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Ethiopian architecture is one of the most
monumental and unique in the world and dates back to the high antiquity.
The first monuments of the human building activity dolmens and menhirs
are widely spread all over Sidama.
Between 1000 and 400 BC the tribes from
South Arabia (where Sabean and Minaean Kingdoms were prospering at those
times) overflowed North-Eastern Africa bringing the stone-building skills
(dry masonry and stone carving) with them. Having mixed with aboriginal
Kushites (Tigre and Amhara), they formed an Ancient Ethiopian ethnos or
so-called "Agazi people" (Ancient Greek used the name 'Ethiopians' for all
Black Africans). The capital city of Axum situated on a vast plateau was
connected with the port of Adulis (nowadays known as Zula).
Local totemic beliefs were replaced by
Sabean culture and worshipping to the Gods of the Moon (Almakah) and the
Sun (Dzat Badan). Ethiopians hallowed temples and altars to these Gods.
One of these ancient temples ruins have been preserved in Yeha.
It was a simple rectangle building of 15.02
x 18.66 m that was a typical example of Sabean construction technique. The
dry masonry is made of stone blocks, and the slabs of 22-28 cm high and up
to 3.1 m long are laid on the outside and the inside of the building. In
some places they are connected with header stones. When talking about
Sabean constructions, one can say that if you fill them with water no drop
will spill as the hewn block are fitted very close together. The roof
rests upon four square in profile stone posts. The marianna parts
fragments found, such as: a frieze with ribbed carving, a top wall slab
with a tringle and a dowel, an incense altar. Round the temple, there are
several smooth stone steles with rounded top, connected with the
horizontal square slab where a sacrifice place was marked with a circular
ridge. As well as in South Arabia, architectural details (such as friezes
and altars) included a small figure or a head of a wild goat personifying
the God Almakah.
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Friezes |
Sabean
Temple |
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In the course of time, Sabean lands in Africa separated from the
metropolis. An independent state of Axum dominated over the Red Sea area
since the I-II'nd century AD and got control over Nubia and Arabia; their
rulers got the title of the kings of Axum, Sab, Himyar and others, minted
their own coins and carried on sea trade with faraway countries (Iran,
India). The political power of Axum reached the peak in the IV'th century. A
very unique independent culture has formed in the country by that time. A
local Geze language and literature have developed.
In the building
art Axumites left their Sabean teachers far behind. They erected palaces
and temples, built dams and water reservoirs, constructed solid memorial
steles and votive thrones of ashlar. And the steles with relief
that copied a peculiar wall masonry technique a kind of rostwerk where the
stone rows are pierced with wooden ties through the length and breadth.
The transversal ties rounded ends come out of the rough faηade surface as
huge nail heads. The building basements, supporting walls and water basin
covering were made of ashlar in regular dry masonry.
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Rostwerk technique |
Reinforcive wall in Kohaito |
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The ancient capital city of Axum is nowadays a small town full of the past
reminiscences. The ancient Axum borders have not been established yet. All
the magnificent buildings have been destroyed and massive stone slabs, the
stairs remains, column bases come out from underground here and there
among modern constructions.
The foundations of five palaces with symmetrical plan have preserved in
the South-Western part of the town. Spoken tradition can name three of
them. The biggest palace was Takha Mariam with the area of 85 x 120 m that
had inside yards and hundreds of halls. A huge stone statue was standing
at the entrance. It was three times as big as a natural figure (a pedestal has
preserved with the footprints). Two other palaces Enda-Semon and Enda-Michael
having the square plan didn't have the yard and were much smaller than the
first one (Enda-Michael was about 30 x 30 m). The step wall profile
sectioned with perches and pilaster-strips, tower-like pilaster sides,
square of profiled columns outline are characteristic of Axum
constructions. Multi-storied palaces were hardly inferior to Arabian
Gudman as to its decorations luxury.
1) Takha Mariam Palace 2) Cross-Section of
the Axumite Columns 3) Votive Thrones (a, b - in Axum, c - in Adulis)
The most wonderful things in Axum are one-piece stone steles spread over
ancient necropolises of the city and its outskirts. Only some of them have
preserved but not the highest ones. But even they strike our imagination.
Steles group in three districts of the town. The most significant
necropolis starts North from the sacred quarter of Dabtara and stretches
chain-like to the North-East; another group, that is of less significance,
is South-West from the town; the steles of the third small group are
concentrated at the entrance leading to Adua. Ancient Egyptian obelisks
are no match to the Axum steles.
Smooth ornamented steles were of a great height. One type of steles
attract our attention as they imitate a multi-storied tower: a door
is placed deep at the foot of the construction, and the stories of windows
framed with wooden bracings and layers of circles reproducing the traits
of characteristic rostwerk masonry interchange above. A half-round final
is marked with the emblem of the Moon; bronze symbolic ornaments were once
placed here. There are about seven steles of this kind (all of them are in
the first necropolis). But only one of them rises undamaged to its
23-meter height. Another one was taken to Rome and placed in front of
Constantine Arch. The third one that is 12-storied and 37 meters high now
lies here broken to pieces. Three more steles are in the same condition.
And only two fragments have left from the seventh one. These monuments
have rectangle profile (the basis of this giant stele is 2.35 x 3.84 m).
There were erected on a stone pedestal with stairs and a sacrifice altar
was placed at their foot. The main steles lift their head on broad
terraces with their edge enforced with hewn limestone masonry.
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Axum
↑ ← the Giant Stele |
A pagan temple was once situated in the middle of the sacred ring that is
now encircled by a fence at the foot of Biet Giorgis hill at the Eastern
side of the town. The judges' thrones are standing in strict line inside
the fence at the entrance and there are the king's and the bishop's
thrones a little bit further. There are 15 thrones altogether. Made of
limestone slabs, they are put on the pedestals with the stairs. Each of
these monuments contained a list of this or that king's victories marked
by the inscriptions carved in the stone. After the most important
victories the kings dedicated a throne to the God. Some of them were
covered testers on stone pillars. And the remains of dozens of other
thrones can be found along Adua road to the South-East of the town.
In the 340s, long before Imperial Rome, Axum
adopted Christianity for its official religion. Pagan temples were
destroyed and churches were erected over them. Thus, the Church of Maria
of Zion appeared inside Axum sacred fence. Nowadays it is a three-nave
Basilica of the XVII'th century but originally it seemed to be five-nave. The
cathedral rises up on an ancient platform; only the remains of flower
pattern design carved in stone and zoomorphic water-tables were the only
remains of the old building found. Stone lattices were set in the church
windows (the remains of such lattice with the cross pattern has been
preserved in the window of the Church of Abba Pantaleon near Axum):
A water tank is cut in the cliff at the North side of the town and the
rainwater coming from the slopes got and stored there. This tank provided
water for the town.
Monasteries appeared in hard-to-get places on the islands of Lake Tan
and on the sliffs.
The Monastery of Debre Damo is placed on a remote steep plateau where you
can get only by a rope. It is due to that fact that this very interesting
monument of Early Mediaeval times the monastery church has survived. The
construction is in the western part of the plateau with the monks' cells,
Father Superior's dwelling, school and water tank cut in the cliff
scattered all over it.
The church constructions make Debre Damo architecture akin to the ancient
architecture of Axum. The walls with irregular masonry of hand-placed clay
stone are reinforced every 50-60 cm from inside and outside with the
longitudinal wooden baulks making a rotswerk masonry together with
transverse bracing. The rounded bracing ends come out every half a meter.
This detail got its literary name of "monkey's heads". The door and window
frames also make a cage with the bracings completed with a narrower frame
along the wall axis. The doors can turn round due to special mortice and
tenon joints in the porch or a special beam behind the porch. A part of
this simple construction the rail with a very simple pattern (a scratch
and a roller), canopies with dowels imitations, prominent bracing heads
reminding enormous nails heads they all make architecture plastic and
expressive. The building corners are made of hewn slabs and the base made
of natural stone is about 1.5 m deep and reaches the rock foundation.
Debre Damo, Monastery Church
If we mentally remove the later parts built at the East and North of the
building we can get a strictly planned building where you can clearly see
a narthex, a three-nave hall with two rows of square-profile pillars and a
rectangle altar room with two chapels on both sides is in the East. Such
principle of dividing the altar room into three rectangle chambers is the
same as in Christian churches of Sassanid Iran. A separate staircase in
the western part led to the choir loft connected with the 2nd-floor rooms
over the altar part. The twin front door is in line with the same middle
nave door. On both sides of the entrance door there were the windows with
small cut wooden twin arches separated by imposts. The altar room opens
into the hall through a wooden horseshoe arch. The wooden hall pillars
support the wooden architraves and a frieze separated into square
cassettes with simple ornament patterns by the posts and cross-beams. Axum
architecture didn't use any constructive arches or domes but they were
imitated of wood; the middle nave ceiling connected with the wooden posts
rests on the wooden arches. The ground roofing is inclined on two slopes.
The building design is quite simple and clear, all the details are
efficient and architecture on the whole is rather original. The most
interesting thing in the church is its narthex wooden ceiling separated
into carved cassettes with geometrical flower patterns, animal and bird
images bearing heraldic characteristic features. In the carving images and
themes, you can see the Coptic influence and ideas from ancient and old
Eastern (especially Sassanid) cultures.
In spite of the later accomplishments and destruction of the altar part, a
moldering church in Asmar reminds the Church of Debre Damo in its
planning, size and design. But the hall pillars have circular profile (it
is the only sample known in Axum architecture) and are situated in two
rows of six so close to each other that the intercolumnation is only 1.5
diameter and the wooden drums stand for the capitals. The stucco upper
part of the walls over the windows was painted with iconographic scenes
and you can see the arch over the entrance hall with the remains of
red-yellow painting of encircled animal figures. The wooden capitals of
pilasters supporting the arch look like wide console tables with flower
pattern carving that is close to some frieze panels of Debre Damo ceiling
in its style.
These two architectural monuments can be referred to the
VI-VII'th century style. A spoken story connects the Church of Debre Damo with the name of
one of the last kings of Axum Kaleba. The rocky churches appeared in
late Axum that later on became famous of Lalibela. Two churches in Bilbala
area are ascribed to the same Kaleba. Two more yekka Michael and Adad
Mariam are to the South of Addis-Ababa.
The name of Kaleba is also mentioned when speaking about one of Axum
ruins. In the western town outskirt you can see the remains of two
Basilica temples standing on the platform with crypts and tomb-chests
hidden under them. A symmetric and grand ensemble once was only the
entrance part or a propylaeum of some enormous complex. These ruins are
known by the name of Kaleba Tomb and Gabra Maskal among people.
After Kaleba died the decline of Axum started. Sassanid Khorsau gave a
first shake reaving South Arabia. The planting of Islam, Arabic occupation
of Egypt and Sudan were disastrous and brought about the internal decay of
Axum. All the ways to India were blocked. Political and economic weakness
of the state brought about its internal decay. The circumstances of
destroying Axum palaces and temples that seemed to be built for ages are
not clear yet. But even the remains of these constructions that once were
so powerful and unique make us admire and bow to the original thinking and
mastership of African architects.
by Veronika Leonidovna
Voronina
ВСЕОБЩАЯ ИСТОРИЯ АРХИТЕКТУРЫ - ТОМ 1 - АРХИТЕКТУРА ДРЕВНЕГО МИРА
ООО Издательство «Архитектура-С»,
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