 Welcome to Abyssinia. We're at the home base welcoming center. You find information here about the whole of Abyssinia along with teleports that lead to all of the regions. In addition to the virtual Abyssinia logo, I put a picture of some item characteristic of the region, a top stack of teleport buttons on every region. Here it's a stone plaque with an inscription in the old South Arabian language also used in ancient Abyssinia. Some of the regions have secondary teleports with small thoughts that lead to sections of that region. Other regions have arrows in the ground indicating the location of sections that can be walked too easily. In many sections you'll find either an incense burner, an amphora, or a syrup pot, a beer pot, like those seen on this big sign in front of you. If you click on one of those, you will receive additional information if I've been able to complete it. Some of them haven't been completed but that is coming. Click on that big sign and you'll get a note card with general information about Abyssinia that it will be useful. And for anyone who didn't already notice, on the carpet in front of the teleport buttons are examples of prized Abyssinian trade goods, tortoise shell, ivory, gold, and frankincense. Click any one of those items for a copy of this tour text which you can use to follow along and it has teleports in it so you can catch up if you get lost. I recommend that everybody set their environment to midday. This gives you the best view of the details of the site in my opinion. On future visits, feel free to use more artistic lighting. If you have questions, ask them in open chat but since I have a lot of material to cover, in most cases I'll return to them at the end of the tour rather than breaking in to respond. So consider saving questions for the end. On this tour I'll start with the regions I added most recently as it happens that first two are primarily natural settings rather than human enterprise. We begin at the southern end of Lake Tzana, the source of the Blue Nile. Click the bottom teleport button, the one that's labeled Bahadar Lake Tzana to go there. Bahadar is a city in central Ethiopia located at the point where the Blue Nile flows out of Lake Tzana also called Lake Tana or Tana hike in Anharic. It's the largest lake in Ethiopia. It is not a rift valley lake like so many famous African lakes as it lies in the central highlands north of the rift valley. The image seen above the teleport buttons is one of the historic crowns of Ethiopia, a symbol of the empire. On the shore of the lake on the evening of my first day there I found a stand of papyrus, the first I had ever seen although I was very familiar with the plant and its uses from studying ancient Egypt. Finding a papyrus was something of a religious experience for me. I took a photograph which you'll see on this sign over here. The sign also changes to a picture of the Blue Nile gorge, Blue Nile Falls which is a short distance below the lake where the river turns and flows through a steep narrow Blue Nile gorge. Now click the top teleport button here. The Blue Nile Falls are spread across a wide area above the gorge. The river splits into four channels before going over the falls. The force of the flow used to depend on the season. Now Ethiopia controls the flow so it no longer reaches the dramatic force that gave it the names Tis Abai or Tis Asat which are in Hark for great smoke or the water that smokes. The first bridge over the gorge was built by the emperor Sosenius. Click the teleport button labeled Sosenius 1628 Blue Nile Bridge. Here you can see photos of the actual bridge. It crosses at a low wide section of the gorge. Before the bridge was built the gorge was a substantial barrier both to human traffic and wildlife. The northern side has a distinct front from that on the southern side. Let's now cross the bridge to the other side where there's a small village. The crocodiles may become agitated as we cross but won't harm us because they're well fed. The greater danger is from the hippos. They're territorial, aggressive, and irritable and even the crocodiles are wary of them. Now after you've had a chance to look at the denizens of the river the crocs and the hippos we will click the teleport button labeled Daaro Meeting Place to travel north some 600 kilometers 370 miles to Tembian in central Tigray. Daaro is the Tigrinian name for the Sycamore Fig. As you can see they grow extremely wide crowns. The photo on the left shows the Daaro we found near the village of Abiyadi with my friend's land rover parked beneath it. You can see my friend standing next to the vehicle waving at us. It gives you a good sense as to how huge the old tree is and I made this one from that photo. Daaro is traditionally used as a meeting place because it provides dependable shade where people sit. Crossroads often appear near such a Daaro. At the top of the stack of teleport buttons is a picture of another tree characteristic of the region the Baobab. The picture frame to the right shows views of the landscape and building styles of the Tembian region. Now we click the teleport button labeled Barantu to visit part of Western Eritrea. Barantu is the home of a distinct people and culture and a place where technologies thousands of years old were still in use when I visited in 1972. First let's go to see the Shadoof. An ancient tool for irrigation. The Shadoof was invented in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago. It was used in Egypt at least 4,000 years ago and still or recently has been used there and in many parts of Africa. The man we watched was drawing water from a stream below and pouring it by the bucket full into a main irrigation ditch that led to a network of ditches to water the fields where sesame, sorghum, and other grains were being grown. I currently show three models of the Shadoof on display showing the lowered neutral and raised which will go through the entire process hopefully with an Animesh man operating it. Now let's go to the series of photos a slide show as well as individual panels that I took that show a camel driven mill for grinding sesame seed to press into oil. The mill is a hollowed out olive wood trunk a mortar with a smaller olive wood pestle that is attached to a counterweighted beam. A blindfolded camel probably to prevent vertigo is hitched to the beam and walks around the mill for hours with periodic rests until the sesame seed is all pressed into oil. Each night they take the oil and seed hulls out and a fresh load of seed is poured in to sit until morning when the process is repeated. Here are two such mills one is empty and the other is full of sesame seed waiting to be pressed. Eventually I hope to build a model of the entire camel driven apparatus. Let's now walk over to the river where a few Kunamas are on an island washing. The Kunama are pastoralists but they were effective warriors largely because they had to fight against frequent raiders who captured many of them for slaves and stole their cattle. Over here are pictures of their houses. They live in the traditional wattle and dob round house with a fatched roof called either agudo or gojo. These sometimes have the inner walls plastered. They gather their hay and bind it and keep it on an elevated platform as you can see in the picture to the right to keep it away from goats and keep it dry. Over here is my model of such a platform. Let's continue walking now over to the donkeys which are being sitting waiting to be used as draft animals. One of the donkeys has a pack saddle like the one in the photograph. The other is still standing without a saddle. Okay now let's go over to the camel. This camel is calmly feeding stripping leaves off of the spiny branches of acacia trees. He gave me a very haughty look when I approached to take his picture reminding me strikingly of Charles de Gaulle. Now we're going to click on the teleport button labeled Eritrea and Hidmo where we'll see the traditional house style in Eritrea. The most common house in Eritrea as well as Tigray is known as Hidmo. The basic definition for Hidmo is a stone house with a turf sod roof over a wooden frame which is supported by wooden pillars. Numerous details make the traditional styles differ in various regions. Those of you who were on visit previous tours saw some of the Tigray styles and if we have time we'll make a brief stop to see some of them at the end of this tour. One feature commonly seen everywhere is a band of whitewashed plaster surrounding door and window frames. According to tradition this is intended to keep evil from entering the home. The Eritrea and Hidmo generally has a shallow convex roof with an overhang supported by wood columns that form a sheltered front porch unlike the flat roofs with no overhang found in Tigray. In the plateau regions near Esmeral, where we're standing now, the Hidmos are built entirely above ground and sometimes several are nested together like a village of row houses like the three that you see here. Some of them are plastered on the exterior either overall or just under the overhanging roof. Others are left with bare stone. However, all are plastered inside often with plastered benches along the walls and rectangular plaster niches built into the interior walls that are used like shelves for storing items. Now let's walk over toward the hill to view another Hidmo in more detail. Beside it is a plowed field where a pair of oxen stand yoke to a plow and another pair of grazes nearby. In an area like this where the land is more hilly, the Hidmo is often cut into the hillside so the rear of the building is semi-subterranean. This is useful both for allowing a larger longer home to be built on a steep slope and to help keep the interior temperature steady. Homes stand separately not nestled together. For those that are partly dug into the hillside, the roof is easily accessed from the hillside above and behind. We can visit this representative home. Goats and donkeys are in the walled yard along with spare pillars, parts of the plows that are drawn by oxen, and other assorted items. A small charcoal stove tinkered from a five gallon oil can sits under the overhanging roof of the front of the house in the area that serves as a kitchen. A sensor with frankincense burns by the side of the door letting the healing smoke enter the home. A zahli, a heavy clay cooking pot sits on the charcoal fire in which Zigny, the heavily spiced stewed beef dish, is being prepared. The woman uses a small circular disc of colorful woven straw to fan the coals through the opening in the side of the stove and she stirs the Zigny with a wooden stirring stick. Both can be seen here, one lying next to the stove, the other resting in the Zigny. The interior of the house is outfitted in typical style. On oxides partially cover the hard packed dirt floor. Sheep and goat skins lie on the benches to provide places to sit or sleep. A traditional chair of an ancient style sits at the back where the head of the household would sit. It's made from strips of goat skin woven on a wood frame. A photo above and behind the chair shows the real one that sits in my living room here. It was made by the father of an Eritrean friend of mine. Behind the chair is a Masub, the basketry covered table on which a platter would be placed for a meal. It would be placed in the center of the room, the cover removed of course, with stools settled around it for six people to dine communally out of the single pot. Large bins in the back of the room are used to store grain. You see wall niches on either side that hold household items such as drinking cups of gourd, horn, or enameled metal. Glass burley which are the narrow neck wide bottom bottles for drinking mess, honey mead, and bibles, gospels, another sattley pot, and other cookware all stashed in the niches. Turning back looking out beside the door you see a pot that holds sua, the grain beer. A child would be squatting there supporting the pot waiting to pour more into the watcha, the gourd cup or conical metal cup both of which are seen beside the pot as well as in the niches. Each guest would be served when they arrive and he would refill their their watcha whenever they finished the first draft. We now leave the hospitality of the Eritrean hypno. Walk out of the compound and turn right finding the teleport button to our next step, the monastery mount Debrodamo. First let's walk over to the far end to see the view of the emba, the mountain that is the home of Debrodamo. This is a panorama that I took from a place on the dirt road leading to the base of the emba. There's the large Hidmo sitting by the side of the road there at the vantage point. This monastery on top of that emba is famous for its axomite style church which was first built in the 9th century. According to legend, one of the traditional nine Syrian saints, a man known as Abuna Aragali, was carried to the top of the tail of a giant serpent who was commanded to do so by the archangel Michael. Since that time the access to the top is achieved by climbing up the cliff face on a thick braided rawhide rope. Only men are allowed to enter monasteries but today we have special permission from the monks for women to climb also. Note that I had put a royal crown above the stack of teleport buttons. That's one of a number that are kept in the monastery treasury. At the base of the rope you can click the teleport button that indicates top of rope climb. From there you walk through the gate and along the path to the top. Best to go one at a time giving each person a few seconds. At the top of the path is the double gateway in the wall that surrounds the ancient church. This church is one of the last surviving remnants of axomite architecture that have survived from antiquity. The church like many of the structures you'll visit today deserves more time to explore than we have so I recommend return here on a subsequent visit. Go through the gate to the side of the church is a treasury. The small house that contains the crowns of a number of emperors along with a library of ancient bibles and other texts on parchment and other items such as the picture you see the painting which depicts Abuna Aragawi being helped by the Archangel Michael to reach the summit on the tail of the serpent. This array of crowns and other treasures are often brought out and displayed for visitors as they are here today. Back outside the wall turn right and walk to the cistern one of several dug into the rock to hold rainwater since there's no groundwater at this height. Next to the cistern we see a collection of hydmos that housed the monks and other residents of the monastery. One in particular is remarkable for the decorative stonework at the top of the walls. I have a photo of the actual house in front of the wall surrounding this copy of it. Turn right again to see one of the more remarkable residents that claims Debra Damo as its home. This is Aba Gumbua, the Abyssinian ground hornbill. This turkey-sized bird lives on snakes, lizards, and insects and they're usually seen in pairs. One of my favorite birds is very majestic. From here we'll go to the Red Sea Coast and back in time to Punt, known by the ancient Egyptians as Punit, also Tadecere, the God's land. Visited by trading missions from ancient Egypt, most notably one sent by the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, Punt has been scientifically determined to have been located in Eritrea and adjacent Tigray. Here we see several Egyptian trading ships that traveled down the Red Sea to trade for valuable items such as gold, ebony wood, ivory tusks, tortoise shell, frankincense trees, and exotic animals. And they are arrayed ready to be loaded on the ship. As shown on the painted reliefs on the walls of Hatshepsut's temple, the houses of Punt were beehive shaped and stood on stilts like the ones you see here. Let's now walk over and see some of those reliefs from Hatshepsut's temple. We see the extremely realistic portrait of the king and queen of Punt, a view of houses, and a view of some Egyptian laborers carrying incense trees loaded in baskets over to the ships to be transported to Egypt where they were planted in Hatshepsut's temple. They've found remnants of the root system of some of the frankincense trees around Hatshepsut's temple, and there's nothing better to symbolize Punt atop the stack of teleport buttons than the image of the king and queen. Now click the Zula-odulus teleport button to jump ahead centuries to the time of Aksum's greatness in the fourth century CE. Odulus, located at the south end of the Bay of Zula, had been an independent port city before it was captured by Aksum to assure their access to Red Sea commerce. Here we see a key arrayed with riches that will be traded with Venetian, Greek, and Roman merchants in exchange for goods such as amphora filled with olive oil or wine from the Mediterranean world. On the far left end of the key are a group of stone anchors, the sort used on ships of the period. The emperor Ezhana, who accepted Christianity as the state religion of Aksum in approximately 350 CE, erected this throne and howlty, Estella, or monument inscribed in Greek and goods, proclaiming his might to all who came there. In addition to regular commerce, Odulus was known for capturing and training war elephants, which were sold to countries in the Mediterranean and the Middle East to be used in their militaries. Here we see several waiting to be shipped and we can hear them. From Odulus we travel along the trade route toward Aksum, where whose control of Odulus is symbolized by the Aksumite howlty atop the teleport button stack. Our first stop is Kohaito. We take the path, click the button that says Kohaito or rather road to Kohaito, then we walk up the path to the highlands and from there click the teleport button labeled Kohaito. That climb that we just made represents a trip from sea level to an altitude of between 1500 and 2000 meters. Known in ancient times as Koloa, Kohaito was a major city on the trade route and is one of the most important Eritrean archaeological sites. The symbol above the teleport button here is the famed howlty from the nearby site Metara. This map beside the teleport buttons shows points on the trade route from Odulus, also called Zula, to Kohaito, also called Koloa, to Metara, which was then known as Bur and then on to Aksum. In ancient times it was a trip that took about five days. If you can see them these photos show one of the most famous features of Kohaito, the Sahara Dam. This stone structure which may date from long before the rise of Aksum still holds water that's used by local cattle. In this direction you can see ruins of palaces and churches from the Aksumite period. The larger one has a crypt inside. We don't really have time to to explore the crypt now but I point out that it's there for your future exploration. Now let's go to the dam past the cattle drinking at the water's edge. You can see a pair of double sets of stepping stones that project from the face of the dam. People would use those to climb down to draw water. This photo shows part of the escarpment that you just climbed from the lowlands. You can see in the distance the land falling away towards the Red Sea in the haze. Now let's take a walk over to the edge of the escarpment. This will give you a sense of what we saw when we visited the site on the 4th of July 1969. It was a memorable day since we had an encounter with the Eritrean Liberation Front. Here is a link to the video that I made describing the encounter which you can watch at your leisure. The next stop would be Aksum, the great city which was the capital of what was in its day one of the four greatest powers in the world along with Rome, Persia, and China. I will start with Aksum on the evening tour. Those of you who want can continue with the tour at your leisure with the tour guide that I gave you. It has the teleports to all of the regions or if anybody wants I can continue with the rest now. Right, so we'll consider this finished for now. I hope people can get to the show tonight and I hope that we will have video of both halves of the tour but in any case you have the materials at hand to continue the tour on your own and I will be happy to arrange for further tours whenever people are interested. I'm glad you like it. It's been a labor of love. I've put a lot of time into it. Had to overcome a few obstacles but I don't consider it finished by any means but I'm satisfied with it for now.