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Seminar – The Stelae Culture Complex in the Horn of Africa

SEMINAR/SÉMINAIRE

The Stelae Culture Complex in the Horn of Africa

By Ayele Tarekegn

Friday 31st January, 3 PM

@ CFEE Library Berhanu Abebe, 50m before the entrance of Jan Meda

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The CFEE is pleased to collaborate in 2025 with the FMSEH webinar series on the annual theme:

A Century of Megalithic Research in the Horn of Africa

The first lecture of this series, given by Dr. Ayele Tarekegn, would serve as a general introduction, it would be possible to attend the presential presentation in CFEE or to follow it by zoom. The link would be published on this page on the day of the presentation.

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Dr. Ayele Tarekegn is archaeologist, Faculty Member, Department of Archaeology, College of Social Sciences, Addis Ababa University. His current research particularly focus on ancient Ethiopia and he is notably collaborating to a numerous projects on genetics and culture in Ethiopia. 

It should be noted from the outset that the Greek term Stela (singular, stelae for plural) has been preferred here in this article. The stelae tradition in north-east Africa has a very long tradition, going back thousands of years. The stelae of Kassala probably serve as important proto-types to later Aksumite examples (Fattovich 1987, 1988a, 1988b).

It appears that stelae are part and parcel of a long tradition of stone-working in the Horn of Africa. The carving and use of large, dressed rectangular ashlar blocks in built-up architecture seems much older. The Dam of Kohaito or Coloe in Eritrea and the Great Temple at Yeha, similar in construction to the much older Marib Dam in Southwestern Arabia, aew important cases in point.

The ruins of the Great Temple of Yeha dating probably to the early to middle centuries BCE, represent one of some living examples of stone-working in pre-Aksumite architectural traditions. Stone-working seems to have been refined in a long tradition of stone-carving in the Horn of Africa. Aksumites seem to have further refined the old tradition into a highly elaborate and sophisticated form carving enormous, decorated stelae in representation of multi-storeyed buildings, of which the DAE recorded six in the Northern and Main Stelae Fields (Littmann et al. 1913). Examples of many different types of stelae have since been discovered in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Eric Godet (1977, 1980-1982) and Rodolfo Fattovich (1987) have made a repertoire of the stelae of northern Ethiopia whilst Francis Anfray (1982) and Roger Joussaume (1995, 1996) have undertaken detailed studies of the stelae traditions of southern Ethiopia. Christopher P. Koch (1996) has studied stelae of the period which he called ‘the Pastoral Neolithic’ of northern Kenya.

Famous stelae at Aksum, 2025.

The BIEA’s Aksum investigations of 1972-74 under the direction of Dr. Neville Chittick (1973, 1974) confirmed that at least some of the stelae at Aksum were grave-marking monuments. But nevertheless, it seems that not all stelae were intended as grave markers, although many of the Aksumite examples in the Aksum region and some of those in southern Ethiopia, such as those at Tiya and Tuto Fella, have been confirmed archaeologically to be such monuments (Chittick 1973, 1974; Joussaume 1995, 1996; Phillipson 2000; Ayele 1998).

Inscribed stela at maryam Anza, 2025.

Some stelae have certainly been found to carry inscriptions. Important examples of such stelae are the well-known stelae of Matara, Maryam Anza, and of Aksum (Ayele 1998). The Monumentum Adulitanum (or ‘Adulis Monument’), which Cosmas Indicopleustes recorded and reportedly sent a copy of to the king in Aksum at the king’s request in the early sixth century AD, is probably an early proto-type of the stelae that carried inscriptions. It appears that the pre-Aksumites and Aksumites had a long tradition of erecting stelae at the entrances to large urban settlements such as, for example, Adulis, Matara, and Aksum (Phillipson, personal communication, 1997-1998).

Attracting the largest attention, Aksumite stelae and the stelae of southern Ethiopia are probably the monoliths that have received the most attention in studies by academia, that have been best-studied, and the most-published in the Horn of Africa region.

The stelae culture complex of north-east Africa can legitimately be thought to represent one large region in which a fairly strong stelae tradition developed over a long period of time. Despite the apparent lack of political unity and the unique characteristics of the different localized monolithic traditions, the stelae traditions in the Horn of Africa region demonstrate a culturally united area that can be treated as a culture-complex that was unified by a stone-working tradition that spanned thousands of years. This precisely is the main thesis of this presentation. Yet a detailed, comprehensive study of this culture-complex and its significance is still lacking. It is suggested here that current and future scholarship should seek to properly tackle and address this important lacunae.

 

References:

Anfray, F. 1982. ‘Les stèles du sud Shoa et Sidamo’, Annales d’Éthiopie, 12.

Ayele Tarekegn 1998.  Aksumite Mortuary Practices With Particular Reference to the Gudit Stelae Field (GSF) Aksum, Ethiopia, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge.

Chittick, H. N. 1973. “Archaeological Research by the BIEA: Some Conclusions with Particular Reference to Aksum”, paper read at the International Congress of Africanists, December 1973.

Chittick, H. N. 1974. “Excavations at Aksum, 1973-1974; A Preliminary Report”, Azania, vol. 9: 159-205.

Fattovich, R. 1987. “Some Remarks on the Origins of the Aksumite Stelae”, Annales d’Éthiopie, tome 14: 43-69.

Fattovich, R. 1988a. “The Contribution of Recent Field Work at Kassala (Eastern Sudan) to Ethiopian Archaeology“, paper delivered at the Tenth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Paris.

Fattovich, R. 1988b. “The Stelae of Kassala: A New Type of Funerary Monuments in the Eastern Sudan”, L’archéologie du Nil Moyen, tome 3: 55-63.

Godet, E. 1977. “Répertoire de sites pré-axoumite et axoumite du Tigre (Éthiopie)”, Abbay Documents pour servir a l’histoire de la Civilisation Éthiopienne, Centre De Recherches Archéologiques, Cahier Numèro 8: 19-58.

Godet, E. 1980-1982. “Répertoire de sites pré-axoumite et axoumite d’Éthiopie du Nord. IIe Partie: Erythrée”, Abbay Documents pour servir a l’histoire de la civilisation Éthiopienne, Centre De Recherches Archéologiques, Cahier Numèro 11: 73-113.

Joussaume, R. 1995. Tiya, L’Éthiopie des Mégalithes: Du Biface a l’Art Rupestre dans la Corne de l’Afrique, Memoire 11, Paris.

Joussaume, R. 1996. “Site à stéles anthropomorphes de Tuto Fela dans le Sidamo (Éthiopie)”, Paper Presented at the 13th Biennial Conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists Held at Poznan in Poland between 3 and 6 September 1996, due to come out in publication in the relevant proceedings.

Koch, C. P. 1996. “The Jarigole Mortuary Tradition: New Light on Pastoral Neolithic Burial Practices, Turkana Basin, Northern Kenya”, Paper delivered at the 13th Biennial Conference of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists Held at Poznan in Poland between 3 and 6 September 1996, due to come out in publication in the relevant proceedings.

Littmann, E., Krencker D., Lüpke, Th. von, and Zahn, R. 1913. Deutsche Aksum-Expedition, vols. 1-4, Berlin.

Phillipson, David W. 2000. Archaeology at Aksum, 1993-‘97, Vols. 1-2, London.

Wolska-Conus, W. 1968, 1973. La Topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustes, Sources chrétiennes, Paris.

Worku Derara Megenassa 2012.  “On the megalithic site of the Gurage highlands: A study of enigmatic nature of engravings and megalithic builders”, Ethiopian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol. 6, 2008.

 

 

 

 

 


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Secrétaire Scientifique (29 janvier 2025). Seminar – The Stelae Culture Complex in the Horn of Africa. UN ŒIL SUR LA CORNE / AN EYE ON THE HORN. Consulté le 10 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/1378o


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