Archaeology of ancient Ethiopia: the Aksumite culture and civilization

general courses

UPON ENTRY: the course in 'Archaeology of ancient Ethiopia: Aksumite civilization and culture' is aimed at students of the Faculty of Archaeology and of the Department of African Language and Culture of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, of which different skills and abilities acquired by the student are required "upon entry".

1- Faculty of Archaeology: The student should possess knowledge and competences of archaeology, in order to understand the topic of the whole course. It is therefore requested to have taken lectures in ‘Introduction to archaeology’ and ‘Archaeological excavation methods and surveying’ provided by the Faculty of Archaeology. Very much appreciated, but not mandatory, will be the knowledge of history and archaeology of the area closest to Ethiopia: ‘Archaeology of Egypt and Nubia’ and ‘Archaeology of the Ancient Near East’ in order to be able to contextualise archaeologically the northern Ethiopia in a much broader scenery, mainly because of the long-term contacts between the Aksumites, the South Arabian and the Nile Valley kingdoms. These courses are provided at the Faculty of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.

The student is required to have obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Archaeology or equivalent, or to have completed the 3rd year of a unified Master's studies.

2- Faculty of Oriental studies: For the students of the Department of African Language and Culture of the University of Warsaw, who do not have an archaeological background it is requested to have proved knowledge of the Ethiopian history and culture, on the basis of lectures and workshops that are organized yearly by the lecturers of the Department of African Language and Culture.

The student is required to have taken at least one course in Ethiopian History or equivalent.

OUTCOMES: The course is very intense in terms of topics treated and it aims to provide the students with a first knowledge of the archaeology of Ethiopia starting with the comprehension of the development of the history and culture of the Aksumite polity from the 1st millennium BC till the 1st millennium AD.

Furthermore, the course is a means of understanding if and which students are interested in Ethiopian archaeology, in order to select them and include them in future excavation and field research work in Ethiopia.

Blended learning

The course aims to describe the evolution of the Ethiopian studies and archaeology, mainly focusing on Ethiopia's northernmost region (Tigray), where the powerful kingdom of Aksum rose and developed. An introduction will briefly explain the Greek-Roman accounts on the ancient Ethiopia, the arrival of the first European travellers, and also the scholarly explanations of the first connections between the ancient Aksumite and South Arabian kingdoms. Core of the course is the development of Aksumite polity (c. 400 BC-AD 850), starting with its predecessors till its collapse and the advent of the ‘Solomonic dynasty’ in 1270 AD.

By studying all of the previous archaeological projects and the current ones, we will analyse the Aksumite material cultures, architecture, exchange and trade link, interinfluences with coeval powers and we will also try and shed some light on the cultural connections between the Aksumites, the South Arabians and the Kushites in the Middle Nile Valley.

The teaching in ‘Archaeology of ancient Ethiopia: the Aksumite culture and civilization’ is conceived in 30 hours in total. Classes will be held for 24 hours in order to introduce new students to ancient Ethiopian archaeology. The course (LECTURES) is structured in three main parts:

1) PART A: geo-historical introduction. The current geographical and administrative subdivision of Ethiopia will be briefly described; and the first Greek-Latin accounts concerning geography and population distribution (eg Ptolemy III Euergetes, the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", Strabo). At the same time the books and descriptions of the first European travellers will be listed and partially analysed up to the first great archaeological expedition lead by Enno Littmann in 1906.

2) PART B: historical development. Starting from the academic debate on the type of contacts between the Ethio-Eritrean Highlands and the kingdoms of southern Arabia, the development of the first society during the "Ethio-Sabaean" or "Pre-Aksumite" period in the 1st millennium BC. The most important South Arabian inscriptions found in Ethiopia will be briefly analysed to shed light on the early Tigrayan kingdom of ‘Daamat’, as well as the temples and cultural expressions which belonged to the elite group that shows affinities with South Arabian kingdoms.

Later on, the proper settling and development of Aksumite civilization will be analysed, moving from the hill of Bieta Giyorgis to the core of the town: the course will describe the different kings in relation with their typical architectural expressions, the political and economic expansion, the conversion to Christianity, the political Aksumite propaganda by citing the most important inscriptions of kings Ezana (4th century AD) and Kaleb (6th century AD). Then, the course will complete the historical excursus of the Aksumite polity, discussing about the collapse of the kingdom and what happened immediately after it.

3) PART C: Aksumite archaeology. A milestone for the course is the examination of all the archaeological projects that have been and still are present in Tigray, with particular attention to their results and analyses of the material cultures, the objects and the building structures. A part will be described the excavation conducted in Mifsas Bahri (Gaudiello & Yule 2017) and the first Polish archaeological excavation in Debre Gergis.

SEMINARS: 4 hours will be devoted to seminars, and they will focus more specifically on the material cultures and the analytic description of selected archaeological sites. If possible, some directors of the archaeological projects in Tigray or their deputies will be invited to showcase their own projects.

EXERCISE: For the remaining 2 hours, it will be requested to the student to choose a theme and to prepare a short presentation (c. 15 minutes each) of their individual studies to their classmates.

In order to achieve the learning outcomes, it is mandatory show to the class the final presentation of each individual work and to attend to all the seminars. While the participation to the lecture time has to amount at least 50 %.

Literature required for the final examination:

1- Fattovich, R. (2019). From Community to State: The Development of the Aksumite Polity (Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea) c. 400 BC-AD 800. Journal of Archaeological Research 27:249-285

2- Finneran, N. (2007). The Archaeology of Ethiopia. Routledge: London and New York (selected chapters)

3-Phillipson, D.W. (2014). Foundations of an African Civilisation. Aksum & the northern Horn 1000 BC – AD 1300. Addis Ababa University Press: Addis Ababa (selected chapters)

For the individual work of each student, the literature will be decided according to the topic of the student’s research and final PowerPoint presentation.

The credit of the course will be conferred at the end of the individual work and after the final oral exam.

Upon completion of the course (lectures and seminars) the student will know, broadly speaking, the history of the Aksumite civilisation. The student will also be able to recognize the different kind of buildings and material culture (mainly pottery) based on the different time of production in the Aksumite history span. The course will provide the general guidelines that will allow the students to analyse the pottery and immediately attribute it to three main eras of Aksumite history. Moreover, the student will be able to recognize the ‘import’ or ‘external influences’ and will be able to tell their provenance.

The individual work requested will verify the capacity of the student to do research in a discipline that is completely new to the University of Warsaw academic proposal. It is a means of preparing the student to organize research, to select scientific articles regarding the chosen topics, to recognize and analyse Aksumite cultural characteristics, and finally to explain the objectives in a short PowerPoint presentation for classmates.

The student’s learning outcomes will be verified by means of the evaluation of the individual work on a specific theme chosen by the student and after a brief examination at the end of the course on the general topics explained during the lectures.

The course in ‘Archaeology of ancient Ethiopia: the Aksumite culture and civilization’ was part of the General university course and it will be delivered in 30 hours. The subject is basic and optional, but based on the Faculties of the University of Warsaw and the students' initial knowledge and skills required (upon entry), the course is aimed at:

1- the student of any year of a master's degree course at the Faculty of Archaeology;

2- the student of the second year of a three-year degree course or any year of a master's degree course at the Faculty of Oriental Studies.

The course is designed to be taught in the classroom.

The course will be delivered for 24 hours by the main lecturer, for 4 hours of online seminars by the invited colleagues of the main lecturer.

Online remote lectures or recorded presentations will be used if the current pandemic situation does not improve or if the teacher has fieldwork commitments.