The Stela of Metara


I know it's been awhile. I'm now back in the US after a very busy month in the Hague and Egypt. I'll report more on those adventures soon, but in the meantime, I'm finally going to tell you about the Stela of Metara. I've been promising this report for a long time, so here goes:

I would like to take you back to Eritrea and to the third week of March 2007, when I went to Senafe for work. While I was there, Simon and I had the opportunity to visit Metara, and Ancient Axumite city. I don't know much about Metara or the Axumites, so I am going to refer to the Lonely Planet guide to Ethiopia and Eritrea for my explanation.

"Around the 1st century AD (or even earlier), the powerful kingdom of Aksum began to develop. Situated in Tigray, in the north of modern Ethiopia ... Aksum lay just 170km from the Red Sea. Much foreign trade--on which Aksum's prosperity depended--was seaborne and came to be handled by the ancient port of Adulis in Eritrea."

In addition to Adulis, at least two other important Aksumite cities were located in present-day Eritrea. These are Metara and Qohaito.

"Metara is important [as an Aksumite] site for three main reasons: for its age--some of it, from about the 5th century BC, actually predates Aksum; for its huge size--it spreads over at least 20 hectares, making it the largest Aksumite site after Aksum itself and Aksum's port, Adulis; and for its unusual character--it is the only place in the Aksumite civilisation where a large bourgeois community is known to have thrived."



"One of Metera's most important objects is its enigmatic stele. Unique in Eritrea, the stele is known for its pagan, pre-Christian symbol of the sun over the crescent moon, engraved on the top of the eastern face. Like the famous Aksum stelae, it faces eastward.

"Standing 2.5m tall, the stele has an inscription near the middle in Ge'ez. An unknown king dedicates the stele to his ancestors who had subjugated the 'the mighty people of Awanjalon, Tsebelan.'"

The Stela was vandalized by Ethiopian soldiers during the 1998 to 2000 border war. Much of the base of the Stela was destroyed. But thanks to a donation from UNESCO, the Stela has been repaired. Nevertheless, the existing Stela is only a fraction of its former self. In fact, the base of the current Stela is entirely new.



In addition to the Stela, there are ruins of former Axumite buildings at Metara. Down here are the old entrances to three tunnels. According to the little girl who led us around, the tunnel my right led to Quohaito, the tunnel I'm leaning against led to Adulis, and the tunnel to my left led to Axum.

Ciao Asmara!


Hello everyone! I hope all is well outside my little world. I have been extremely busy the last couple weeks, but I apologize for not to update this blog more frequently. It seems like something always gets in the way.

In any case, I am no longer in Eritrea, and at some point in the next couple of weeks, I will get around to discussing what I've been doing since my departure. Oh, and of course, I still owe you all a post about the Stela. But in the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts and some pictures in order to bid farewell to Asmara and my life in Eritrea. I think it's going to be a difficult transition. The outside world already seems extremely intimidating. I almost went into sensory overload on Sunday afternoon when I went shopping in The Hague with Anna and Julie, a paralegal for our office who works from the States. But life goes on, and I will certainly adjust to the outside world. Or maybe I'll decide to return to Asmara. We shall see.

I thought that this post would be focused on my going away party that I had at the Albergo Italia (shown below), one of the nicer hotels in Asmara. The party was such a disaster that I have no desire to rehash it. But just so you all can imagine something far worse than reality, I'll just say that the hotel called the police and tried to kick all of us out.



In general, my last couple of weeks in Asmara were bitter sweet. It's hard to explain exactly why, but somehow in those last two weeks, I faced an overload of all the good and all the bad things about living in Eritrea. And so when I left, it was very hard. At the same time, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I know I'm being really cryptic. Actually, if you've paid much attention to this blog, you might have realized that I always am. And I thought I would get over that once I was out of the country, but I so far I haven't.



In any case, I think the main thing I want to do at this point is share some photos of Asmara so that maybe you can empathize with the nostalgia I am already feeling. And those of you who are reading this from Eritrea, I want you to know that I will miss all of the people I met there, and hopefully I will return one day.