ABSTRACT
In Ethiopia and Eritrea, deep-rooted histories and identities are worked out through the landscape. Daily references are made to ancient churches, miraculous deeds of holy men reported as if only yesterday’s news, natural landscape features are empowered and embodied. It is a finely woven tapestry replete with meanings, and one is aware through oral history research just how attuned even the most ordinary people are to the nuances of the past. The landscape thus embodies rhythmed, cyclic, rather than linear time (Schmidt 1996). The recreation and reinterpretation of the past by kings such as Zar’a Ya’qob and Menelik II (‘la politique des ruines’ in the words of Hirsch and Fauvelle-Aymar (2001)), as well as the farmer or artisan at Aksum is commonplace. This diverse heritage has seized the western academic imagination, with perhaps undue emphasis upon certain chronological periods and certain geographical zones (this should be apparent from the structure of this book). Many archaeological narratives lie dormant, others ignored. This past has more than a symbolic meaning; it has a very practical role in the present too.
