Ethiopia Reprise: Tiya Stela Site

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Stardust

On March 1, we also drove down to Tiya to see the stelae there.

According to UNESCO: “Of the roughly 160 archaeological sites discovered so far in the Soddo region, south of Addis Ababa, Tiya is one of the most important. The site contains 36 monuments, including 32 carved stelae covered with symbols, for the most part difficult to decipher, which are the remains of an ancient Ethiopian culture, whose age has not yet been precisely determined.”

Recent excavations revealed that the stones mark mass graves of both males and females (displaying breasts) who died between the ages of 18 and 30 and were laid to rest in a foetal position. One symbol appears to indicate a sword, the number of swords perhaps representing the number of people killed by the person buried below. Another symbol looks like typical African neck pillows. The symbol that looks like a Greek epsilon has as yet no known meaning.

On the way back, we saw a beautiful mountain, slowed down in a typical small town, and got stopped by a herd of cows, a premonition of events to come.

Back in Addis, the driver helped me change dollars to birrs at the bank and purchase some kersone in preparation for my camping trip the following day March 2. I took pictures of a couple of mosques in Addis.

Ethiopia Reprise: Adadi Mariam Church

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Stardust

On March 1, on the way from Melka Kunture to the Adadi Mariam church, we came across some cows threshing teff under the urging of a farmer.

We also drove through a local marketplace.

After paying admission of around US$4, I got to check out the Adadi Mariam rock-hewn church, which is apparently similar to some of the churches at Lallibella which I didn’t have the opportunity to see.

Ethiopia Reprise: Melka Kunture

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Stardust

This is the map for the trip to Melka Kunture and surrounds.

March 1 was my big day for visiting the human origins discovery site at Melka Kunture, south of Addis Ababa. Village Ethiopia sold me a little tour that featured Melka Kunture along with a visit to the stelae at Tiya and to the Adadi Mariam church.

The 4WD vehicle driver picked me up at 8:00am and we set off on the trip. I was struck again by the Ethiopian construction crews’ use of wooden scaffolding even for very tall buildings. A herd of goats brought traffic to a halt. The countryside was beautiful.

In fact, all varieties of animals block the road, including these donkeys. I’d describe the terrain as semi-desert because the trees and plants still look green and obviously get some regular water, although in some places the terrain is quite dry.

Farmers living in the tukuls in the countryside tuck their teff mounds nearby. Teff is the staple grain of most of Ethiopia and they use it to make the tasty injeera bread consumed all over the country.

The Melka Kunture human discovery site had a fancy gate, and after checking our papers, the guard let us in. The exhibits at the site are in several tukuls. They describe all the well-known human discovery sites, but Herto is not highlighted, probably because Herto happened after the scientists had set up the Melka Kunture exhibits.

Because the Melka Kunture exhibits display replicas of fossil Homo sapiens skulls along with those of precursor and related species, the site provides an excellent illustration of the human evolutionary process. I focus mainly on the Homo sapiens remains in the photos I present here, including information on the Omo, Melka Kunture, and Herto discovery sites. The fossil skull replicas shown below are: Homo sapiens skull fragements, 300,000 – 200,000 years ago, from Garba III site at Melka Kunture, Ethiopia; Homo sapiens, 90,000 years ago, from Qafzeh, Israel; Homo neanderthalenthis, 45,000 years ago, from Amud, Israel; and Homo sapiens sapiens, 15,000 – 9,000 years ago, from Border Cave, South Africa.

The exhibits display the tools found with each evolutionary ancestor or relative and the presentations on tool-making are the best I have seen, especially as far as illustrating the steps of the Levallois method. Human use of the Levallois toolmaking method represents a major step forward in human thought by being able to conceive of how a tool should appear within the materials at hand, then constructing the tool to the mind’s notion of how it should appear. I present here also the full array of Garba III tools since they represent early Homo sapiens tools.

After finishing with the tukul exhibits, the staff bring the visitor out to view a couple of the actual excavation sites. Archaeologists are not currently excavating these sites, but may return next season for further investigations.

Ethiopia Reprise: Final Days in Addis Ababa

Posted on March 18, 2007 by Stardust

On February 27 and 28, I readied myself for departure from Addis. I made my final visit to the Internet cafe and the guy there who helped me out.

I took some pictures of the Finfine Hotel because it’s a beautiful place to stay, especially with the thermal waters available for bathing in the ample bathroom.

Public bulletin boards campaign against AIDS.

Schoolchildren walking home on the streets of Addis.

I visited the Ethiopian Ethnological Museum {?} on the University of Addis Ababa campus. They didn’t permit photography inside the museum, so these pictures are of the outside of the museum building and the university grounds, along with a couple of students from southern Ethiopia I met and with whom I chatted.

I called up Paulos from Piazza after visiting the university. I wanted to meet him once more before heading out of town. He invited me back to his place. His apartment is basically one room, an eight-foot cube packed into a little compound with other rooms of similar size where other people live. His friend Abdela Assiz was chewing chaat, a leafy stimulant common in Africa, at his place when we arrived.

Here is the spot where Paulos and I met. The locals call it Satan Bet, which means the devil’s house. When the theater first opened, some residents thought its music and theater productions would corrupt everyone. Now, everyone is used to it.

More National Museum in Addis Ababa

Posted on March 17, 2007 by Stardust

Continuing on from the previous blog entry, the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has some other impressive modern pieces, such as this statue called “Hair Style”, the painting “Genital Mutilation” by Abebe Zelelew (2003), and “Fetel” by Marta Mengistu (2004).

“Bedebo Fetel” is by an unknown artist.

On the ground floor of the museum is also a section on other historical periods of Ethiopia (and now Eritrea). Many items I am not able to identify because they were not labeled well, such as these pictures of Ethiopian tribal people.

Some are musical instruments like the secular krar and its liturgical counterpart.

How about an Ethiopian game?

I loved these brilliantly carved artifacts, the latter one being a limestone seat niche decorated with a relief of persons and an ibex from the 5th to 4th century BCE in Haoulti, Tigrai, Ethiopia.

Then, from the second half of the first millenium BCE in Hawlti, Tigrai, Ethiopia, we have two red earthenware female figurines and a group of buff earthenware human figurines.

From the second century BCE to the second century CE in Kuhi, Tigrai, comes a buff earthenware tripod pod with “human legs”.

From the fifth to fourth century BCE in Goboshela or Gobochela, Tigrai, comes a limestone and alabaster altar with an inscription in “South Arabic” about a family’s dedication to their god “for the protection of their life” and a stone incense burner from the sixth to fifth century BCE in the same region with the inscription “Ylbb the stone worker has dedicated to Almaqah”.

From the end of the first millenium BCE in Addi-Galamo, Tigrai, a small alabaster altar and, from the sixth to fifth century BCE in the same region, a limestone statue of a female with the inscription in “South Arabian” (looks like a different language to me) of “For god grants a child to Yamanat.”

Then, we see an bronze oil lamp depicting a dog hunting an ibex from before the first century BCE in Matara, now part of Eritrea.

The collection also holds some exquisite female figurines from Matara that look similar to the really ancient Anatolian mother goddess figures, two in terra cotta and one in white stone, date information unfortunately not listed.