Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

eucalyptus planting has occurred, but in Aksumite times there is reason to believe that 
they were probably forested to some extent. The geomorphologist Karl Butzer, exploring 
the area around Aksum, found that in the plateau of Shire, of which the Aksum region is 
part, were remnant stands of trees favouring a more moist climate, whilst the present 
montane savanna vegetation is the result of intensive human activity (Butzer 1981: 474-
6). Only a few great sycomores still stand, some of which appear on Salt's aquatint of 
1809, which also shows a fair scattering of other trees around the stelae and on the slopes 
of Beta Giyorgis.  
The streams, which are seasonal, may either have run more continually in ancient times, 
when the rainfall was more constant, or have been supplemented by permanent springs. 
Possibly such springs helped to keep the Aksumite Mai Shum filled. In any event, 
travellers like Bruce (1790: III, 460-1) noted that there were springs functioning 
relatively recently and that the town was able to maintain gardens, though this was of 
course in its less populous days. Nathaniel Pearce, who lived in Ethiopia from 1810-
1819, declared  
"There is no river within two miles of Axum, but the inhabitants have good well water; 
there are many wells hidden, and even in the plain have been found, but the people are 
too lazy to clear them from rubbish. It appears probable that, in ancient times, almost 
every house had its well, as I have been at the clearing of four, situated at not more than 
ten yards from each other. The stone of which they are constructed is the same kind of 
granite of which the obelisks are formed"  (Pearce 1831: 162-3).  
A well was found near the Tomb of the False Door, probably sunk to serve one of the 
houses built over the Stele Park in later times (Chittick 1974: fig. 2). Such wells would 
have been essential for those who lived at a distance from the streams, and also would 
have helped to make the inhabitants more independent of the behaviour of the natural 
springs and streams available.  
Alvares (Beckingham and Huntingford 1961: 155) mentions a "very handsome tank [or 
lake of spring water] of masonry [at the foot of a hillock where is now a market]" behind 
the cathedral, "and upon this masonry are as many other chairs of stone such as those in 
the enclosure of the church". Since there are thrones along the rock wall (thought by the 
DAE, who called it Mehsab Dejazmach Wolde Gabre'el, to be a natural formation 
(Littmann 1913: I, 31), but illustrated by Kobishchanov (1979: 118) as `cross-section of 
fortification embankment') on the west side of Mai Qoho, Alvares' description could 
possibly refer to this. The rock-wall, whether natural or man- made, could have acted as a 
retaining wall to waters overflowing from the Mai Hejja, or down the slopes of Mai 
Qoho, (or even from Mai Shum itself), and thus formed a lake of sorts along the foot of 
Mai Qoho. The word `mehsab' means something like `washing-place', which seems to 
confirm this idea.  
2. The Town Plan 
By the time that the Periplus Maris Erythraei was written, the town of Aksum, together 
with Meroë, capital of the Kushitic kingdom (though here the text is corrupt — 

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Huntingford 1980: 19), was prominent enough to be called by the anonymous author of 
that work a `metropolis', a word reserved for relatively few places. It seems as if the main 
part of the town lay on either side of the Mai Lahlaha in the areas now known as Dungur 
and Addi Kilte. Here were all the élite dwellings found by the various archaeological 
expeditions (Littmann 1913; Puglisi 1941; Anfray 1972; Munro-Hay 1989). The 
Deutsche Aksum- Expedition traced the approximate ground plans of three very 
substantial buildings, which they called Ta`akha Maryam, Enda Sem`on and Enda Mikael 
after local identifications based on the Book of Aksum (Conti Rossini 1910), and they 
found traces of many others in the immediate neighbourhood. Subsequently, Puglisi, an 
Italian archaeologist, and Anfray, working on behalf of the Ethiopian Department of 
Antiquities, established that to the west were many more such structures. The whole area 
is scattered with the debris of the ruined buildings of this ancient quarter of the town. 
These large residences were basically, it seems, of one plan; a central lodge or pavilion, 
raised on a high podium approached by broad staircases, surrounded and enclosed by 
ranges of buildings on all four sides. The central pavilion was thus flanked by open 
courtyards. The plan shows a taste for the symmetrical, and the buildings are square or 
rectangular, with a strong central focus on the main pavilion. Ta`akha Maryam was 
furnished with an extra wing, and is the largest of such structures to have been excavated 
and planned so far.  
How widespread the central part of the town was formerly is not yet known, but it may be 
assumed that the less permanent habitations of the poorer sections of the population were 
constructed all round the more substantial dwellings, and on the slopes of the Beta 
Giyorgis hill. Nothing of these has survived, but in time archaeologists may find evidence 
for the sort of dwellings we would expect; rough stone and mud, or wood, matting and 
thatch. One or two house models in clay found during the excavations give an impression 
of the smaller houses of Aksumite times (
Ch. 5: 4
).  
Interest in fortification seems to have been minimal. The country itself was a natural 
fortress, enclosed within its tremendous rock walls and defended by its mountainous and 
remote position, as well as by the military superiority of its armies. Within the town, the 
pavilion style of dwelling, enclosed by inner courts and outer ranges of buildings, were in 
some measure given privacy, and if necessary defence, by their very layout. 
Kobishchanov writes of fortified bastions around the sacred area, but these were in fact 
only the outer walls of the large structure of typical Aksumite plan which now lies 
beneath the cathedral, not walls for specific defence reasons (Kobishchanov 1979: 141; 
de Contenson 1963). Nothing is known about the street plan of the suburbs where these 
mansions lay, and whether they too partook of the prevailing liking for symmetry by 
using a grid-pattern. The outer parts of the town very likely developed organically in a 
piecemeal fashion, and were in a constant state of alteration, enlargement, or rebuilding 
as structures decayed or developed. Such a development can be seen on the plan (Anfray 
1974) of the excavated structures at Matara.  

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