ABSTRACT
Arguably the city of Aksum has been the focus of more archaeological investigation then any other urban site within eastern Africa and the Horn. It was the capital of one of Africa’s most fascinating manifestations of a complex society – intercontinental empire might even be a suitable term. Aksum was an international phenomenon, enjoying contacts with the eastern Mediterranean world, the Nile Valley, Arabia and even further across the Indian Ocean to India and China. Aksum also forged – at a comparatively early date – its own distinctive Christian identity. These traits have made the study of the Aksumite period one of the most attractive (in terms of research focus) within the broader sweep of the Ethiopian culture history metanarrative, but paradoxically there is also a large gap. The Aksumite Empire is not Aksum alone, there are many more parts to the sum of the whole, other sites and regions which have received comparatively little attention, and as such the balance of this chapter attempts to move away from the Aksumspecific, site-centric perspective towards a more holistic consideration of the wider system (although this obviously has limitations in the light of available archaeological evidence). The overall bias in research focus does not just exist on a regional level;
archaeological research in the town itself has not (with few exceptions) evolved from monumental-focused work. These monuments are, for the most part, major funerary and presumed elite structures. Their investigation – whilst yielding useful information enabling us to reconstruct extraregional trade networks, elite-level economies and to some extent the nature of Aksumite pre-Christian cosmology – does not furnish a wider perspective. This should not be taken as a criticism. The work of the Deutsche Aksum Expedition of 1906 remains an important foundation for all subsequent work on the city and many of its neighbouring sites, yet it is a very
traditional, descriptive work of its time. Subsequent archaeological research focused primarily upon elite structures, and many of the reports of these excavations have yet to be published in adequate form. The first BIEA expedition to Aksum (1972-1974) was curtailed by political circumstances, and as such it never fully realised its goals, although an admittedly interim, although exceptionally useful report was finally produced (Munro-Hay 1989a). A single unpublished instance of rescue excavation – on shaft tombs where the present Yeha Hotel stands – and Joseph Michels’ extensive regional survey provided the coda to archaeological work here until the early 1990s. With the amelioration of the political climate at this time, work here
began afresh, with a BIEA expedition under the direction of David Phillipson (1993-1997) and a joint Italian-US project (1993-) under the direction of Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard. The former project investigated 14 sites ranging from large-scale open-area settlement excavation to funerary contexts and rescue excavations (Phillipson 2000: 12); the latter project focused upon funerary and elite residential sites on the summit of Beta Giyorgis hill, overlooking Aksum. In recent years German archaeologists have focused their attentions on the Berit Awde plain to the north of the town. Methodologically and indeed theoretically
African archaeology had matured greatly in these intervening years; the focus for the recent projects moved towards greater utilisation of scientific techniques, and changing philosophies especially in the fields of palaeoenvironmental work, object conservation and community archaeology, concomitant with a shift from the pre-occupation upon the site towards the wider landscape context, led to a new approach to the city. A biography of archaeological research at Aksum over the last 100 years encapsulates the wider debates and paradigm changes within African archaeology as a whole.
