Axum Home Axum Northern Ethiopia’s ancient city of Axum is the country’s oldest extant urban settlement. Once the capital and a major religious center, it remains the site of many remarkable antiquities, including the famous monolithic obelisks, or stelae, important stone inscriptions, the remains of spectacular palaces and graves, and a special gold-silver-and-bronze currency. The city, with its historic church of St. Mary of Tseyon (Zion), is a must for the tourist and any serious student of Ethiopia’s history and culture. Axum grew to importance in classical antiquity – the millennium which included the birth of Christ. The Axumite kingdom emerged as the most powerful Red Sea state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia, a great commercial power trading with Egypt, probably Palestine, Arabia, India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The Axumites also had significant trading land contacts with religions to the west and south, some of which were gradually brought into Axum’s economic and later political orbit. After its conversion to Christianity, early in the fourth century, Axum emerged as an important religious centre: the site of the country’s most important and revered Church of St Mary of Tseyon, which, according to Ethiopian tradition, is the repository of the biblical Ark of the Covenant-housed in its own separate building; Axum’s importance survived its political decline, between the seventh and 10th centuries. A number of years later Ethiopian Emperors – all who could do so – went to the city for their coronation. Axum so impressed 19th-century British traveler, Theodore Bent, that he described it at length in his classic travelogue The Sacred City of the Ethiopians. Obelisks/Stelae Much has been written about Axum’s famous monolithic obelisks, or stelae, cut out of the hardest granite, some no more than rudely fashioned stones little larger than a human being, but others massive and beautifully carved monuments which once towered into the sky. The finest represent multi-storey houses, with a ground-floor door, complete with a door handle, and windows on each ‘floor’. In its heyday Axum had three main obelisks. The largest, now fallen and broken into several pieces, is the biggest block of stone ever worked on by humanity anywhere in the world. It was a remarkably impressive piece of workmanship, representing a palace of no less than 12 storey. Many Ethiopians long for the day when it will be erected again on its original site. The second obelisk is some 10 meters shorter, and stands a little away from the great fallen monolith. It was described early in the 1gth century by the British traveller Henry Salt as the most admirable and perfect monument of its kind. Exactly between these two obelisks stood a third monolith, slightly larger than the second, and better carved. This obelisk collapsed and broke into three large pieces. This was taken to Rome, orders given y the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and erected in 1937 in front of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). Nineteenth April 2005 saw the return of this famous Obelisk back to Axum. Ready to Travel With Real Adventure Check Availability
