Ethiopia’s northern borderlands: Tigray and its ancient civilization

by Sean McLachlan on

Driving north out of Ethiopia’s Amhara region into the borderland province of Tigray, the landscape becomes rockier and drier. The mountains rise higher and are more frequent, and at times sheer cliffs loom above the road. This is a harsh land with a harsh history. The bloody Ethiopian civil war and the war with neighboring Eritrea destroyed villages and crops and killed hundreds of thousands. Burnt-out tanks sit rusting by the side of the highway and huge refugee camps, cities really, house entire populations that have fled hunger and oppression in Eritrea for a better life in Ethiopia.

But there’s another side to Tigray. There’s peace in the land now and the children are just as friendly as in the rest of Ethiopia. The adults are friendly and hospitable too. And there’s a proud history to this region. It was here, in the fourth century BC, that the great civilization of Axum was founded. Its reach extended across what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea and even to the other shore of the Red Sea in what is now Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It brought Christianity to east Africa in 325 AD, making Ethiopia the second oldest Christian nation in the world after Armenia, which converted in 301. An important trading center controlling the Red Sea and exporting African goods to the rest of the world, the ancient Greeks recognized Axum as one of the great civilizations of the world. Axumite coins have been found as far away as China.

The remains of Axum are as imposing as the land itself. There are several important archaeological sites in the area and a proper visit will take at least a couple of days. The Dongar palace, reputed home of the Queen of Sheba of Biblical fame, has large central rooms, a complicated system for moving water, and a warren of smaller quarters for servants and supplies. Nearby is a desolate field with hundreds of standing stones, the graves of royalty. Some are small and have fallen over after centuries of weathering, while others tower overhead, monuments to great kings and queens who are now forgotten.

%Gallery-90136%Another impressive palace is that of Ezana, the first Christian king of Axum. Beneath its floors lies the tomb of Basen, known in the West at Balthazar, the wise man from Africa who came Bethlehem to honor the infant Jesus. Nearby is an equally evocative sight, a simple slab of stone covered in writing. A closer look reveals there are three different languages on it: Sabaean, an ancient Yemeni script; Ge’ez, the traditional language of Ethiopia that still survives in the Christian liturgy; and Greek. This Rosetta Stone of Ethiopia was discovered by two local farmers just a few years ago.

By far the most impressive and famous part of Axum is the main field of stelae. One is that of King Ezana, rising 23 meters into the clear blue sky. On the day we went the crescent moon hovered just above it. An even larger stela lies shattered where it fell nearby. Another stela, measuring 26 meters, was stolen by the Italians when they briefly occupied Ethiopia from 1936-41. Mussolini set it up in Rome as a monument to his power, but within a few years Communist partisans had shot him and hung him up by a meat hook as an object of public scorn. Fascism in Italy was destroyed, but it wasn’t until 2005 that the stela finally returned to its rightful place.

These stelae are carved with depictions of windows and doors like houses. Clambering around these monumental remains I wondered about the symbolism. Did it represent palaces built by the kings when they were alive, or a house of the spirit like in Egyptian tombs? Perhaps it had a different meaning now lost to time. There’s also the mystery of how these monuments were erected in the first place, and why this incredible civilization declined and was eventually overcome by its enemies. I’ve been to some of the greatest archaeological ruins in the world and they all have one thing in common–they’re all ruins now. We shouldn’t assume our own civilization is eternal. If we do, we’ll be making the same mistake as the Incas, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Axumites, and dozens of others.

Not far from Axum is the pagan temple of Yeha, dating to about the 8th century BC, although nobody is really sure. The temple, which still stands 12 meters high, is related to the Sabaean culture, which once dominated the southern Saudi peninsula, and it looks like its cousins in Yemen. The place later became a church and monastery, and a cross-shaped window casts a bright yellow light on the interior.

Heading out of Axum, we skirt close to the Eritrean border, still technically a war zone because the two countries haven’t signed a peace agreement since the cease fire took effect in 2000. A pair of soldiers, country kids who couldn’t be more than eighteen, hitch a ride and tell us how bored they are and how much they miss home. One of them eases an arm around my wife’s seat back and gives his friend a proud grin. I look at him to show I’ve noticed, and he blushes and pulls his arm away. We get to their stop, a bare stretch of road, and they shoulder their Kalashnikovs, waving goodbye and wishing us a pleasant journey.

Next time: climbing to a clifftop monastery and exploring the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela!

You can read the rest of the Ethiopia series here.

Medieval monasteries on Lake Tana, Ethiopia

by Sean McLachlan on

The Christian communities of Ethiopia have an eye for dramatic settings. From the sweeping views of Debre Libanos to the many monasteries perched atop sheer cliffs, the surroundings of a holy place are often as beautiful as the place itself.

It makes sense from a religious point of view. If you’re going to spend your life celebrating Creation, where better to do it than a place where Creation is at its most awesome or serene?

This is certainly true of the monasteries and nunneries on the islands of Lake Tana. These religious communities are set in a placid lake surrounded by green hills and fields. At 65 km (40 miles) in diameter it’s the largest lake in Ethiopia and has been a center of worship for more than 500 years.

Hiring a boat is pretty straightforward at the lakeside town of Bahir Dar, and our first stop is a peninsula a few miles along the coast where stands the 16th century church of Ura Kidane Mihret. The boat docks at a little pier and my wife and I take a narrow path through a dense forest. Coffee grows everywhere under the shade of the forest canopy. I’ve never seen coffee growing before. Splitting open one of the red berries I find the bean inside, a pale yellow, sticky thing that bears little resemblance to the roasted beans I’m used to. We drink Ethiopian coffee every morning at home so it’s nice to see where it comes from.

We climb a hill and pass though a simple stone gate. In the yard the monks are busy laying the foundation for a new building. All the monks have to work hard, either at farms on the mainland or helping out around the church and monastery. The church itself is deceptively simple on the outside–a large, round building topped by an elaborate cross–but when we pass through the tall wooden doors we’re stopped short by brilliantly colorful paintings reaching from floor to ceiling.

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The outer wall of the church shelters an inner wall that encloses the worship area and holy of holies. Every inch of this wall is covered in paintings. Some scenes are familiar, like the Crucifixion and St. George defeating the dragon. Others are strange to us, coming from holy books that have been discarded by or lost to the Western tradition, like the Miracle of Mary and the Kebre Negast. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes many such books in their canon. The books of Enoch and Jubilees were translated into Ge’ez, the ancient Ethiopian language still used in church services, but were lost to the West and survive in the New Testament only in a few quotations. If it wasn’t for ancient Ethiopian translators, these books would be almost entirely unknown.

The paintings are vivid, showing scenes of miracles and worship. Mary is a popular figure and every phase of her flight to Egypt is shown in detail. There’s also a brilliant painting of all the souls in Hell being freed after the Crucifixion.

The paintings sometimes take interesting twists to familiar themes. For example, the common image of St. George killing the dragon has a unique legend attached to it in Ethiopia. There once was a village that worshiped the dragon and made human sacrifices to it every day. A maiden named Brutawit was going to be sacrificed and St. George told her that if she believed in God that she would be saved. She was, thanks to George’s skill with a lance, and she took the dead beast back to the village to show that God was more powerful than the dragon. The entire village then converted to Christianity.

A short boat ride away is the island monastery of Kibran Gabrael. Like many monasteries, it’s off-limits to women so my wife hung out in a shady grove while I went to see the monastery’s famous library of medieval manuscripts. The monastery is quiet, most of the monks being on the mainland tending crops, but the librarian is in and he leads me to a little building stuffed with books. As a dedicated bibliophile I’ve been to some of the great libraries of the world and looked through many rare illuminated manuscripts, but I was very impressed with what I saw on this peaceful little island. The level of artistry in the books is equal to any of the great works of medieval France or Italy, yet completely different in style. The librarian opens up book after book of sturdy goatskin, showing me richly colored paintings of Bible scenes. Each of the Gospels has its own book, and there’s a hefty New and Old Testament that weighs in at 17 kilos (38 pounds)! Also in the library are a selection of icons. When a monk goes off on his own to pray in solitude for a few days, the abbot gives him a book to read and an icon to meditate on. Thus the monks get some fine art to admire and think about while they are cut off from the rest of humanity.

Lake Tana has several other monasteries and churches other than the ones I mention here. Some take an entire day trip by boat to visit. Someone seriously interested in seeing them all would need about a week to do it properly. Hopefully some day I’ll go back and write about them all here.

Next stop: Gondar–Ethiopia’s Camelot!

You can read the rest of the Ethiopia series here.

Road trip: Ethiopia

by Sean McLachlan on

Ethiopia is like the United States–it’s best seen on a long road trip. The easiest way to see Ethiopia’s beautiful landscape and ancient monuments is to hire a driver and vehicle in the capital Addis Ababa.

My wife and I picked Abey Roads based on a personal recommendation and decided to celebrate our tenth anniversary by doing the popular two-week “northern loop” encompassing the provinces of Amhara and Tigray and the most famous of Ethiopia’s ancient sites. Our driver Sntayehu Mekonen turned out to be a handy translator/guide/fixer, not to mention a fun travel companion. Many independent travelers prefer going it alone on public transport and while that is certainly cheaper, hiring a vehicle gives you more freedom of movement plus someone who is able to tell you about the country and show you out-of-the-way spots. So after some good first impressions of Ethiopia, we headed out.

The ride north out of Addis Ababa climbs up the steep slopes of the Entonto Hills through eucalyptus forest. This fast-growing Australian import was first planted by the Emperor Menelik more than a century ago. It provides a ready supply of construction material and the leaves are used for fuel. Women carry huge bundles of the leaves on their heads several miles downhill to sell in the market. Trucks speed past them with mountains of the stuff. Coming uphill we see one of Ethiopia’s famous runners, sprinting up a steep incline at 3,000 meters (9,000+ feet). Runners train in these hills so that when they race at lower elevations they can easily outpace the competition.

Up and over the hills and we’re speeding along the Oromo and Amhara uplands, a green and fertile region that looks nothing like the image most people have of Ethiopia. Acacia and eucalyptus dot the countryside and thatched roof huts are everywhere, their walls made of the thin trunks of eucalyptus. Children herding cows and goats wave at our car as their fathers thresh teff, a popular grain in Ethiopia. Teff is used to make injeera, the sour bread typical of Ethiopian cuisine, and it fetches a higher price than any other cereal crop. The tiny grains (the word derives from the Amharic term for “lost”) are separated from their husks by having cattle walk in circles over a heap of it until all the husks are crushed.

The first stop for most travelers on the northern historic loop is the monastery of Debre Libanos, 100 km north of Addis Ababa. A rough dirt road winds down a sheer 700 meter canyon to one of the holiest spots for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It was here in a cave in the cliff that the holy man Tekle Heymonot lived for many years praying and fasting. Deciding this wasn’t enough, he stood on one leg until the other one fell off. Some paintings of the saint show him ascending to heaven, his detached leg equipped with its own set of wings.

%Gallery-87468%Like holy places the world over, Debre Libanos is permeated with a sense of transcendent calm. The verdant cliffs overlooking it to one side and the sweeping views on the other make are beautiful, and the church’s bright dome shines in the sun, appearing smaller than it is in the imposing landscape.

Once inside the scene changes completely. The interior is dim, lit only by candles and colored light filtering through a row of stained glass windows. Men and women worship on separate sides, their prayers mingling with the chants of priests intoning ancient hymns in front of Tekla Heymonot’s tomb. The liturgical language is Ge’ez, an ancient tongue that uses the same alphabet as Amharic but is unintelligible to modern speakers, a bit like Latin.

Our guide is a former engineer who speaks flawless English. Many years ago he got sick and his parents brought him here to be healed. Miraculously he was, and he gave up his job to become a monk. He takes us to every corner of the compound, from the cellar where monks stand in a circle chanting for hours as they lean wearily on staffs, up to the cave of Tekla Heymonot, where holy water drips from the ceiling into blue plastic buckets. He takes us to every place but one–the holy of holies found in every Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where the tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, is hidden from the sight of all but the priests and monks. The true Ark is said to be in a special building in the northern city of Axum. Only a single caretaker is allowed to gaze upon it.

The best thing about travel by car is seeing the in-between places. Many visitors to Ethiopia bypass the country’s long and often rough roads by flying from city to city. That’s no way to learn about a country. After Debre Libanos the next popular stop on the overland route is the source of the Blue Nile. To be honest it’s nothing more than a geographical curiosity–a muddy little spring that’s considered so holy that visitors can’t photograph it. But getting there proved that the journey is not the destination. Bumping along a rocky back road we spot a horse race in a nearby field. Local farmers, decked out in red and gold costumes, are racing in pairs across a long stretch of pasture marked out with poles as a small crowd cheers them on. We randomly pick our favorites and cheer too.

This of, course, attracts everybody’s attention, and soon we’re encircled by curious kids practicing their schoolbook English. After we decide we’ve stolen enough of the horsemen’s thunder, we say goodbye and go to the source of the Blue Nile. The same thing happens again. Soon the Nile is forgotten and we’re trading English words for Amharic. “Butterfly,” we say, pointing at one flying past. “Birabiro!” shout a dozen kids. “Acacia?” “Graal!” “Pen?” “Esceribto!”

Some of the kids are in high school and have good enough English to carry on a conversation. My wife explains what her work as an astronomer is like and encourages the girls to study science. As I watch her surrounded by these girls, telling them can be anything they want in life, I’m reminded of one of the reasons I married her.

And that’s what a tenth anniversary trip is all about, isn’t it?

Lon-done? Try St. Albans

by Sean McLachlan on

London is one of the most popular destinations for American travelers. It’s big, exciting, and there’s always something going on. Sadly, many visitors never get beyond the city limits. There are plenty of smaller towns just a short journey away that are worth visiting on a day trip or longer stay. St. Albans in Hertfordshire north of London is my favorite.

Located just a twenty-minute train ride from King’s Cross, St. Albans feels a world away from the big city. There are woods, quiet lanes, and friendly pubs. The air is even breathable!

St. Albans has been a pilgrimage center since Celtic times. When the Romans conquered Britain, they built the city of Verulamium here. Part of the city wall still pokes out of the grass in the town park, and nearby you can see the excavated remains of the old Roman theatre and other buildings. An excellent museum explains the history of the Roman settlement and occasionally hosts reenactments by “Roman” soldiers. Check out the museum website for the next event.

Since medieval times the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban has been a major pilgrimage center. St. Alban was a Christian resident of Roman Verulamium in the 3rd century AD. One day he saw a fellow Christian fleeing from the soldiers and he helped him escape by exchanging clothes with him. St. Alban was caught and marched up the hill overlooking town and beheaded. It’s said that when the sword cleaved through his neck, the executioner’s eyes popped out! There’s a wonderfully graphic painting of this inside the cathedral. A monastery was founded on the site of St. Alban’s martyrdom in the year 793, and the oldest bits of the current cathedral date to the 11th. You’ll notice that many of the bricks in the church are actually reused from crumbling Roman buildings, poetic justice indeed!

%Gallery-83298%The town itself makes for a relaxed and very English experience. There are numerous timber-frame, thatched-roof houses dating to the 16th and 17th centuries, especially along Fishpool St., and a 600 year-old clock tower that you can climb up to get a good view of the town and surrounding countryside.

If you’re feeling thirsty try Ye Olde Fighting Cocks next to the duck pond in the park. It’s one of the many pubs that claims to be “the oldest in Britain”. While it’s impossible to tell which pub is truly the oldest, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks certainly is a strong contender. The central octagonal section dates to about 1400, and there may have been monks brewing here as early as 793. The pub gets its name from the cockfights that used to take place here. One of the stuffed champions is on display.

There’s enough to do and see in St. Albans that you might consider staying overnight. I’d suggest The Lower Red Lion. This 17th century coaching inn is still much as it was. I love these old buildings with their narrow stairs, small-paned windows, undulating floors, and resident ghosts. The pub downstairs is one of the best places I’ve seen to get real ales. The last time I was there they had seven guest ales on tap. The kitchen will cook you up a hearty meal to go with your pint. There are only seven rooms and it’s best to book well in advance.

So if London is beginning to grate on your nerves, get out of town! St. Albans is a good place to start.

A medieval church, a lost village, and river walk in England

by Sean McLachlan on

I’ve written about the Thames Path in an earlier post, but I recently discovered an even better stretch of that river trail that starts at a beautiful medieval abbey. So of course you folks get to enjoy the view without having to do the footwork. Aren’t I nice to you? Like all my hikes so far, this is an easy day trip from Oxford or London.

Dorchester Abbey is in the little village of Dorchester-on-Thames, easily reachable by direct bus from Oxford, or from London via Oxford. The Abbey dates from 1140 and has some wonderful stained glass, rare frescoes, and medieval tombs. There’s also an interesting little museum and when I was there, someone had drawn a chalk labyrinth on the floor. Church labyrinths have enjoyed a revival recently. Following their meandering lines is very relaxing and a good aid to meditation.

The town itself is worth a wander for its many old houses and 16th century inn, still taking guests and serving meals and drinks.

A short walk southeast of town are some interesting features. First are the The Dyke Hills, a set of parallel embankments that look like a dyke but in fact are prehistoric defenses. Beyond that is a nature reserve and a massive chalk hill called Castle Hill, so called because in prehistoric times there was a fort here. If you huff it all the way to the top, you’ll be rewarded with a magnificent sweeping view of the surrounding countryside, only slightly spoiled by the nearby Didcot nuclear power station. Enter the copse of beech trees and be rewarded with an amazing rushing sound as the strong, steady wind rustles the leaves. Stop at the Poem Tree, where in 1844 and 1845 Joseph Tubbs carved a poem into the bark. It’s no longer legible, but there’s a transcription on a plaque at its base, and even a website inspired by his work.

From Castle Hill you can see Day’s Lock on the river. Walk to it and head out for a country ramble on the Thames Path. From the lock it’s a flat, easy seven miles to Abingdon, a historic town that is a ten-minute bus ride from Oxford.

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One advantage to hiking the Thames Path is that it’s impossible to get lost. It may become a bit unclear in spots, but you never lose sight of it entirely and it never strays far from the river. A more complete description of this walk, with more pictures, can be seen here.

As you head out from Dorchester-on-Thames, you’ll pass by several little villages. The Didcot power station remains clearly visible for the first few miles. Try to ignore it. After a while you’ll cross Clifton Hampden bridge. Stop at the local pub, admire the thatched roof houses, and recharge the batteries.

Continuing on, you’ll pass through verdant, peaceful countryside, your only companions being the birds and the occasional river barge gliding down the river. Stop at Sutton Courtenay, where the Norman manor house dates to the 12th century. George Orwell is buried in the churchyard. I found this part of the hike to be a bit freaky. In the Late Middle Ages, Sutton Courtenay used to be much bigger than it is now, but for some reason most of the town was abandoned. You can still see the foundations of buildings and the faint traces of old roads. Nobody knows what happened. Did the Black Death wipe out the population? Did they get killed in some long-forgotten massacre? As I was passing by the abandoned part of town the clouds grew thick and a cold wind blew. I didn’t see any ghosts, but I felt like I was going to!

Barely two miles more and you’ll enter Abingdon, which I mentioned in my last post about the Thames Path. From there it’s an easy bus ride to Oxford, and then on to London. Enjoy!