and breaking in pieces, which still lie there. Stele 2 fell as well, but perhaps only in the seventh century, when the city of Aksum had been abandoned.

Known simply as the Aksum Obelisk, Stele 2 was reerected on its original location last year. Taken to Rome as a war trophy by Mussolini’s forces in 1937, it was returned to Ethiopia in 2005, flown to Aksum in three sections weighing up to 57.5 tons, and then trucked to the site. After years of studies—determining how to proceed in terms of both engineering and archaeology—a steel tower and crane

were set up for the reinstallation. In August, the steel tower was dismantled and scaffolding erected around the stele to permit restoration work on its surfaces. At the end of 2008, the scaffolding was removed, ending the stele’s 50-year exile.

(The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided most of the funds for the multimillion-dollar endeavor, with UNESCO overseeing the work.)

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ksum’s role in geopolitics and trade continued into the sixth century, as attested by sources such as Cosmas Indicopleustes (“India-voyager”), a Greek trader, probably from Alexandria, who later in life became a monk and wrote Christian Topography, in which he argued the world was flat. The book, composed about 550, is interspersed with Cosmas’s reminiscences of his merchant days. His writings give a sense of the richness of the court in Aksum, which he had seen 25 years earlier, and the breadth and scale of trade in which the Aksumite Empire was involved.

Cosmas made note of exotica, from coconuts (“the nut is at first full of a very sweet water, which the Indians drink, using it instead of wine”) to unusual animals in Aksum: In Ethiopia I once saw a live rhinoceros while I was standing at a far distance, and I saw also the skin of a dead one stuffed with chaff, standing in the royal palace, and so I have been able to draw him accurately. Cameleopards [giraffes] are found only in Ethiopia. In the palace one or two that, by command of the king, have been caught when young, are tamed to make a show for the king’s amusement….

He also compares Asian and African elephants and discusses elephants in captivity: The kings of various places in India keep elephants…. They may have each 600, or 500, some more, some fewer…. The Ethiopians do not understand the art of taming elephants; but should the king wish to have one or two for show, they capture them when young and subject them to training. Now the country abounds with them, and they have large tusks, which are exported by sea

Aksum’s monumental obelisks were carved from single blocks of granite quarried in the hills outside the city.

from Ethiopia even into India and Persia and the Homerite country [in Arabia] and the Roman dominion.

In addition to ivory, Cosmas recalls trade in other African commodities, including frankincense, gold from a region known as Sasu, and emeralds. Of the last, he says,“the Ethiopians…take it into India and, with the price it fetches, they invest in wares of great value.” He also has a lengthy description of Sri Lanka, which he knew as the Island of Taprobanê (Greek) and Sielediba (Indian): “The island being, as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends out many of its own. And from the remotest countries…it receives silk, aloes, cloves, sandalwood, and other products.”

Cosmas records a dispute between Persian and Greek traders before the king of Taprobanê, who asked them, “Which of your kings is the greater and the more powerful?”

The Greek trader wins in a clever manner, pointing out that the coins bearing his ruler’s portrait are made of gold and better struck than the silver coins with the Persian king’s image. But the argument was, on a small scale, a reflection of a gathering storm. In fact, the Byzantine emperor Justinian tried in 531 and again in 540 to bring Aksum into an active alliance against the Persians, ostensibly because of their shared religion, but also on account of trade from the East.

Silk and spices could reach the Mediterranean via the Persian Gulf and then over land, but that route left Byzantium at the mercy of its Persian rivals. Maintaining the Red Sea passage and ties with Aksum was preferable.

But Aksum had its own problems. During the reign of the king Kaleb, there was persistent upheaval in southwestern Arabia. During the 520s, Aksum was drawn into a war between Jewish and Christian parties in what is now Yemen, and then Abraha, the governor of Aksum’s Arabian territory, declared independence. Expeditions to reestablish Aksumite authority failed. In the 570s, Persia was at war with the Byzantines and expanding into southwestern Arabia, further eroding Aksum’s influence. But early in the next century, the Persians themselves were overwhelmed by the rise of Islam.

Aksum, which had sheltered early adherents to the new faith from the Persians, was not overrun, but was gradually cut off from its vital trade routes and declined. Around 630 the city was abandoned and the capital moved to Ku’bar (possibly the modern-day town Soqota, farther inland). According to Ethiopian traditions, the kingdom was eventually destroyed in the 10th century by the forces of a pagan queen, Gudit.

Today, a millennium later, with the Aksum Obelisk standing once more, the monuments of ancient glory, as well as the legends of Sheba, are again bringing the Aksumite Empire to the world’s eye. n Mark Rose is AIA online editorial director. Chester Higgins, Jr., is a photojournalist living in Brooklyn, New York. His most recent book is Echo of the Spirit: A Photographer’s Journey. For more of his work, see www.chesterhiggins.com.

Archaeology • May/June 2009