Architectural, Cultural sights in Aksum
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Enda Iyesus
For as long as 5000 years, monoliths have been used in northeast Africa as tombstones and monuments to local rulers. In Aksum, this tradition reached its apogee. Like Egypt's pyramids, Aksum's stelae were like great billboards announcing to the world the authority, power and greatness of the ruling families. Aksum's astonishing stelae are striking for their huge size, their incredible, almost pristine, state of preservation, and their curiously modern look.
Sculpted from single pieces of granite, some look more like Manhattan skyscrapers than 1800-year-old obelisks, complete with little windows, doors and sometimes even door handles and locks! Metal plates, perhaps in the…
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