Aksum, Tigray, EthiopiaInternet at
hotel not working so could not post blog until today.
A flight further
north takes us to the oldest city in Ethiopia, Axum. We fly 23 mins to Lalibela
pick up more passengers and then to 28 mins to Axum. We need to come back to Lalibela as this is
the only place which has a flight to Addis Ababa for us to connect to Tel Aviv
at the end of this tour in a couple of days.
This city is not
as advanced as the other couple we have visited as here is still a major amount
of buildings under construction. The
streets are empty and the shops closed after yesterday’s mayhem to shop for
Easter Sunday. We check in and are off
again after 10 minutes as we have a jam packed day full of sight-seeing.
This afternoon we
explore the city. This city is more for ruins.
The archaeological museum in stelae field, the impressive Stelae Fields. There are 3 obelisks (they are the ones in
the photos which have room for a picture at the top), one on them has fallen
over which they believe that the base was not large enough to hold the
weight. The other stelae (tablets) are
to mark VIP tombs.
Next is the Tomb
of Kaleb and Gebre Meskel which are underground and have crypts to store
swords, shields and coin and the other one still has the crypt owner entombed and
sealed in granite.
Onto visit the 16th-century
Cathedral of St. Mary of Zion, home of the original Ark of the Covenant. Unfortunately no one gets to see the Ark of
the Covenant as it is holy of holy but the caretaker who is a hermit and only
allowed out for meals and comfort stops.
The building which it is currently stored has a crack so they have
constructed another sacred place next to this place which is almost finished. It is also important to let you know that all
of the churches have a replica of the Ark of the Covenant because it is not
considered a church unless the inner realm has and Ark of the Covenant. Every church as three sections. The outer section is for chanting /singing
and middle part is for mass and praying and the inner realm is only for Priests
and Deacons. Even the locals are not
allowed to see the Ark of the Covenant.
I have put up a photo of a picture of a
replica of the Ark of the Covenant which was in a magazine to give you (and me)
and idea of what it would be like. The
picture is one of the churches we saw in Bahir Dar but none of the churches
have the Ark of the Covenant on display.
Inside Mary of Zion church is beautiful and decorated with frescos. We see a 500 year bible which is made of
parchment. I stay longer inside the
church as Geoff is escorted to the monastery (no women allowed). A visit to the St Mary Museum is next (no
photos allowed). This is the richest
museum in Ethiopia as there are gold crowns, chalices, procession crosses,
communion plates, pendants as well as some of the royalty special occasion clothes.
There is only 10% of church owned items on display. Construction is also being completed for a
new museum to house these treasures and put more on display. The old building does not seem secure enough for
all of these priceless treasures.
After lunch we
visit the Queen of Sheba ruin palace. These
ruins are 3000 years old and there is only the bottom half of the palace
remaining. There were 32 servants and
royalty who lived here 1000 BC. Across
the road is the cemetery for VIP and they have large head stones some of which
have fallen over but they are still buried here. We also saw Queen of Sheba’s Bath where she
used to ride 3km from the palace to the pool.
We are back at
the hotel at 6pm.
2025-05-22