Axum

This article is about the city of Axum. For the kingdom, see Kingdom of Axum

Axum, properly Aksum, is a city in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, located at 14°07.475′N 38°43.975′E / 14.124583°N 38.732917°E / 14.124583; 38.732917 near the base of the Adoua mountains. It was the center of the Axumite Kingdom, which emerged around the time of the birth of Jesus and declined in the 12th century due to the shift of the power center of the Ethiopian Empire further south. Seventy-five percent of the people in the city are Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. The remainder of the population is Sunni Muslim and P'ent'ay.

Due to its historical value, the ruins were included by UNESCO, in 1980, in the list of World Heritage Sites.

Axumite kingdom and Orthodox Christianity

The kingdom of Axum had its own written language called Ge'ez, and also developed a distinctive architecture exemplified by giant obelisks. The kingdom was at its height under king Ezana, baptized as Abriha, in the 300s AD (which was also when it officially embraced Christianity).

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum houses the Biblical Ark of the Covenant in which lies the Tablets of Law upon which the Ten Commandments are inscribed. This same church was the site Ethiopian emperors were crowned for centuries until the reign of Fasilidos, then again beginning with Yohannes IV until the end of the empire. Axum is considered to be the holiest city in Ethiopia and is an important destination of pilgrimages. Significant religious festivals are the T'imk'et Festival (known as the Epiphany in western Christianity) on 7th January and the Festival of Maryam Zion in late November.

In 1937, a 24-meter tall, 1700-year-old obelisk standing in Axum was cut into three parts by Italian soldiers and shipped to Rome to be re-erected. The obelisk is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of engineering from the height of the Axumite empire. Despite a 1947 United Nations agreement that the obelisk would be shipped back, Italy balked, resulting in a long-standing diplomatic dispute with the Ethiopian government, which views the obelisk as a symbol of national identity. In April 2005, Italy finally returned the obelisk pieces to Axum amidst much official and public rejoicing. It is due to be re-erected in November 2005. [1] UNESCO will be responsible for the re-installation of this stele in Axum.

Axum and Islam

Although Axumite Muslims have attempted to build a mosque in this most holy of Ethiopian towns, Orthodox residents have replied that they must be allowed to build an Ethiopian Orthodox church in Mecca (officially Makkah) if the Muslims are to be allowed to build a mosque in Axum.

The connection of Axum with Islam is very old. According to ibn Hisham, when Muhammad faced oppression from the Quraish clan, he sent a small group that included his daughter Ruqayya and her husband Uthman ibn Affan, whom Ashma ibn Abjar, the king of Axum, gave refuge to, and protection to, and refused the requests of the Quraish clan to send these refugees back to Arabia. These refugees did not return until the sixth year of the Hijra (628), and even then many remained in Ethiopia, eventually settling at Negash in eastern Tigray.

There are different traditions concerning the effect these early Muslims had on the ruler of Axum. The Muslim tradition is that the ruler of Axum was so impressed by these refugees that he became a secret convert. On the other hand, one Ethiopian tradition states that one of the Muslim refugees who lived in Ethiopia during this time converted to Orthodox Christianity, thus becoming the first known convert from Islam to Christianity. Worth mentioning is a second Ethiopian tradition, that on the death of Ashama ibn Abjar, Muhammed is reported to have prayed for the king's soul, and told his followers, "Leave the Ethiopians in peace, as long as they do not take the offensive."

Sites of interest

The major Aksumite monuments in the town are stelae; the largest number lie in the Northern Stelae Park, ranging up to the 33 metre-high Great Stele (believed to have fallen during construction) and the tallest standing 24m high King Ezana's Stele. Another stele looted by the Italian army was only returned to Ethiopia in 2005 and is due for reinstallation. They are believed to mark graves and would have had cast metal discs affixed to their sides, which are also carved with architectural designs. The Gudit Stelae, unlike the northern area, are interspersed with mostly fourth century tombs.

Other features of the town include St Mary of Zion church, built in 1665 and said to contain the Ark of the Covenant (a prominent twentieth century church of the same name neighbours it), archaeological and ethnograpic museums, the Ezana Stone written in Sabaean, Ge'ez and Ancient Greek in a similar manner to the Rosetta Stone, King Bazen's Tomb (a megalith considered to be one of the earliest structures), the so-called Queen of Sheba's Bath (actually a reservoir), the fourth century Ta'akha Maryam and sixth century Dungur Palaces, the monasteries of Abba Pentalewon and Abba Liqanos and the Lioness of Gobedra rock art.

Local legend claims the Queen of Sheba lived in the town.

The city is also home to a small airport.

Bibliography

Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0748601066 online edition
Yuri M. Kobishchanov. Axum (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. ISBN 0271005319
Sergew Hable Sellassie. Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270 (Addis Ababa: United Printers, 1972).
African Zion, the Sacred Art of Ethiopia, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).

External links