“Ethiopia 🇪🇹 ~Axum to Hawzen; Yehas Temple Ruins and Grat Be’al Gebri Archeological Site”
More beautiful scenery of Ethiopia!
We stopped at Yeha, a 5th to 8th century BC Holy structure, thought to be the oldest standing worship building in the country. It is a Temple dedicated tot he “God of Moon” called Almuqu. Before, and after the birth of Christ, the Jewish people conducted worship here.
Inside the ancient Temple, there was am elderly Orthodox Priest. Before we left, I got a “blessing” from the Priest, and it was very moving for me. AND, true fact, I had been plagued with a stiff neck for about three days from sleeping on it wrong. After my blessing, by the time we got back to the truck, my neck was feeling much better. I do not believe in coincidences….
Next to that ancient structure was what they believe, to be an ancient palace ruins called Gret Be’al Gebri Palace…a discovery made by a German Archaeologist, and it is under reconstruction.
The temple is an imposing rectangular edifice. Though it has long since lost its roof and upper storeys the ruins stand some twelve metres in height. As evening falls, the temple’s finely dressed and polished limestone reflects the glow of the setting sun with a warmth and brilliance that cannot be accidental. The huge, precisely fitted blocks from which the inward- inclining walls are formed seem to bear out ancient opinion that Sabaean buildings could be filled with water without a single drop being lost.
Apart from the temple, however – which speaks eloquently of the works of a high civilisation – little or nothing is known about the people who built this great edifice. Indeed, their origins are wrapped in mystery of which, perhaps, the greatest is this: if a culture had evolved to the level of sophistication required to build monuments of such quality in the highlands of Tigray by the sixth
century BC, then what were its antecedents? What came before it? And how far back does Ethiopian civilisation really go? So far the archaeologists have uncovered no convincing answers to these questions.
About 3000 years ago in the province of Tigray in what is today Ethiopia, an entity named Di’amat emerged which was the result of immigration by population groups from Saba in modern-day Yemen. In the early 1st millennium BC, these groups together with the indigenous population established a network of settlements dotted along the trade routes. The Sabaeans brought a range of cultural techniques and expertise – their language and writing system, practical knowledge in agriculture, architecture, arts and crafts, as well as their religious, political and social institutions.
Yeha was the administrative and religious centre of this society. If one approached the settlement from the trade routes, the ancient palace and at least two religious buildings would have been visible from a long way off. One of the temples preserved to a height of 14 metres was built around the middle of the 7th century BC and dedicated to the main god of the Sabaeans, Almaqah. In the 6th century of the Christian era the building was converted into a church and is today still a sacred place.
The Great Temple was already in a partly ruinous state when the famed German Aksum Expedition visited Yeha in 1906. A disastrous fire had badly damaged the temple probably in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The fire completely destroyed the entrance porch, originally supported – by six pillars, as well as the temple’s upper storey and its inner wall shell. This was the part of the building that needed urgent restoration and the installation of a steel supporting structure. In cooperation with the Ethiopian Antiquities Authority and the DAI ‘s own advisory committee on historical monuments, the DAI sought to identify solutions through discussion, so as firstly to provide static stability of the frail temple walls and secondly to ensure the restoration measures were acceptable from both a conservation and an aesthetic point of view. A workshop was organized in Adua, to which specialists from the Ethiopian Antiquities Authority and the Ministry of Culture, architects and statics experts from various Ethiopian universities were invited, who discussed different possibilities of stabilizing the Great Temple with construction history specialists and monument conservators.
Perhaps once a palace, it is distinguished for its unusual, square-sectioned, monolithic pillars (which could have been taller than the tallest known in South Arabia at the Temple of the Moon in Ma’rib in Yemen).
Important rock-hewn tombs have also been found in the vicinity the remains of Grat Be’al Gebri, a monumental structure, where the oldest sections date to the 8th century BC.
Perhaps once a palace, it is distinguished for its unusual, square-sectioned, monolithic pillars (which could have been taller than the tallest known in South Arabia at the Temple of the Moon in Ma’rib in Yemen).
Important rock-hewn tombs have also been found in the vicinity.
After the downfall of Damat in the 5th century BC, the ancient superpower came to be dominated by small unknown kingdoms.
The downfall of this great kingdom has paved a way for the emergence of Axumite Kingdom, which was one of the four strong ancient civilizations created in this planet. The Kingdom of Axum has scaled up the political, economic, cultural and technological developments being designed by Damat. Moreover, the geography which was covered by Axumite Empire was many times greater than that of Damat.
Generally speaking, Ethiopia is ancient nation which is endowed with plenty of breathtaking heritages and untold history. It has several natural and manmade heritages that could lure tourists from different parts of the world. Thus, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Culture and Tourism Bureaus of States and other stakeholders should work in collaboration to promote, preserve and develop tourist sites like Yeha. In addition to this, hotels, lodges, infrastructures and other basic facilities should be expanded. If so, the nation would get foreign currency earnings from the sector.
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About Us
Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More