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 —
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.