AIA Fieldwork Photo Contest 2020

Entry 10523

Submitted by Dil Singh Basanti

Axum

Axum, Tigrai, Ethiopia

Category: Archaeological Landscapes

The 6th Century AD monastery of Abba Pantaleon sits perched above Axum. Spires and flat-topped mountains are found throughout the red landscape of Tigrai as places of power, often hiding a monastery or two. Many times these monasteries became local museums where people would store their important heritage and the curious artifacts they found while plowing the fields. In the back stands the fearsome Daamo Galila. People remember it now for the old totalitarian Derg camp once located there, and from how the regime previously set out to erase such material histories from the Ethiopian landscape.

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