South African Archaeological Society

Abyssinian ProtohistorySource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 10, No. 40 (Dec., 1955), pp. 134-136Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886710 .

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ABYSSINIAN PROTOHISTORY

(The following is a translation of a brochure received in November, covering the Archaeolo- gical Section of the Exhibition marking the Jubilee of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Sellassi

at Addis Ababa.)

Anxious to protect the monuments and other relics which provide the raw materials of Ethiopian history, and hoping to encourage their study, His Majesty the Emperor Haile Sellassi decided to create an organization having charge of the monuments and history of Ethiopia. He also founded an Archaeolo- gical Section under the Ethiopian Institutes of Studies and Research, attached to the National Library at Addis Ababa. Experts chosen by the government have been commissioned to promote and develop study and research on the archaeology of Ethiopia.

The House of Antiquities provides the centre from which these experts will work throughout the realm. It is splendidly situated near the National Library, from the gardens of which the eye rises towards the ancient palace; the horizon is bounded by the Heights of Entotto at Yeka Mikael, while to the east the Butt of Yerer stands isolated. This foundation is endowed with laboratories and studios essential for the scientific exploitation of the results found in excava- tion, as well as with facilities needed for the classifi- cation and preservation of documents, including a specialized library. It is not intended to be a centre only for research and documentation, but should also provide a focus for savants from everywhere who may come to study the history and peoples of Ethiopia, particularly for young students interested in the problems of history and the arts.

The initial work of the Archaeological Section has been mainly devoted to a general inventory of monu- ments and documents - a preliminary measure to ensure their protection until knowledge can be com- pleted by later scientific excavation. The domain is immense; the expire is vast; its history covers three thousand years which illustrate glorious memories of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the Kings of Axum and memories of a Church that has remained faithful to its creed.

The exhibition opened on the occasion of the Imperial Jubilee covers preliminary investigations undertaken in the great holy city of Axum and in its neighbourhood, at Yeha and Haulti-Melazo, etc. The collection also includes evidence found by chance north of Maqalle, in the Azbi-Dera and Sabaean sectors.

Azbi-Dera monuments from Maqalle

The niche at the bottom end of the exhibition hall holds a collection of objects of very great archaeolo- gical importance, telling us something of the most ancient history of Ethiopia. These finds were collected in March 1954 at Maqall& (Tigr6 province). Some

years ago they had been found together by villagers on a site some 45 miles north-east of Maqalle, on the rim of the enormous escarpment which dominates the Dankali desert. Apparently at one time a sumpter- road led through this sector of Azbi-Dera, to the port of Thio on the Red Sea near Axum, about ninety miles from there, and to the west.

In the centre panel is shown a splendid piece of workmanship; a statue and its base of white calcareous

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rock, patinated to a fawn colour by surrounding soil. The identification and dating of these still present a delicate problem which merits further study. One might well attribute it to the fifth century B.C.; the pose and the decoration on the robe of the seated figure show Mesopotamian and Assyrian influence. The inscription in Southern Arabic is written in boustrophedon (literally, ox-turn, alternate lines being written from left to right, then from right to left, like a plough-furrow).

In front of this, on a low table, are several monu- ments of Southern Arabian style; two little round alabaster altars on tripods; the very weathered remains of an animal statuette (apparently an ox), and a quadrangular altar of calcareous rock, of a type fairly common in Southern Arabian cultures. The inscription (unhappily incomplete as a result of ancient fractures) is written in boustrophedon on three faces. It reveals the existence of an independent kingdom earlier than any dated documents so far known from Axum. The prince, who dedicated this altar to Almaqah the Moon-god, on the occasion of a victory, was the mukarrib or king of Daamet and Saba, two

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regions still not exactly located, but certainly lying within Ethiopia.

On the right is a show-case containing a votive object of bronze, a document of very great impor- tance as on it we can read the most ancient Ethiopian inscription so far discovered. It is a formal com- memoration of two conquests by Geder, king of Axum, on the eastern borders of his kingdom. If this sovereign, whose name recalls one of those on the 'Royal Roll', is the same as Gdrt, already known from a Sabaean text, then the inscription on this bronze object dates from the first century A.D.

The Maqall, collection also includes remains of four metal cups, originating in the Nile Valley, between the Persian and the Telemaic eras (fifth to third century B.C.) and some pots with comparable design and decoration, later copied by the Meroitic peoples. These valuable remains prove the con- nection between ancient Ethiopian and the great Egyptian civilization.

Finds from Sabaea Hardly more than a few days ago a collection of

bronze objects (including bracelets and a cutlass bearing applique designs, weighing about 50 lb. in all, and pots of Axiumitic date) were found in a tomb in Sabaea, 12 miles north-east of Adigrat, in a great deep valley opening towards the east, on the line of a pathway leading from the Tigrean plateau towards the Red Sea. All this region is rich in ancient churches.

Axum The whole of this ancient site is displayed as a

great montage of aerial photographs taken on behalf of the Archaeological Section by the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force. The Section also has aerial photographs of many other archaeological sites in Ethiopia. These photographs allow us to follow several of the preliminary tests undertaken in the sector of the Great Stelae (wrongly called 'obelisks)' and various other places in Axum. In the course of these tests an abundance of pottery was recovered; some black with simple or more elaborate engraved decoration, some red, with a thin or fretted rim.

Certainly one of the loveliest finds is a head in glazed terracotta, rose-brick in colour with a crust of grey. Above the neck (which corresponds perhaps to a plug or neck of a jar), a face, refined and lively, is capped by a 'bobbed' hairdressing which turns out- ward at the nape. The whole is pierced by a hole at the apex.

The whole Axumitic region is rich with antiquities. The first researches of the Section have been directed towards Haulti and Yeha. Other sites have already been dealt with, such as Medog6, which has yielded two pleasant pots, and a cup and jar both decorated with a small ring on one face and a fine twisted cord (torsade) on the other.

Yeha In a hollow in the heart of the mountains near

Adua, 12 miles east of that town, the sacred site of

Yeha stands on a hill surrounded by an enclosure. We find the remains of an ancient building here, abandoned to-day, a pagan temple later transformed into a church. Beside it stands a church, recently rebuilt to replace an older church, which was itself built on a seemingly very old rectangular base.

Many fragments from the oldest buildings in Yeha, including reliefs, and texts in Southern Arabic script, have been re-used and are to-day incorporated in the

foundations of the modern church, houses, etc. In contrast others are preserved or distributed in the treasure of the church. As an example, a foundation in the form of a structure, bearing seven lines of dedication to the gods, has been brought to Addis Ababa. It is a fragment of the base of ant altar. Fragmentary inscriptions show Yeha to have been one of the most interesting sites of 'ancient Ethiopia. Here immigrants from Southern Arabia established themselves at a period which it would be pleasant to be able to date exactly, bringing with them elements proper to their culture.

Even when Christianity developed, Yeha remained an important centre. The remains of liturgical objects in bronze and in glass have been recovered from a crypt. Christian Yeha also had its periods of glory. A very lovely arch in wood, decorated in rose- work and a rich motif of interlacings with variations on the theme of the Cross, has survived.

Haulti-Melazo

The field excavations of the Section during the autumn of 1955 were carried out on this site, some 8 miles south-east of Axum. They unearthed a con- struction with dedications to the Moon-god, Almaqah, and discovered an important number of inscriptions, altars and other objects. Among these last were two fine statuettes; the one is of a bull in alabaster, the other is quite small, in a greenish schist, doubtless also representing a bull, with Southern Arabic inscriptions. The altars are of two types. The one

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type is rectangular, raised on feet, with a dedicatory inscription; one of these still bears its plating of alabaster, a second shows an abbreviated written inscription. The other type is round, decorated with discs and crescent moons. The inscriptions on these various monuments attest the archaeological and historical importance of the Haulti-Melazo site.

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Coins and Manuscripts The National Library has a numismatic collection

in its Archaeological Section showing various images of the kings of Axum (two coins in gold from Afilas and Eon are jewels of chased-work), and many most precious manuscripts, such as a fourteenth century gospel, with interesting illuminations, from Lake Haik.

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REVIEW Wayland, E. J. 'Outlines of Prehistory and Stone Age

Climatology in the Bechuanaland Protectorate', Mim. de l'Acadimie royale des Sciences coloniales, xxv, 1954, Brussels, pp. 1-46.

Although its borderlands from the Vaal to Angola have provided important evidence of Pleistocene climates, the Kalahari itself has remained largely unknown. No one is better qualified to remedy this deficiency than Mr. Wayland. Coming to the Bechuanaland Protectorate from Uganda, where he had achieved much in what he styles 'geoarchaeology" he stayed as Director of the Geological Survey for nine years, devoting much time to prehistory, making the collection of 9,000 stone implements which now forms the Wayland Collection in the National Museum in Bulawayo.

The Kalahari is biologically semi-arid, but it is a desert from the morphological viewpoint and must have been arid for a considerable geological period. Upon this desert environment were superposed the climatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene; pluvial con- ditions are indicated by the river systems such as the Molopo, now 'fossil' features of the landscape, by the fluvial gravels which border them, and by limestone caves and lacustrine deposits; drier intervals are expressed by aeolian sands and the formation of surface limestones and quartzites. During the wetter periods the Kalahari was the home of Palaeolithic Man, and twelve cultures are recorded, ranging from the Kafuan to the Iron Age.

Wayland recognizes four pluvial periods, and on geological and archaeological grounds claims a parallelism between the Pleistocene climatic rhythms of the Kalahari and those of east and south-central Africa. With the first pluvial he would correlate all 'Kalahari Beds' older than the quartzitic Botletle

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Beds, the latter being regarded as a product of the following arid interval. In this he runs counter to recent findings on the south, west and north margins of the Kalahari, where the geomorphological setting of the 'Kalahari System' would seem to preclude a Lower Pleistocene age. The Kafuan culture is equated with this wetter period on the rather slender negative evidence that no tools belonging to it have been found to consist of the Botletle silcretes. The second and third pluvials, as in East Africa, saw the evolution of the Chellean and Acheulian phases of the handaxe culture, these implements being stratigraphically associated with the old river gravels of the fossil drainage. The major period of red dune formation is placed after the third pluvial in the early Middle Stone Age, this being a period when drift sands extended far beyond the present limits of the Kalahari, as in the Vaal valley, but these sands were, in effect, a redistribution of older deposits, probably dating back into the Tertiary.

As stated in the introduction, 'the considerations are wide and general rather than local and deep'. The geomorphologist and Quaternary geologist seeking material for comparative study will perhaps be dis- appointed in the absence of specific data, the lack of significant sections, sketch maps and locality references. It must, however, be remembered that this is one man's achievement over nine years in an area of 275,000 square miles; even to have sketched in outlines where nothing existed before is a tremen- dous contribution. Furthermore, the absence of factual information and the rather disorganized pre- sentation are somewhat counter-balanced by the informal, almost conversational style, which gives full expression to the personal wisdom and experience of one of Africa's foremost prehistorians.

PREPARING MANUSCRIPTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

We regret that the general standards of both the manuscripts and illustrations received by us are fre- quently low. This means that far too great a bur- den falls on the Honorary Editor. We have no funds available for redrawing illustrations, nor for typing longhand manuscripts.

We shall shortly be publishing a few notes to contributors, to be included in a Bulletin and available

on application as well. We sincerely hope that contri- butors will help us by conforming as far as possible to our standards, and that the value of our Bulletin will thus be enhanced. We cannot expect to compete with the fine productions of South African commercial houses, nor even with overseas contemporary archaeo- logical publications. We can, however, hope to reach reasonable standards of clarity, brevity and literacy.

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