Ruins🔺 Pyramid & tombAntiquity
Stelae of Aksum
The burial grounds attest to an influential African kingdom with international trade links across the Red Sea. The return of the removed stela has major significance in discussions of colonial looting and restitution.
Photo: Jim Williams · CC BY-SA 3.0 igo · Wikimedia Commons
Facts
- Place
- Aksum, Ethiopia
- Civilisation / patron
- Kingdom of Aksum
- Built
- c. 300 – 400
- Status
- Ruins
- UNESCO World Heritage since
- 1980
- UNESCO World Heritage
History
Tall granite stelae in Aksum marked the tombs of members of the royal elite. Carved false doors and storeys imitate monumental buildings and demonstrate the skill involved in working large stone blocks. The largest stela has fallen, while others still stand. A stela taken to Italy in 1937 was returned in 2005 and re-erected in 2008.
More from: Antiquity
- Great Pyramid of Giza
- Hanging Gardens of Babylon
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia
- Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Colossus of Rhodes
- Lighthouse of Alexandria
- Stonehenge
- Göbekli Tepe
- Parthenon
- Persepolis
- Terracotta Army
- Petra
- Colosseum
- Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
- Teotihuacan
- Abu Simbel Temples
- Great Wall of China
- Nazca Lines
- Sigiriya
Sources: Wikipedia — Stèles van Aksum