King Ezana's Stele
Encyclopedia
King Ezana's Stele is the central obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

 still standing in the Northern Stelae Park (containing hundreds of smaller and less decorated stelae) in the ancient city of Axum
Axum
Axum or Aksum is a city in northern Ethiopia which was the original capital of the eponymous kingdom of Axum. Population 56,500 . Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from ca. 400 BC into the 10th century...

, in modern-day Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. This stele
Stele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...

 is probably the last erected one and the biggest of those remained unbroken. King Ezana's Stele stands 70 feet (21 m) tall, smaller than the fallen 108-foot (33 m) Great Stele and the better-known 79-foot (24 m), so-called, Obelisk of Axum
Obelisk of Axum
The Obelisk of Axum is a 1,700-year-old, 24-metres tall granite stele/obelisk, weighing 160 tonnes, in the city of Axum in Ethiopia. It is decorated with two false doors at the base, and decorations resembling windows on all sides...

 (reassembled and unveiled on September 4, 2008). At its base, it is decorated with a false door, and apertures resembling windows on all sides.

History

This obelisk, properly termed "stele" or the native "hawilt/hawilti" (as they do not end in a pyramid), was carved and erected in the 4th century A.D. by subjects of the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient Ethiopian civilization. The function of these stelae is supposed to be that of "markers" for underground burial chambers. The largest of the grave markers were for royal burial chambers and were decorated with multi-story false windows and false doors, while nobility would have smaller, less decorated ones. King Ezana's Stele is, likely, the last example of this practice, outdated after the conversion of Axumites to Christianity. It is named after King Ezana
Ezana of Axum
Ezana of Axum , was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom located in present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, he himself employed the style "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan"...

, the first monarch of Axum to embrace Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, following the teachings and examples of his childhood tutor Frumentius. King Ezana's Stele is also the only one of the three major "royal" obelisks (the others being the Great Stele and the Obelisk of Axum) that never broke off. The Italians seriously damaged one of these, breaking the monument into three parts and shipping it away to Rome, in one of the most bizarre exploits of colonial plunder. King Ezana's Stele has been structurally consolidated in 2007/2008 by the team led by engineer Giorgio Croci, during the reassembling of the Obelisk of Axum.After decades of pleading for the return of their monument, the Ethiopians finally got back their national historic treasure.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK