2752 x 4479 px | 23,3 x 37,9 cm | 9,2 x 14,9 inches | 300dpi
Aufnahmedatum:
2011
Weitere Informationen:
The Obelisk of Axum (today, especially in Axum, also called the Rome Stele) is a 1, 700-year-old, 24-metres (78-foot) 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. The "obelisk" ends in a semicircular top part, which used to be enclosed by metal frames. The obelisk, properly termed "stele" or the native "hawilt/hawilti" (as they do not end in a pyramid), was carved and erected (with many other stelae) in the city of Axum (in modern-day Ethiopia), probably during the 4th century A.D. by subjects of the Kingdom of Aksum, an ancient Ethiopian civilization. Erection of stelae in Axum was a very old practice (today it is still possible to see primitive roughly carved stelae near more elaborated "obelisks"), probably borrowed from the kushitic kingdom of Meroe. Their function 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. While there are only a few large ones standing, there are hundreds of smaller ones in various "stelae fields". The last stele erected in Axum was, likely, the so-called King Ezana's Stele, in the 4th century A.D. King Ezana (c.321 – c. 360), indeed, helping the work of his childhood tutor Frumentius, introduced Christianity in Axum, precluding the pagan practice of erecting burial stelae (it seems that at the feet of each obelisk, together with the grave, there was present a sacrificial altar).
