The ancient city of Aksum has been described as the historic centre of Ethiopian civilization. Queen of Sheba and her son Menelik the first once ruled here. The city, a center of immense archaeological interest, and charm, is also a place to which tourists, as well as scholars, can be expected to flock in ever increasing numbers in the years ahead. Of all the monuments of Aksum the most famous are the city’s stately obelisks, or stele.

The majority are thought to date from the period immediately prior to the country’s conversion to Christianity, in the early fourth century. These obelisks range from crude and simple stones, only a few meters high, to massive and remarkably well-sculptured, pillars. These great monolithic towers, “unquestionably mark the sites of the tombs of the Aksumite kings”.  As such they are of considerable archaeological importance, for the Aksumite realm during its hey-day was the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. Aksum was moreover a great commercial empire, trading with countries as afield as Arabia, Egypt, Persia, India, and Ceylon, and producing its own currency of gold, silver and bronze. The beautifully carved obelisks of Aksum, which were obviously produced by exceedingly skilled craftsmen, are decorated with elaborate doors and windows, as well as beam- ends (referred to by the scholars as “monkey-heads”) reminiscent of those in the stone and wooden buildings of ancient Aksumite palaces and other buildings.