CFEE and FMSEH Round Table “Megalithic monuments in the Horn of Africa”
CFEE and FMSEH Round Table “Megalithic monuments in the Horn of Africa”
Past and current archaeological research in perspective
22nd January 2026 – 11.30 am to 7 pm, Addis Abeba (EAT)
ONLINE ROUND TABLE:
Zoom Link: https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/95199034485?pwd=5yMYdOaPX3CUn035SnO2Oh3buXA05E.1
Meeting ID: 951 9903 4485 // Passcode: 0MtJqb
& at MMSH, Aix-en-Provence, room 101
The megalithic culture of the Horn of Africa is one of the richest and most exceptional in the world. It brings together a wide variety of monuments that have been erected since the 2nd millennium BC, throughout the ancient and medieval periods, and even today — though increasingly rarely. Recognising that studies of Ethiopian megalithic culture date back over a century, beginning with the Deutsch Aksumite Expedition’s study of monumental stelae in 1906 and Father Azaïs’ exploratory missions in southern Ethiopia from 1925, the Forum for Medieval Studies in Ethiopia and the Horn (FMSEH) organised a series of webinars on this topic in collaboration with the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies (CFEE) throughout 2025.
To conclude the series, FMSEH and CFEE organise a roundtable in partnership with ANR InterMedÉ, focusing on the possibility of discussing the interactions that megalithic societies may have had with each other and with Christian and Islamic societies over the first millennium of our era. The roundtable will enable teams of archaeologists and historians who have recently worked in the Horn of Africa to share their innovative methodologies and unprecedented results, contextualise them within older work and discuss the progress made in understanding the pivotal role of these societies, long considered on the margins of political formations, in the history of the Horn of Africa. The roundtable will also provide an opportunity to consider the various avenues of research that need to be pursued in order to learn about, preserve and promote this exceptional megalithic heritage.
PROGRAM
9.30 (11.30 am Addis Ababa time) – Introduction, A century of research
Anne-Lise Goujon (ANR InterMedÉ, IREMAM / CFEE),
Alebachew Belay (Debre Berhan University / Université Grenoble Alpes / CFEE)
Amélie Chekroun (CNRS, ANR InterMedÉ Coord., IREMAM / CFEE)
10.00 (12.00 am Addis Ababa time) – Megalithism, monumentalism and funerary practices in the Horn of Africa
Jean-Paul Cros (Senior researcher, ArScAn) & Roger Joussaume (CNRS, Emerit researcher)
10.45 (12.45 am Addis Ababa time) – Squeezing stones. Funerary archaeology, GIS and Islamization in the Horn
Pablo Gutierrez de Leon (ASPR Junior postdoctoral researcher. Anthropology Department, Harvard University)
11.30 (1.30 pm Addis Ababa time) – Break
11.45 (1.45 pm Addis Ababa time) – Islam in the Horn of Africa and its Megalithic Landscapes: Some Thoughts on Chronology, Typology and Islamic megalithic practices
Simon Dorso (ANR EcoMED, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Orient & Méditerranée)
12.30 (2.30 pm Addis Ababa time) – Lunch
14.00 (4 pm Addis Ababa time) – Stelae, cairns and society. Comparing contexts across the Horn of Africa
Alfredo González-Ruibal (Independent Researcher, CHEUROPE project Coord.)
14.45 (4:45 pm Addis Ababa time) – The funerary site of Soditi (6th-12th century): two cairns, one stelae and some disappeared long the eastern foothills of the Abaya Lake
Vincent Ard (CNRS, TRACES) & Anne-Lise Goujon (ANR InterMedÉ, IREMAM / CFEE)
15.30 (5:30 pm Addis Ababa time) – Break
15.45 (5:45 pm Addis Ababa time) – Megalithic Landscapes in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia: Current state of Research
Alebachew Belay (Debre Berhan University / Getty research Institute, Los Angeles / Université Grenoble Alpes / CFEE)
Here you can find the full program: Megalithic Monuments in the Horn Full Program
Poster design : Marie-Pierre Oulié, Iremam / Pictures credits :
Shadow stele in Osole (South Ethiopia) © Kebede Bogale, EHA 1981
Anthropomorphic stele from Tuto Fela site (South Ethiopia) © A.-L. Goujon, Mission Abaya 2024
Gumbur Bilein (Somali, Ethiopia) © S. Dorso, ERC HornEast 2022
+ Soditi excavation (South Ethiopia) © A. Laurent, Mission Abaya 2018
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Secrétaire Scientifique (9 janvier 2026). CFEE and FMSEH Round Table “Megalithic monuments in the Horn of Africa”. UN ŒIL SUR LA CORNE / AN EYE ON THE HORN. Consulté le 17 janvier 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15h1v





