 Okay, as you recall, this is the Red Sea port that was Axum's access to the Red Sea and to the World Commerce. Now we go begin our trek to the city of Axum. Once again, come over here and click the road to Kohaito Teleport. Climb up the road and then click the teleport detection to Kohaito. We just made a climb of a couple of thousand meters five to six thousand feet from the Red Sea coast up to the plateau. We are now in Kohaito, which is one of the major cities on the trade route from the Red Sea to Axum. It was known in ancient times as Koloa. It is now one of Eritrea's most important archaeological sites. The map that you see next to the teleport buttons shows points on the trade route. These photos, which I hope you can see, show the one feature which Kohaito is best known for. It's the dam, the Sahara Dam, which may date from long before the rise of Axum. It's still, at least in the time that I was there in the 1970s, held water that was useful for the local cattle to drink. Over here are ruins of palaces and churches. And in this one, in this one there is a crypt, a burial crypt, which a number of the churches in the Axumite cities contained. You can peer down the steps and take a peek at the crypt. I don't think it makes sense to go down in it because it's tight space and hard to move around in. You can explore it on another visit. But this gives you an idea of what the site of today partly excavated, mostly still in ruin, and yet obviously the remains of a big city. Now let's wander to the dam. You see some cattle drinking at the water's edge. And this end of the dam are some projecting steps which people could use to climb down and draw water over here. This is a panoramic photo I put together from three slides showing part of the escarpment, the same area that we just climbed from the Red Sea Lowlands. In the distance in this photo, you can see the hazy land falling away toward the Red Sea. Now let's walk over to the escarpment to get a sense of what we saw when we visited this site on 4th of July 1969. We had a picnic with this view, a spectacular site. But the reason this particular trip was so memorable is that we had an encounter with the Eritrean Liberation Front. They came and found us there at the site and gave us something of a lecture before letting us go. It was altogether a fascinating experience. And here's a link to a YouTube video that I put together about the experience that you can save and look at at your leisure. Now our next stop on the way to Aksum is Metara. It's another major Eritrean site, one where I spent two seasons participating in excavations in 1969 and 1970. Whoops wrong. Click the teleport here that takes us to Metara. We're in the Andaga, the public square. Metara is a large city. It sits on a wide plain beneath a huge outcropping known as Mba Metara that looms above the ruins. And you can see it be up past the signs. Giant outcrop of rock. As I mentioned, it's really the name Metara refers to the small village near the site. During 10 seasons of excavation, several major palaces, a church, and an extensive section of the city were excavated here. Most of what was found is Aksumite in age, dating from between the third to the sixth century of CE. Beneath a lot of these ruins were found remnants of much older structures which were contemporary with Yeha, seventh to fourth century BCE or before. A string of photos in this direction, there are slide shows as well as standing photos which show views of many of the features at Metara including a plan of the site which is showing right now. You can see the number of areas that were excavated and that left a great deal unexcavated at the time that they stopped studying there. One of the best known features at Metara is the Howlty, which is the tigrinia word for Stella or inscribed monument that contains a four-line inscription which is one of the oldest known inscriptions in the early form of the modern Ethiopic writing system. Here is a representation of that Howlty. You get to get more information about it that it was stood on the hill, a small hill known as Gwal Sain which stands on the side of the palace. When the German expedition arrived here in 1906, the stone laid broken beneath the hill. Italians subsequently repaired it and stood it next to the road which passed through the site. During the war, the border war between Ethiopia and Heratria between 1998 and 2000, Ethiopian troops who were camped in the site blew the Howlty up. It since has been moved to a museum in Esmara and repaired with a replica now standing in place of the original. The palace that you see here is not a replica of any particular ruin but rather an amalgam containing notable elements of several from Metara as well as from other sites, Kohaito and Aksum and others. It's typical of Aksumite architecture. It consists of a surrounding wall composed of joined small rooms within which are courtyards and a freestanding central villa. There are several entrances into the center of the palace. Let's walk up the ramp and go inside. On the front steps of this central villa is an example of fine artifacts that were found in the pre-Aksumite levels of Metara's lamp depicting a hound chasing an Ibex. You can click that to receive a note card with more information and photos of the actual item. You see a number of exotic animals. Greek and Roman travelers reported that Aksumite palaces often housed captive wild animals. Let's come over this way. Below these steps is a burial crypt representative of ones found in several sites. It's from the Christian period and there's a stone cross embedded in the wall of the stairwell and also on the ends of some of the stone sarcophagi that lie inside. You can click the amphora next to the steps for more information about it and some photos. Now we walk across this causeway to another feature. This is a feature that I included here which we found in an excavation of a palace at Aksumite, a site known as Dungler. What we're seeing here are a pair of brick ovens that were presumably part of the kitchen area. They're in a style similar to the Roman. The bricks are in particular our Roman style which indicates the strong contact between the two civilizations. Again you can click the amphora for information about the brick ovens including photographs of the originals. The courtyard as you can see is divided into sections by walls. Let's walk through this into this adjoining section and then take the steps of the far end that lead out the back exit of the palace. Now you see a teleport button that will take you to the summit of Gwal Sain, the hill over to the side. And it will be at the foot of the metharihality where it originally stood next to a small temple or chapel and you'll see the item in its proper format. You can see the four-line inscription at eye level. It's sort of faint but if you look in close you can see it. And then above near the top of the stone is an inscribed incised disc and crescent which are the symbol of the lunar god Almata to whom the many places in Aksum and in Yehah as well were dedicated. Now we're going to make the rest of the way to Aksum. Click the lower of the two teleport buttons here, the one that says Aksum Eddaga that will take us to the public square. In the third century Aksum was considered one of the four greatest kingdoms in the world. The others being Rome, Persia and China. That gives you an idea of what a great civilization this was at that time. Aksum controlled commerce on the Red Sea, trading goods from Africa with Byzantine Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean world as well as with Arabia, Persia and beyond. Greek travelers wrote about the splendor of the city and if you look around you you can see some huge buildings indicated what a great city it was. In addition to great palaces and churches there was an imposing row of stone thrones used for ceremonial purposes. We're going to click the teleport that says royal thrones to go and visit those items. Each of these thrones sits on a stone platform. Some of them as you can see the center one for example was covered by a roof, a thatched roof, supported on columns. Down at the far end of the row there's a double throne and several of the houses known as Setala that were traditional house styles in Aksum up through the 20th century. From here we're going to click the giant howl to the teleport button. This is one of the great monuments of Aksum, the largest stone obelisk ever erected and as well because it fell at some point maybe even when they were first trying to erect it and has lain ever since shattered in pieces. You can see behind it the two largest ones in the field of quality. The two larger ones which are only slightly smaller than this one they were decorated with carved doors and windows and they had medallions of gold or electrum at the top which of course are long gone now. They probably indicated the face of the god or some symbol of the god. These were all used as monuments marking royal or noble tombs. Let's walk around the end of this giant halty. You see that it's lying partially across what may be the largest single block of stone ever quarried moved and installed. This block of stone as indicated is suggested to weigh as much as 50 tons maybe more. It was it served as the roof to a subterranean group of burial crypts. It was dislodged in antiquity probably when the large halty fell and hit it. And you can see some of the stones that served to prop it up now lie a skew along the sides. It's known as nephasmocha the place of the exiting of the winds. The name may relate to the fact that there was a crypt underneath it nearby but not yet included here is another large burial crypt which is recently been there. There are photos of it in some of the group displayed near where we arrived. For our next stop click the index collib teleport button. Let's walk up the steps and have a quick look at this complex. Her collib was one of the most powerful Axumite empires. He ruled during the sixth century when Axum was at its most expansive. Emperor Collib built a large church the one on the left of this hill above the city with his large multi-chambered burial crypt beneath it. His son Deborah Musko who followed him as emperor built a second church a mirror image next to that of his father and then added this majestic set of terraces that unite the tomb. And his church has a larger crypt beneath it with more chambers than that of his father. The combined site is still known as in the collib which means collib's place despite Deborah Musko's efforts. As with many things we can explore the churches at another time. There's too much to be seen at once but I wanted you to at least have a look at this site but do when you get a chance come back and explore the crypts and the interior of the churches. Let's come back down the steps and click the statue base teleport button. This massive stone structure is surmounted by a large heavy stone with two giant footprints carved in it. It was the location of one of several bronze, silver or gold statues of Aksum's chief god Mahra. The statues presumably were destroyed when Aksum accepted Christianity as its official religion and the melt melted down for the metal to be reused. Next to the statue base are some photos that show how the original may have looked. Five or six different statues around the city. This one is located near the grand royal palace which is now known as Taha Mario. We're going to now teleport button to visit the immense palace which covered an area of 120 by 80 meters in 1906 and the some of the plans that they made of it are visible here. Sadly in intervening time all of the stone that they excavated had been carted away and used elsewhere so there's nothing visible up here we see the replica. Climb these steps and we go into the private area of the palace. This huge courtyard was the private section of the palace reserved for the royal family and the important members of the court. The central villa is also divided. The back end here is for the family use. There's a the front end looks identical and features a larger room which would probably have been used for small audiences and gatherings with members of the public. Now let's walk through one of these gates in the wall that divides this private courtyard from the public one. This is a courtyard where members of the public would be able to enter but that would have been the more privileged members. Let's now cross up these steps into the more public area where the general populace could have entered. This would have been used for ceremonial purposes probably. Now we're going to leave the palace through the southeast gateway this way. Now we will click the teleport for Betagurgis. Betagurgis is one of the hills above Aksum. There was an important excavation that took place here recently. A team led by my friends, the late Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Potovic and his colleague Catherine Bard, Professor of Merit of Boston University, excavated this small section of a palace that was much like the one at Yeha, which you've seen on previous tours. Evidently built somewhat later to replace the palace at Yeha. At the request of Professor Bard I created this replica of the structure that they excavated resting on the foundation of the Yeha Palace for comparison. If you scan up you can see that this is just a small corner of what was a large palace. The inavailability of the lab due to the owner not wanting to have it dug up prevented them from excavating any further. Of course, that this building which has been designated owner-nuggest was at least somewhat larger than the palace at Yeha. And as I say it appears to have been a replacement. The palace was destroyed. They moved down here and set up this new city which then was itself replaced by Aksu. Here I included another copy of the foundation showing how it would look during the excavation in its approximate location on the Beta Gertus Hill. Near it is the illustration behind you is the illustration that was made by the draftsman of the excavation which I used to create the reproduction. Now we can click the Yeha Idaga teleport button to go to the capital of Denmark the powerful kingdom that preceded Aksu. We've been there before but let's go again. Where we stand you can see looming above the immense palace which is known as Gratbalgibri which seems to have been the model for the owner-nuggest palace. It stood atop an imposing artificial hill. Let's click the Gratbalgibri teleport button to go close to the palace. Here for the first two seasons of excavation of this site in 1971 and 72 there was a third season that I wasn't able to attend and then it sat for a few years until a German team came and finished or did much more excavating which allowed the recreation of this model showing what the palace would have actually looked like. The present name of the site Gratbalgibri means the field of the collector of taxes which is a memory over 2,500 years old that the ruin here was the administrative center of the city. Here at this end of this pylon there's a teleport button that will take us now to the great temple the other major site at Yeha. In antiquity this monumental building which was dedicated to the lunar god Almakau had an imposing colonnaded protocol that you can see but at the time we were here that was not only not visible it was not even known to exist. Come over here and click the teleport that takes you to the temple of the present day. This play includes some of the plans that were drawn by the German team when they were here in 1906 showing that the building was largely filled with rubble and had a small church that had been built inside it at the time when the Christianity became the religion of the region. The church was dedicated to Abu Na'afse one of the nine Syrian saints. When I was there in the 1970s the church the temple had been cleared inside but there was no excavation that had taken place. The church was removed but if you walk inside you'll see a keyhole baptistry that had been included at the time when the church was built. Characteristic of Axemite period churches is this baptistry which is a pit with steps on both sides. You would walk in and be immersed in water and come out baptized. You can see holes in the wall where the walls the inner walls that divided the back end of the building into separate rooms used to be interlocked. Now we're going to click the second temple site. This is a recent excavation of another temple that stood below the great temple at the base of the hill. At the time when excavation was halted by the COVID pandemic followed by the civil war that devastated Tigray a number of foundation walls had been unearthed deep below the present surface that you can see in this pit. The second temple was not known to exist until the local histories preserved by the people of Yaha that spoke of a former temple at this location were investigated by my friend one of the German scholars who was studying the area. That is to say there was a 3,000 year old memory that accurately recalled the presence of additional structures that had been lost visibly. Now we make one more stop here at Yaha. Click the walk over here to take a look at the photos of the excavation. After you've had a chance to look at them a bit click the teleport for Endurasi which means home of the headman was the house of the village headman at Yaha. We camped in his yard during the excavations and had our meals in his upper room. Wait a minute we're at the wrong place. There is a teleport button again that says Endurasi. Let's use that. Now we're at the right place. You can see in the photograph pictures of our camp where we stayed during the excavation and of his house. I've built this replica but without the tin roof let's go inside the compound. Household animals are kept inside the compound wall when the children aren't tending them in the fields while they graze. Part of the yard is used for threshing grain and the flock of birds are digging in the threshing ground for any remaining grain. The room at the lower left contains spins made of clay and duck that hold grain, lentils and other dried. It's a storage room. Upstairs is a room for family use with benches covered with sheep and goat skins as well as some traditional beds. Let's go up. This is the room where the family would sleep or spend their time. Across this little path is the room for entertaining guests. Since this man was the head man and a well-to-do member of the city he decorated this room with carpets to show his wealth. You can see traditional furniture here as well as the benches that people would sit on. The chair at the far end of the room is an exact copy of one that I owned that is in my house right now. You can see a photograph of it on the wall. It was made by the father of a friend of mine with skin strips woven on a wooden frame and the stools are made the same way. These are traditional designs that go back many centuries. If you look back toward the door to this room you see a pot which would contain sua which is grain beer. A serving boy would be there to hold the pot at an angle to keep it from settling properly and able to pour to rebuild every visitor's glass whenever they needed it. Now this would have been the end of the complete tour that I started this morning. As it happens it's time to consider it finished for this evening too. But as you will notice that if you picked up the tour script the part of the tour that we did this morning follows this. And if any of you did not receive it let me know and I'll pass you a copy. Just a second. Hi Roy. Glad you made it. Anybody else need a copy? Glad you did it. Okay we can depart from here or we can jump back to the home base where I can answer any questions if anybody wants.