From
the heart of empire to the margins of history
|
|
|
Photo:
©2005 K. Maes/K. Diab |
Axum is Ethiopia’s oldest existing city. It was
the capital during arguably the country’s heyday in the first millennium AD. No
one knows exactly when the city was established but recent evidence suggests
the 1st century BC. However, considering that so little excavation
has been carried out in Ethiopia, this date is likely to be revised further.
The Axumite kingdom not only ruled over its
African heartland but its circle of influence stretched into Arabia. It was
recognised as one of the most advanced and influential empires of its age. In
fact, it was the junior rival of the Byzantines and Persians.
It was one of the first countries in the world
to adopt Christianity, after two shipwrecked Syrian monks in the third century
popularised the faith there. One of them sailed for Alexandria and laid down
the close historic links between the Egyptian Coptic Church and Ethiopian Orthodox
Church – which is often erroneously referred to as the Ethiopian Coptic Church.
Axum also played a crucial role in the
formative years of Islam. The prophet Mohamed was born in the Year of the
Elephant, which was so-called because the Abyssinians mounted a major, but
unsuccessful, military offensive against Mecca. He also sent his early
followers there to take refuge from the persecution they were facing from
Mohamed’s own Querish clan who ruled over the trading city.
“If you were to go to the Habbash (Abyssinia),”
Mohamed told them, “it would be better for you until such time as God shall
relieve you from you distress, for the king (negus) there will not tolerate
injustice and it is a friendly country.”
Mohamed returned the favour to the negus by
giving Abyssinia a special place in Islam and calling on subsequent generations
of Muslims to leave it alone. But the rising star of Islam also seemed to have
sealed the fate of Axum which appears never to have recovered from the loss of
its Red Sea trading routes to the Arabs.
|
|
|
Photo:
©2005 K. Diab |
After Lalibela, Axum struck us as an affluent
and relaxed city. Although it is a largely hassle-free town, low season meant
that we were prime targets for hustlers and bored young children. Paradoxically,
it would also prove to be the town where I’d have my biggest confrontation –
which almost turned ugly – with a hustler who called himself Tom.
Despite its long and distinguished history,
Axum does not stretch very far. On our first stroll through the town to get the
lay of the land, we soon reached the outskirts of the town, which were more
village-like, or ‘biblical’ as a group of South Africans in our hotel described
it.
The weather in Axum was the hottest and
steamiest we’d encountered so far on our trip, and the sun was pretty intense,
forcing us to stop for regular ‘Ambo stops’ – as Katleen called them – to enjoy
the supposedly natural bubbles of Ethiopia’s best mineral water which is served
in helpful half-litre bottles.
Pillars of the
community
Axum’s stellae are possibly its best-known
artefacts, particularly since Italy agreed to return one of these famous
obelisks which had stood in Rome since the days of Mussolini.
Most of the city’s obelisks stand in the
Stellae Field. From its name, we’d expected some Stonehenge-like plot of green
land dotted with a small forest of abandoned obelisks – and that was kind of
what we kept an eye out for as we reached the outskirts of the city.
After backtracking into town, the stellae
turned out to be located in what was less a field and more a yard just off one
of Axum’s main squares which had been established by a former mayor as a
tourist attraction. In place of the tens of stone monuments we were expecting,
there stood only half a dozen obelisks, albeit of impressive beauty and grace.
The first pieces of the returned obelisk lay strewn around the site chained to
the ground.
Although not as ancient as Egyptian obelisks,
the stellae date back to pre-Christian Ethiopia, and are believed to have represented
the power of the king and his lineage. The face of each obelisk – the highest
of which stands at some 30m – looks like a house, with several storeys of
windows and a door at ground level.
Near the Stellae Field is the so-called Queen
of Sheba’s pool which actually has no historical link with the legendary queen,
since it was built in Christian times. It does, however, have an important
practical link for the townsfolk, many of whom seem to depend on its
questionable water to fill their buckets and jerry-cans.
|
|
Photo: ©2005 Katleen Maes
|
Cactus hill
About half an hour away on foot is the sixth
century King Kalib’s (whose name means Dog) Palace. The walk is along a secluded
footpath that weaves its way through agricultural fields. The path is lined
with strange and stunning desert foliage and large cactus-like trees, which I
think are called euphorbia, with large prickly leaves at the base and a long
bluish-green stem with bright yellow flowers. Birds of matching colour flitted
around these outlandish trees.
Once we arrived at the palace, we received the
unpleasant shock that we needed tickets that could only be got from the tourism
office in town! That meant we had to return the next day to see the actual
insides of the palace of which only a couple of subterranean burial chambers
survive.
A signpost from Kalib’s Palace points towards
the Pantaleon church which stands on top of a very high hill. We headed in its
general direction and took the serendipitous turn off the road to another
church with no name on top of a nearby hill which we, at first, mistook for the
Pantaleon.
As we got nearer to the top, we were greeted by
an agreeable clanking and chiming sound that put me in mind of Buddhist
monasteries. On the roof were two metal wheels which rattled in the gentle
breeze.
The view of the surrounding valleys and
mountains was uninterrupted for miles and miles. One of those mountains, we
were told by locals, separates Ethiopia from Eritrea. We could also see a
picturesque little house lodged precariously on top of a rocky precipice that
was the actual Pantaleon.
The next day, on a hike we started from the other
side of town, we visited the Pantaleon church itself, as well as Kalib’s ruins.
The actual climb is somewhat easier than it looks from a distance because the
solid mass of rock on which the tiny church stands has steps cut into it.
However, having been spoilt the previous day, the view from here seemed
disappointing.
The ambience was not helped by the church’s
cloying and ingratiating watchman and the fact that Katleen was not allowed to
make the final ascent to the church with me – but the guy wanted her to buy a
ticket nonetheless!
|
|
Is this the final resting place of the Ark of the
Covenant?
Photo:
©2005 Khaled Diab |
Keepers of the
hidden ark
Following our long morning hike, our second afternoon
in the city was spent touring the Axum Archaeological Museum and the St Mary of
Tsion Church, the home of the legendary Ark of the Covenant.
Owing to the lack of visitors in town, the
museum’s curator had not realised that it was opening time until we arrived and
he opened up the building especially for us. If the word ‘museum’ evokes images
in your mind of the Egyptian and British Museums or the Louvre, then you are
likely to be sorely disappointed by Axum’s answer to them.
The museum is made up of two small chambers
crammed full of pottery which is of undoubted major archaeological interest but
gets a bit tedious after a while. That said, there is some superb artwork on
the pottery and the overview of Axumite history on the walls makes for an interesting
read. The most interesting artefacts were some tablets written in the ancient
Sabean script of Southern Arabia upon which Amharic is based.
A deacon at the St Mary of Tsion church gave us
a guided tour of the compound. The original structure no longer stands,
although the foundations of one of its original temples are left untouched as a
mark of respect.
The deacon started off by showing us the crowns of some of Axum’s former
rulers. Then we entered the hideous modern monstrosity built by Haile Selasie.
The only thing that recommends this church is its size. Inside, is an ancient
goatskin Bible with exquisite illustrations, left inexplicably out in the
middle of the main hall.
Only I was allowed into the large main
monastery which was built by King Fasil of Gondar. Inside, the holy of holies
is protected by a large door decorated by two of the apostles. Behind the door,
in an area closed off to visitors, lies a replica of the ark.
The actual ark supposedly rests in an outhouse
where, the deacon explained, one monk lives permanently, his raison d’etre being
to guard the sacred artefact. No one else is allowed anywhere near the ark and,
just before the monk is due to die, another one is prepared to take over the
holy function.
|
|
|
Photo:
©2005 Khaled Diab |
A restaurant
for two
We decided to have dinner at the Yeha Hotel on
the second evening, after the good impression we’d got there at lunch the first
afternoon. The hotel sits advantageously on a wooded hill with a panoramic view
of the city’s major sites – the Stellae Field and the St Mary of Tsion Church.
As we watched the sun go down behind a nearby
hill, we could hardly credit that we were the only people enjoying this magnificent
view. Although we enjoyed the exclusivity of our evening, our hearts went out
to the staff and owners, even if it was the government.
The maitre d’ was a thin, middle-aged
man dressed in a loose-fitting black suit. His sombre, weary features hung as
loosely off his face as his clothes did off his body as he shuffled towards us
with a laboured gait. His measured pace seemed to match that of the
establishment in which he worked.
It took him quite some time to set our table
and exchange the set menu for the a la carte one, but the wait for the food
went unnoticed as we soaked in the atmosphere. Our friendly attempts to talk to
him and break through his serious demeanour caused him to loosen up a little
and try to chat with us in his broken English.
For our third day in Axum, we decided we’d
earned the right to take it easy and we spent the morning and early afternoon
on the Yeha Hotel’s terrace reading, writing and having lunch. We also went
shopping and strolled aimlessly around the town.
We even took a long evening walk out of town
where we encountered a galloping donkey trying to escape its owner and a group
of children who looked at us as if we’d
just stepped off a spaceship and sat down on the little road bridge near
their stomping ground.
|
|
Photo: ©2005 K. Diab
|
Tigrayan
trouble stirring
On the first evening, back at the Africa Hotel
– where you hold the whole of Africa in your hands (at least the key-ring
version of it) – everyone was glued to Eritrean TV, hanging on every word
emanating from the flickering box. Judging by the set up, it looked like a
political programme and we wondered whether this was a regular night’s evening
in a border region or whether there was trouble brewing at the frontier.
While we were waiting for our dinner, Tom the
hustler (Tadius was his real name, I believe) joined us uninvited at our table.
He offered to sell us just about everything that was not nailed down. He first
started by proposing to guide us around Axum. We explained that we weren’t
interested because we preferred to explore by ourselves and the city was so
compact that it was very easy to navigate.
Undeterred, he soldiered on. Next on his menu
were daytrips to Mekele or Debre Damo. We were interested in going to the
beautiful stone Debre Damo monastery, despite the fact that women are not
allowed in. The mountains in the area are beautiful and the monastery is
surrounded by sheer cliffs. In fact, the last 15m to the summit can only be
reached via a leather rope which is supposed to symbolise the magical serpent
that took the monastery’s founder, Abuna Aregawi, to the top when he went there
alone in his hermitage.
However, we did not trust Tom and the prices he
was quoting were higher than the going-rate for such daytrips. We politely
declined his offer. Unrepentant, he then proceeded to retrieve a steadily
growing stream of tourist kitsch from his pockets and a leather pouch around
his waist until our table looked like a miniature souvenir shop.
Apparently oblivious to the comic absurdity of
his get-what-you-can-out-of-the-dumb-tourists approach, he ploughed on and we
continued to hold him off. Keeping his piece de resistance till last, he
informed us that he had antique coins, “some from BC,” he claimed.
Disbelieving his claim, we proceeded to inform
him that selling antiquities was illegal. He said that it was okay and
everything could be taken care of. Katleen told him that he should not be
squandering his country’s history which was not his to sell, and if he had
coins, he should give them to the Axum museum. He protested that the museum
doesn’t pay.
Contributing my penny’s worth, so to speak, I
suggested that the museum was not obliged to pay for antiquities and that even
if he genuinely had antiquities for sale, I was not interested, since being
Egyptian I knew what it was like to have more of your history outside your
country than inside it. Growing impatient at his tenacity more than anything
else, I asked him if he could leave us alone to eat our dinner when he showed
no sign of leaving.
Tenacious Tom’s
tantrum
But this would not be the end of our encounter
with Tenacious Tom. The next day, he contrived to run into us at least twice on
the street. In a desperate bid to get rid of him, I offered him a price for a
daytrip that I knew he wouldn’t accept.
The second evening, after our beautifully
scenic dinner on the panoramic terrace of the Yeha Hotel, and our half-hour
digestive stroll back to the Africa Hotel, we decide to have a couple of beers
before we turned in.
“Bon soir,” one of Tom’s gang of hustler called
out from a nearby table. This was the third or fourth time he’d addressed me in
French and I decided to find out why. He said that I looked like I spoke
French, so I asked him what exactly it was about me that suggested that. “You
look African American,” he explained, which sent me into a miffed silence, and
Katleen and I tried to figure out what the hell he was on about.
As we were enjoying the cool evening air and
the good Ethiopian beer, Tom gate-crashed our peace and quiet yet again trying
to sell us daytrips yet again. I told him that, even if he offered us a free
trip, I didn’t want to go anywhere with him. A friend of his tried to come and
calm the situation and salvage what he could from the disaster Tom had created.
We declined his offer for a better deal and him
as guide, explaining that it was a little late to arrange anything – we’d
already psyched ourselves down for a day of relaxation.
Just before we went to bed, we heard a knock at
the door. It was the hotel manager saying there was a driver outside who said
he’d come to make arrangements for the morning. We asked him to get rid of the
guy and expressed our displeasure about Tom and his gang. The manager
complained bitterly about how they were hijacking his establishment and how
even the police was doing nothing.
In the morning, the new guy joined us at
breakfast and his friendlier demeanour won us round to agreeing to a trip at a
price that sounded reasonable. He said he would bring the jeep driver to
finalise the negotiation. The first sign that things weren’t as they should was
that he turned up with a microbus.
I told him we were expecting a 4x4 and he said this
was just as good. They invited me in to try it out and talk to the driver. Then
the driver added on an extra €20 to the price I had agreed with the other guy.
Totally drained by this stage, I fell into a fuming silence and told them to
take me back to the hotel.
When I returned, Katleen admitted that she was
a little concerned about me because I was gone for so long. “I wasn’t sure if
they’d driven you somewhere isolated and robbed you.”
But the story had an epilogue. That evening, an
angry Tom confronted me on my way to buy some water, accusing me of having
complained to the tourist office. I told him I’d done no such thing. “Have I
caused you any trouble?” he asked. Confounded that he could even ask such a
question, I told him I didn’t want to speak to him.
All through dinner, he sat at a nearby table
throwing me aggressive looks which I ignored as Katleen and I chatted and
joked, pretending nothing was going. He disappeared for a while and then
re-emerged drunk and rowdy and threw a tantrum near me, hurling a steady stream
of abuse my way.
“All Egyptian are liars,” he said, revealing an
unexpected bout of racial discrimination. I finally lost my cool and jumped out
of my chair, warning him that if he didn’t shut his mouth, I’d break it for
him. In a panic at my rage, he ran out on to the street and picked up a rock. I
mocked his picking up a rock and told him that if he wanted to fight, he should
come here and use his fists.
While this was going on, Katleen had announced
loudly that she was going inside to call the police. She returned during our
standoff and announced the police were on their way. Tom dropped the rock and
vanished into the darkness down the street. His friends followed suit, one of
them in mid-chew, leaving the rest of his dinner on the table.
Run in with the
police
Their haste was uncalled for as the police took
over an hour to arrive. The policeman was wearing a woollen blanket wrapped
around his shoulders and torso and was carrying a Kalashnikov over his shoulder.
The hotel manager translated what I was saying and the policeman wanted us to
come down to the police station the next morning to make a formal statement so
that he could suitably punish the guy.
We asked for an explanation of what “punish”
meant and the policeman said that he would keep him in custody for a day or two
to teach him a lesson. Concerned at what this “lesson” would involve, we asked
if he couldn’t just let him off with a warning this time.
To get out of dropping Tom into too much trouble,
we explained that we were catching a flight the next morning. The whole
incident caused a stir of excitement in the hotel in this normally quiet town.
We found perfect strangers come up to console us and offer their friendly
apologies for Tom’s behaviour. We were at pains to point out that we would not
allow a run-in with one person to colour our picture of a great city and its
friendly locals.
The next morning, the hotel manager joined us
on the microbus to the airport and we found ourselves taking a detour through
unpaved side streets. He explained that he needed us to make a formal statement
to help his case for evicting the troublemakers from his hotel.
The police station was a collection of small
buildings that did not much resemble a police station. The officer had not yet
arrived and so, with a great deal of reluctance because of the possible
repercussions for Tom, I offered to write an account of what happened in
English on the way to the airport.
ă2005 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.