|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
figure 3
figure 4
|
|
The most dramatically striking and enduring
legacy of Aksumite culture is a series of stone monuments that are
contemporaneous with the transition to Christianity and that critically
inform the visual language of Ethiopia’s
most distinctive Christian monuments. In present-day Aksum, stone
monoliths mark burial sites of pre-Christian elites. These awesome
soaring presences are enduring testaments to the kingdom’s power,
skilled technical expertise, and ability to organize labor (Phillipson,
Monuments, 105). The main stelae field is situated 700 meters from
Aksum’s
cathedral. Gradually built up in a series of terraced platforms,
it features 120 monoliths that range from unworked granite slabs
less than 3 feet or a meter in length to huge, elaborately carved
examples. The six most monumental of these faced southwards toward
Aksum’s
urban center and have been dated to the early fourth century. The
Aksum stela 1 (now fallen and broken) was originally 97 feet or
29.8 meters high and some 517 tonnes in weight, ranking it as the
largest single monolith erected by humans (Phillipson, Aksumite
Stelae, 192). The
second largest stela, which had also fallen in antiquity, was taken
to Rome in 1937 and broken into smaller units by the Italians to
facilitate transport. It was just returned to Ethiopia by the Italian
state this past March after years of petitioning by archaeologists
and the Ethiopian state.
Quarried and transported several miles distance,
the erection of these immense slabs of stone may have been facilitated
by the construction of ramps (Phillipson Aksumite
Stelae, 192; Monuments, 89). Carved from single pieces
of granite, the most elaborate examples depict timber door and
window frames so that they evoke multi-storied architectural structures.
Excavations relating to one of the stelae
have revealed its placement on the axis of a sunken court that
formed the entrance to two distinct tombs. These subterranean burial
chambers were in part excavated and constructed to house stone
sarcophagi (Garlake, 82–3). At the base of the six enormous
carved stelae are carved plates and vessels for offerings to the
ancestors they commemorate. It has been suggested that they represented
the royal palaces of the individual kings whose tombs lie beneath
them and that they may have been conceived of as a symbolic stairway
to heaven for Aksum’s
leadership (Munro-Hay, Ethiopia, 240). It appears likely that the
largest of these, stela 1, fell and shattered when it was in the
process of being erected during the second quarter of the fourth
century A.D.. This engineering failure coincided with the adoption
of Christianity and the abandonment of the use of stelae as grave
markers. Given the convergence of those two events, some have suggested
that it may have been interpreted as an act of God evoking the
collapse of the Tower of Babel (Phillipson, Monuments, 105). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
