Obelisks of Aksum: The Giant Stelae of Ancient Ethiopia

The obelisks of Aksum are giant granite stelae raised over royal tombs in the city of Aksum, capital of an ancient kingdom in what is now northern Ethiopia. The largest, carved to look like tall multi-storey towers, date to around the 3rd and 4th centuries AD and include the biggest single stones that any ancient people tried to stand upright. One of them, taken to Rome in 1937, became a symbol of national pride and was returned to Ethiopia in 2005.

The Kingdom of Aksum

The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the great powers of late antiquity. From its highland capital, it controlled trade between the Roman world, Arabia and India through the Red Sea port of Adulis, exporting ivory, gold and other goods. Its kings minted their own coins in gold, silver and bronze, among the first African states to do so.

Aksumite rulers expressed their power through monumental architecture. The stelae fields of Aksum, where the elite were buried beneath and around tall stone markers, are the most striking result.

Stelae, not obelisks

Although they are usually called obelisks, archaeologists prefer the term stelae. An Egyptian obelisk is square in section and ends in a small pyramid, while the Aksum monuments are flat-sided slabs with a rounded or curved top.

The tradition began with rough, undecorated standing stones, some of them older than the kingdom itself. Over time the stelae grew taller and more elaborate. In the main stelae field there are well over a hundred stelae of different sizes, most of them plain.

The carved giants

Six of the stelae are carved with remarkable architectural detail. Their faces imitate the walls of Aksumite palaces, with horizontal bands representing timber beams, rows of square projections often nicknamed “monkey heads” representing the ends of cross-beams, and false windows. A carved false door sits at the base. Each stela thus depicts a building of many storeys, perhaps symbolising a home for the dead ruler.

The three largest are numbered by archaeologists:

• Stela 1, the Great Stele, about 33 metres long and estimated at around 500 tonnes, carved to show 13 storeys. It now lies broken on the ground.
• Stela 2, the Rome Stela, about 24 metres high and weighing around 150–170 tonnes, carved with multiple storeys.
• Stela 3, about 21 metres high and around 160 tonnes, still standing and often called King Ezana’s Stela in local tradition.

These stelae were cut from a single block of granite-like stone (nepheline syenite) quarried at Gobedra, a hill a few kilometres west of the city, and dragged to the site. How the Aksumites moved and raised them is still debated, but the work required great organisation and labour.

Tombs beneath the stelae

The stelae were grave markers. Excavations by British and Ethiopian teams, notably those led by Neville Chittick in the 1970s and by David Phillipson in the 1990s, uncovered elaborate underground tombs beneath and beside them. Some were cut into the rock and lined with finely dressed stone blocks.

Near the Great Stele lie the Mausoleum, a large tomb with a long central passage and side chambers, and the Tomb of the False Door, whose entrance is carved to resemble the false doors on the stelae. Another, the Tomb of the Brick Arches, contained grave goods that had survived ancient looting, including glass, ivory and metal objects that show Aksum’s wide trading links.

Most of the tombs had been robbed long ago, so the identities of the rulers buried there are unknown. The traditional names attached to them, such as King Ezana’s Stela or the tombs of particular kings, come from later Ethiopian tradition rather than from inscriptions on the monuments themselves.

Raising the giants

No written account explains how the stelae were raised. Archaeologists think the stones were roughly shaped at the quarry, dragged on rollers or sledges by large teams of workers, and finished on site. The stelae were then probably levered upright using earth ramps and wooden supports, with their bases set into pits and held in place by heavy stone plates.

The Great Stele had no proper base to sink into the ground, which may be one reason it toppled. The weight and length of the largest stones pushed the technique to its limits.

The fall of the Great Stele

The Great Stele is the largest single stone known to have been set up, or attempted, anywhere in the ancient world. It lies in several pieces across the ground. Many scholars, including David Phillipson, who excavated at Aksum, think it fell during or soon after the attempt to raise it, perhaps because its foundations were inadequate.

As it fell, it seems to have smashed the huge roof slab of a nearby megalithic tomb known as Nefas Mawcha. Some researchers suggest that the failure may have discouraged further giant stelae, and the end of the tradition roughly coincides with the kingdom’s conversion to Christianity in the 4th century AD under King Ezana, described in Ezana’s conversion.

The stela taken to Rome

By the 20th century Stela 2 had also fallen and broken into pieces. In 1937, after Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, Italian forces cut it into sections and shipped it to Rome on the orders of Benito Mussolini. It was re-erected in October 1937 at the Piazza di Porta Capena, near the Circus Maximus, in front of the building of the Ministry of Italian Africa, which later housed the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Under the 1947 peace treaty, Italy agreed to return objects taken from Ethiopia, but the stela remained in Rome for decades amid disputes over cost and logistics. In 2002 it was struck by lightning, and in 2003–2004 it was dismantled into three pieces.

In April 2005 the pieces were flown back to Aksum in one of the world’s largest cargo aircraft, an Antonov An-124, after the town’s airport runway had been improved. With UNESCO’s help, the stela was re-erected in its original place, and the work was completed in 2008. Its return was celebrated across Ethiopia.

Timeline

• c. 1st–3rd centuries AD: Aksum rises as a trading power; earlier, simpler stelae are erected.
• c. 3rd–4th centuries AD: The great carved stelae, including Stelae 1, 2 and 3, are raised.
• c. AD 330s: King Ezana adopts Christianity; giant stelae are no longer built.
• 1937: Italian forces take Stela 2 to Rome and erect it at Porta Capena.
• 1947: Italy agrees in its peace treaty to return looted Ethiopian property.
• 1980: Aksum is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
• 2005, April: Stela 2 is flown back to Aksum in three pieces.
• 2008: Stela 2 is re-erected in the Main Stelae Field.

Legacy

The stelae appear on Ethiopian banknotes and in national imagery, and they are among the country’s best known historical sites. With later monuments such as the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, they show the depth of Ethiopia’s architectural traditions. They also stand as evidence of an advanced African state that traded on equal terms with Rome, Persia and India.

The long campaign for the Rome stela’s return became an important case in debates over the restitution of cultural property taken during colonial wars.

Why it matters

The obelisks of Aksum are among the most ambitious engineering projects of the ancient world and a defining symbol of Ethiopian identity. Their story, from their raising and collapse to their removal and return, links ancient African kingship with modern questions of history and heritage.