Keepers of the past

Luke Jerod Kummer

• Last Updated: November 29. 2008 9:30AM UAE / November 29. 2008 5:30AM GMT

An ancient priest peered at me with milky eyes through the fence separating the two of us. In his bony, copper-colored fingers he clenched a sceptre-like silver cross. A saffron robe flowed from his hunched shoulders, and around his neck hung a string of skeleton keys. I returned an uneasy gaze.

According to local belief, the man who stood sizing me up descends from an unbroken line that has guarded the Ark of the Covenant since it was allegedly brought to Ethiopia thousands of years ago by Menilek, the son of ancient Israel’s King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who Ethiopians call Saba and consider their own. People in these parts believe the Ark, the venerated repository of the Ten Commandments, resides within the two-storey chapel where the priest lives. Only he is permitted to see the Ark; he was raised on these sacred grounds and will remain within the confines of this fence for the rest of his days.

The Saint Mary of Zion church in Axum, Ethiopia. Luke Jerod Kummer / The National

As I struggled to look my most innocent and worthy, the priest finally nodded his approval. From his withered lips, which were surrounded by a full, black Fu Manchu moustache that sprouted still longer feeler-like grey wisps, he uttered a blessing in Ge’ez, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopian scripture. I followed the lead of others that I had seen beckon him and kissed the cross and then his hand. A smile moved like a glacier across his face and he welcomed me to Ethiopia’s holiest city.

Besides claiming to be the home of the maybe-not-so-lost Ark, Axum, with a population of about 50,000 people, offers visitors a wealth of historical treasures while maintaining an unassuming, provincial feel. Camels, donkeys, and flocks of sheep all traverse the chaotic streets along with outmoded cars and men and women who walk sometimes dozens of kilometres from town to their rural homes with supplies heaped on their backs.

Located in Ethiopia’s northern highland state of Tigray, near the border of Eritrea, the ancien Abyssinian capital, whose origins date back to the first century AD, is about 600km north of Ethiopia’s modern day capital of Addis Ababa (a bumpy three-day bus ride or a quick one-hour hop in a plane) or 250km from the famous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. The kingdom that was once seated here had been the most formidable state between the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire and Persia. Having probably begun as a small ivory trading centre, by the late third century AD Axum controlled exchange routes for the entire Red Sea region and had extensive interaction with Arabia, Rome, the Levant and even India.

Christianity most probably arrived in Ethiopia in the fourth century and Axum became the first Christian empire in the world. Even after its decline around the 10th century, the city has remained the spiritual centre for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and until Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974, ending Ethiopia’s lineage of kings, Axum was a main coronation site.

Axum also occupies a unique place in Islam. It is said in the hadith that the Prophet sent a group of his followers to Axum in 615 AD while the believers were being persecuted by the Quraysh clan in Arabia. He was so impressed with the welcome they received, it is written, that the early Caliphate enjoyed continued good relations with the Ethiopian kings for generations.

But Axum’s most famous historic sights visible today come from an even earlier time. From the third century BC until the advent of Christianity, Axumites erected the largest monoliths in the ancient world. Archaeologists consider these obelisks with a unique monkey-head design to have distinct origins from the obelisks found in Egypt, though they also were symbols of fertility. Unesco dubbed Axum’s stelae field a World Heritage Site in 1980.

As I walked from the chapel I passed a weatherworn church with a flat roof bearing a scalloped crown. From an open door emanated the thunderclaps of a low drum beat and an eerie chanting. Built in 1665, Saint Mary of Zion Church features an impressive collection of biblical scenes painted on the walls in a colourful, almost cartoon-like local style. Women are not permitted to enter this building but in the 1960s Emperor Selassie dedicated a new Saint Mary of Zion nearby where men and women can both worship.

This new circular-shaped church offers less to marvel at in terms of architecture but a Sunday service at which thousands of worshipers from Axum and villagers from miles around come dressed in white, gauzy shawls to sing and pray, is a sight worth seeing in itself.

I wandered down a small road and approached the field where a dozen or so stelae rise from a sloped lawn. The largest standing monolith was sheathed in scaffolding and encircled by cranes. It had been rededicated earlier this year after an arduous journey that began in 1937 when Mussolini after invading Ethiopia removed the 1,700-year-old, 160-ton granite monument and shipped it to Rome where it was erected in front of the Ministry of the Colonies as a symbol of fascist power.

The obelisk was finally completely reinstalled in Axum in August, more than 60 years after Italy signed a UN agreement to return the cherished relic. It would have been dwarfed, however, by the nearby 33m-long obelisk that lay fallen in pieces like the broken bones of a slain giant. During the obelisk’s erection it is thought to have tumbled and fallen on top of the tomb of Nefas Mawcha, a rectangular structure that lies collapsed beneath the enormous weight of the obelisk. There is also a nearby mausoleum which you can descend into with your torch Indiana Jones-style and poke around inside its chambers made of huge stone slabs.

I followed a caravan of camels and donkey-drawn pull-carts to the bustling market in the centre of town where women huddled in bunches beneath honeycomb-like clusters of umbrellas, squatting over patchworks of cloth on the ground that they had laden with different coloured grains like an immense mosaic. Most of the women wore their hair braided in tight corn rows that ran from their hairline backward and then unraveled into bushy, free-flowing shapes behind their necks. Many of the older women had crosses tattooed on their foreheads.

Feeling a bit peckish, I stopped off near the market for lunch at AB Restaurant, a welcoming spot constructed of bamboo and with cut grass matting the floor. Dried animal skins painted with street scenes hung from the walls. Beneath the pitched roof men sat in circles, their hands holding up their chins while they engaged in deep conversation. They were arranged around squat tables woven from reed, each with a removable top that like the lid of a Thermos had a use of its own. When serving the meal the waitresses removed the tabletop, flipped it over and set it on the ground like a basket to hold the food. On a plate in the table’s centre she rolled out blankets of injera, Ethiopia’s spongy traditional bread, which is made from the indigenous tef grain.

I ordered kitfo and watched a young man standing behind me carve meat from a side of beef and then mince it on a board. He kneaded the scraps into a ball along with spicy red chilli powder. Moments later the hamburger lump made its way to me slightly browned on the outside and cool and blood-red in the middle. The waitress placed it in the centre of my plate and I dabbed bits of it and injera into a pile of berberi and savoured my exquisitely exotic tartare.

From there I decided to try out Ethiopia’s famous coffee service from the nearby Habashan cafeteria. The clean, shiny pumpkin-soup-coloured walls were unadorned and my attention was fixed on the corner of the room where a woman sat fanning a coal-burning stove. She settled a clay vase on top of the flames and slowly heated what turned out to be black, intensely rich and aromatic coffee that smelled at once sweet, burnt and earthy. She removed a few embers from the fire with forceps and placed them in an incense bowl on my table. Soon fragrant plumes were wafting to my nose as I sipped one of Ethiopia’s most prized delicacies and listened to reggaeton-style Ethiopian pop that just about tapped my foot for me.

Afterwards, I headed by taxi down a couple kilometres of country road that was clearly designed for camels and not Corollas and arrived at the tomb of Gebre Meskel, who presided over a period near the height of Axum’s power. I descended down a dark portal and shone my flashlight around a series of cool, damp passageways. I ducked beneath an archway and found myself inside a tiny room with three empty sarcophagi. The smell of mold and guano was overpowering and I headed for fresh air. The tomb is located on a hill overlooking the jagged Adwa mountains and I found a green patch and lay down, watching for a long time a donkey cart in the distance slowly wend its way down a hill’s rocky path toward Axum.

It was in the mountains before me that in 1895 Ethiopian forces drove back an Italian army in a decisive victory that would keep Ethiopia free from colonisation. Here at Axum, the nation’s long history is on view. Its achievements tower skyward in granite, its priests devote their lives to guarding a sign of providence – all symbols of the pride that made the defenders of this age-old kingdom so bold.

lkummer@thenational.ae