E.

Littmann in Axum 1906: A Focal Point and Start for the Archaeological-Historical Research on an Ancient Capital
Helmut Ziegert 2008

This article was pre-released online in 2008 and was supposed to be published in: Steen Wenig and Wolbert Smidt (ed.): In kaiserlichem Auftrag: Die Deutsche Aksum-Expedition 1906 unter Enno Littmann. Band 2: Die wissenschaftlichen Unternehmungen der DAE in Aksum und Umgebung (Forschungen zur Archologie Auereuropischer Kulturen Band 3.2). Aichwald 2009 Since it was not included in that publication in the end (for the reasons see 7 Post scriptum, p. 11), it is now an individual online publication.
http: // www1. uni-hamburg. de/ helmut-ziegert/ Publications

Last modied: July 14th , 2009.

1 Preface
E. Littmanns mission to Axum 1906 was the rst survey-documentation of visible antiquities, as remains reecting the importance of this city in history 100 years later a conference remembering this occurrence was held in Mekele. For the main paper on the Littmann-mission R. Fattovich was invited by the organizer S. Uhlig; unfortunately he could not participate, and the colleague St. Wenig presented a

E. Littmann in Axum 1906

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shorter paper on this event. As the editor of the conference-papers St. Wenig asked the author to publish a paper on E. Littmann and the following; the author could not participate in the conference because of lectures in the Hamburg-University and activities for the eldwork in Axum, but the paper is presented here.

2 Introduction
Axum: a focus of research for political, social and religion history; of worldwide general and individual interests; of importance for general knowledge and a problem for dierent subjects.

2.1 The topics

The topics of this paper are to explain the background of the historical research in and about Axum for better understanding and to increase the interest; to explain the background of the dierent missions in orientation and methodology; to attract new missions for problemorientated archaeological-historical investigations in Axum.

2.2 The limits

The following paper shall present a general overview and description of the previous orientation and standard of research, not a presentation of results; the latter will be presented in a paper by M. Wendowski and H .Ziegert [http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/ helmut-ziegert, forthcoming].

2.3 The research history

The research history shall not be an isolated description but shall explain the development of the activities in investigations. In Axum we can identify three phases: 1. The E. Littmann-mission 1906, causing the international interest in Axum; 2. many missions of traditional archaeology with site-excavations, directed mainly by political interests of colonial states; 3. the problemorientated archaeological-historical investigations of the Hamburg Archaeological Mission to Axum (HAMA) 19992008, orientated by the historical interests in specic political and religious problems.

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2.4 The source material and its criticism

Sources of our knowledge are beside the own results the publications on the work of the foreign missions. These publications have a background inuenced by the political interests, the orientation of the missions, the methodological standard, and the accuracy of the work. We must know about these interests for a better understanding of the publications to check the real facts, and to know how we can use these mostly reduced results for historical reconstructions .

3 The German Aksum Expedition (DAE) 1906

To remember the German Aksum Expedition after 100 years there was held a conference in Mekele. During an ocial visit of Emperor Menelik II. in Berlin he asked Emperor Wilhelm II. to send an archaeological Mission to Aksum, according to the historical traditions the origin and base of the Ethiopian state. This fact is based on mentioning in the Bible and in detailed oral traditions documented in the Archive of the monks in Axum till today. The example for such a mission were the German archaeological missions and excavations in the Near East. The Aksum Mission was carried out from January 13 to April 6, 1906.

3.1 The members

The members of the German Mission were Enno Littman, linguist and as the Head; Daniel Krencker, the architect; Theodor von Lpke, architect and photographer; and Erich Kaschke as a medical doctor. As we know now no archaeologist was integrated in the team.

3.2 The inscriptions

According to the qualication of the team the documentation and translation of the inscriptions by E. Littmann was one of the main topics and results [published 1913] and a source for the history of Aksum till today.

3.3 Surveys and excavations

Before the German Mission 1906 there were only some photos from the Italian colonial era, no investigations with excavations. The German Mission brought rst informations along the route from Asmara to Aksum: Debaroa, Adi Ugri, Adi Quala, Mareb, Daro Tacle, Mai Camaul, Adua; and on the way back along the route from Aksum to Massaua:

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Adua, Jeha, Debra Damo, Senafe, Matara, Kaskase, Adi Caie, Tokonda, Cohaito, Asmara, (Massaua). The topics for Aksum were the description, mapping, drawings and photos of the visible historical monuments; and cleaning (not archaeological evcavations) of some building remains as e. g. the grave-monuments for the King Kaleb and his son Gebre Masqal on the hill Terer, without identifying the kings graves themselves.

3.4 The standard of research and results

The interests of the German mission to Axum focused on inscriptions and the visible objects, ruins or structures as churches, houses, palaces, tombs, columns and stele, the water basin the interests of a linguist and of architects. There was no regard to assemblages (associations, closed nds), known in their basic importance for archaeology since O. Montelius 1885 and 1903; the context of ndings was ignored which results in a loss of information and impossibility of reconstruction. Only the plans of buildings and ruins are of a good standard, but not sources for complex questions: even outstanding nds as a kings tomb without context are isolated; we can imagine by remembering the value of single nds after one year. The result of the Littman-mission to Axum can be summarized: A collection of inscriptions and their translations; a map of the surrounding of Axum; the city-plan with the Church-Center and some sites, including the rst Ezana three language stone, the stele-elds and six palace-ruins in the Old City, the upper parts visible on the slope deposits; and by the publication 1913: the start of an international interest and later scientic missions.

4 Archaeological investigations at Axum since 1906

Following the E. Littman-Mission (DAE 1906) many missions contributed archaeological excavations in Axum and published their documentations.

4.1 The missions (selection)

1. 1958 Henri de Contenson in the Axum Church-Center before the building of the Cathedral 2. 1972 Francis Anfray at Axum-Dungur 3. 197274 Neville Chittick [published by S. C. Munro-Hay 1989] at dierent sites 4. 1974, 199397 David Phillipson (BIEA) at dierent sites 5. 19932007 Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn A. Bard at the plateau of Beta Giyorgis

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4.2 The methodological background

According to the development of Archaeology to an object-orientated subject closely related to mediterranean History of Arts all missions to foreign countries in the Near East and the same to Axum concentrated on objects (cf. D. Krencker), listing structures from buildings and assemblages from tombs, chamber tombs and cemeteries, but ignoring the context. Even recent excavations show a concentration on sites and ruins.

4.3 The results

According to the methodological background the results and contribution to the history of Axum of the Foreign Archaeological Missions were limited to plans and descriptions of structures and object-collections. This gives light to the importance of Axum in the history, but no historical knowledge.

5 The Hamburg Archaeological Mission to Axum (HAMA) since 1999

The interest of the author in Ethiopian history started with lectures in thiopistik by E. Hammerschmidt, studied as a minor subject, and continued for information beside other research activities in North Africa. A start for archaeological eldwork in Ethiopia were two visits in Addis Ababa 1971 for the International Conference on African Archaeology with Excursions to OmoRiver and Awash-River, and in Addis Ababa 1994 in the University, a workshop on Ethio-German and Ethio-European Cultural and Scientic Contact and Cooperation: History and Perspectives, with a paper The Joint Ethio-German Aksum-Expedition of 1906, and with a visit in Axum as a rst survey .

5.1 The topics

The main interest, in Ethiopian history in Ethiopia and abroad concentrate on the beginning of the Ethiopian State and of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, both questions concentrated in Axum. Therefore we choose these questions as our main topics and the historic time of the 3rd and 4th century as the base for our archaeological-historical research in the Hamburg Archaeological Mission to Axum (HAMA) [Marlies Wendowski and Helmut Ziegert] from 1999 to 2008. Specic aims of HAMA-research are: Axum as a central place in its surrounding; man and environment;

E. Littmann in Axum 1906 chronological sequence BC and AD; beginning of the capital Axum in the 10th century BC; the Ark of the Covenant and the Jewish religion in Ethiopia; the coming of Christianity;

Helmut Ziegert

adaptation of belief and behaviour church and culture to previous belief; settlement continuity, cultural changes and immigration.

5.2 The methodological background of HAMA

Dierences in the methological background lead to misunderstandings: object-orientation versus problem-orientation; antiquities sampling and description in the traditional Archaeology versus problemorientated historical research, archaeology as a historical discipline. It starts with the dierences in the topics ancient objects and arts versus historical knowledge. In Axum especially we can see the dierence, cf. the dominance in previous missions using single nds as e. g. pottery and its seriation according to Fl. Petries sequence dates and periodization to Axumite IIV [R. Wilding, 1989] versus associations in the ndings, with related methods for dating. These dierences started in the kind of eldwork: Claim-limited cleaning so called excavation of ancient objects as building-remains, gravegoods, etc. versus topic-directed eldwork to solve open questions in the steps: general topic/classication for detailed questions/development of models of previous behaviour and events/selection of useful sources/ topic-directed excavations/possible enlargements/documentation with description (protocol), photo, drawing, sampling, analysis/ identication by actual comparison/check by experiments/historical conclusions/check of agreement with models and topics/if disagreement: start again. Unfortunately the object-orientated and claim-limited excavation destroys the ndings, and results in the reduction of information for later problemorientated investigation.

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The methodological development of archaeology during the last 50 years is characterized by the integration of methods of natural sciences, cf. microstratigraphy; 14 Cmeasurement and -dating (but for volcanic areas as Axum we must consider fossil 12 Ccontamination, the samples are measured 375585 years too old [H. Z., publicaton forthcoming]; and the integration of the term association (closed nd, Geschlossener Fund after Oscar Montelius, 1885 and 1903) for assemblages and the relative dating method of combination statistics instead of typology and seriation. Archaeology must be problem-orientated as every scientic discipline, not limited to object-collecting and typological descriptions. We can nd more artifacts, more tombs, a dozen of columns or one more building: but possibly without an increase of the historical knowledge. Archaeology as history: focusing on historical questions, archaeological eldwork as a tool to solve historical problems, for a better cooperation with historians and interdisciplinary with other subjects, in time-saving investigations: measured not by square meters of excavation but by the new knowledge on history.

5.3 The historical results

The contribution of HAMA to the knowledge of history of Axum can be summarized as follows: The development of methods and corrections, and reasons for a reliable chronology; contributions to the environmental history, especially the part of slope deposits for agriculture and conservation of cultural remains; the check and use of oral traditions for historical investigations; the identication of the palace of the Queen of Sheba and of her son Menelik at Dungur from the 10th century BC; the history of the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Axum; the settlement history of pre-Christian palaces outside the city with the kings graves the Stele Field in the centre; copper-ore mining and metal-production in connection with pre-Christian palaces; the palaces of king Ezana and his father, and the grave of the father at Berik Audi North of the Terer Hill, his move to the Church Centre, the baptism on his way in a baptisterium on Terer hill, the ritual burial of his former palace at Berik Audi;

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the palace of the rst Christian king Ezana in the Church Centre [acc. H. de Contenson, 1963], his building of the rst Christian Church on the place of the rst temple for the Ark of the Covenant, and the building of the second temple for the Ark, entrance from West, with a room from East for the Church Treasury; the explanation of the history of the Church Centre with a lake in the rainy season, the correct oral traditions, the crash of the dam of the water basin Mai Shum and the cover of the Church Centre with 4 m mud; new buildings in the Church Centre, and move of the third king after Ezana to his new palace high on the slope of Beta Giyorgis-hill in the Old City; sequence of 13 palaces of the Christian time in the Old City, in a line down to Taka Maryam; the last Christian palace in Dungur again 600 AD [F. Anfray, 2008] on the walls of the palace of king Menelik; orientation of all ritual buildings to the star Sirus: 10th century BC: E 18 S (altar for the Ark of the Covenant at Dungur and the palace of king Menelik around); c. 300 AD: E 16 S (rst church St. Maryam; 2nd temple for the Ark; baptisterium on Terer-hill; grave of Ezanas father at Berik Audi); the tradition of the Osiris-cult from ancient Egypt beside the Jewish religion, in Axum till c. 640 AD in Christian time: Ritual killing of calf and cow with pottery in Dungur; the sign of the Plejades on the grave-pit of Ezanas father at Berik Audi and on both sides of the top of the grave-stela no. 3 in the kings-cemetery Stele-Field.

6 Perspectives of future archaeological-historical investigations at Axum

For the future priority could be given for higher information on specic questions, but not as destruction of the ndings by cleaning in traditional excavations but only as problemorientated archaeological-historical investigations: we only can nd what we are asking for.

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6.1 The topics

Some topics for the future could be: More information on the palace of the Queen of Sheba at Dungur by spaceexcavation in the centre; more information on the Osiris-cult till Christian time by investigations of more of the six oerings in the upper palace of Dungur; more detailed information on the Christian time by complete excavations of e. g. 3 palaces in the Old City of Axum; information on life and death of Christian kings by identication and investigation of the graves the kings Kaleb and Gebre Masqual. Beside the important place for the Axumite history, Berik Audi, the rst palace of king Ezana and the grave of his father, could be presented as an open air museum. The excavations were carried out 200002 by Marlies Wendowski and the author; the direction and plan to leave this place open was stopped after quarrels in the Ministry by the activities of Yonas Beyene as a member of a Committee.

6.2 The Archive in Axum as a source for historical investigations

The numerous documents in the Archives of the Monastery in Axum oral traditions written down, documents and texts should be used for historical research, as one paper [2006] on the earliest history of the Ark of the Covenent in Axum shows with new information on keeping this holy shrine in a tent before building a temple. Historical questions could be listed as the author did and presented for the priests and monks to search in the scriptures.

7 Conclusions
From the Enno Littmann documentation of Axumite antiquities 1906 and many followers with site-excavations at dierent spots in and around Axum-City till recent archaeological-historical investigations: we must conside the development of archaeology as a scientic discipline; the development of and critics on special methods; the dierent orientation of archaeology from objectorientated description and typology of nds, to problemorientated archaeological-historical investigations including the ndings in the eldwork for opening up the remains as sources.

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The aim of our work is historical knowledge, and modern archaeology can contribute a wide range of methods in the investigation to solve historical questions for the History of Axum as a historical sample for Jewish religion and independent state far away from the centre around Jerusalem, and as a sample of development of an early Christian Church independent from Rome.

References
1. Anfray, F.: Larcheologie dAxoum en 1972, in: Paideuma 18, 1972, 6078 2. Contenson, H. de: Les fouilles Axoum en 1958, in: Annales dEthiopie 5, 1963, 116 3. Fattovich, R. et al.: The Archaeological Area of Aksum: a Preliminary Assessment, Napoli 2000 4. Littmann, E.: Vorbericht der deutschen Aksumexpedition, Berlin 1906 5. Littmann, E. (ed.): Deutsche Aksum-Expedition, 4 vols., Berlin 1913 6. Munro-Hay, S. C.: Excavations at Aksum, London 1989 (publ. of the documentation of N. Chittick 197274) 7. Phillipson, D. W.: Archaeology at Aksum, Ethiopia, 19937, 2 vols., London 2000 8. Wendowski, M. and Ziegert, H.: The Queen of Sheba and the History of Axum, in: http: // www1. uni-hamburg. de/ helmut-ziegert ( Publications) forthcoming 9. Wilding, R.: The Pottery, cf. S. C. Munro-Hay, London 1989, 235316 10. Ziegert, H.: Objektorientierte und problemorientierte Forschungsansatze in der Archologie, in: Hephaistos 2, 1980, 5365 11. Ziegert, H.: Der Aktualistische Vergleich als Grundlage archologisch-historischer Interpretation, in: Ethnographisch-Archologische Zeitschrift 35, 1995, 177198 12. Ziegert, H. : The Joint Ethio-German Aksum-Expedition of 1906 (Paper for the workshop on Ethio-German and Ethio-European Cultural and Scientic Contact and Cooperation: History and Perspectives at Addis Abeba University, January 14, 1994) 13. Ziegert, H.: Archaeology as History, Hamburg 2002 (Books on Demand) 14. Ziegert, H.: Hangfuablagerungen. Ein geomorphologisches Phnomen in der archologischen Forschung, in: Hephaistos 23, 2006, 740

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E. Littmann in Axum 1906

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Post scriptum
For the Conference 100 years E. Littmann (DAE, 2006) in Mekele I myself did not get an original invitation, probably because of my lecture 1994 in Addis Ababa on the archaeological background and results of that mission, consisting of one linguist, two architects, and one doctor. S. Uhlig as the organizer of that conference invited R. Fattovich for the main paper on the DAE, but he suddenly canceled his paper. For him the colleague St. Wenig helped out, but did not want to publish his paper in the Conference-Papers. In March 2008 he visited me during eldwork in Axum-Dungur and asked me to write this paper as a contribution to the Conference-Volume. I agreed, handed over in August 2008, and publication projected for end of April 2009. At the same time I published this paper as all my publications with new ideas and results in my Internet-address, in order to be independent of incompetent or in political dependence e. g. of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) being editors. As the author I am myself responsible for my publications and must reject any falsication or adjustment to the mainstream by anonymous editors. In June 2009 the editor St. Wenig informed me that the series-editor of the KAAK of DAI in Bonn, B. Vogt, rejected my paper in principle; later B. Vogt wrote: Grund fr diese Entscheidung sind gravierende sachliche, methodische und sprachliche Mngel Ihres Manuskripts, deren Behebung ber den Rahmen blicher redaktioneller Eingrie weit hinausgehen wrde. Darberhinaus publizieren wir grundstzlich keine Beitrge, die bereits an anderer Stelle verentlicht wurden. [25. Juni 2009] Reason for this decision are serious objective, methodical and linguistic deciencies of your manuscript, whose correction would by far exceed the common editorial interventions. Furthermore, we generally do not publish papers that have already been published elsewhere. [June 25th , 2009] I recommend the critical reader to compare the personal publications of the DAI-editor and to check by which results he could be qualied for such a general judgement.

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