November 18, 2018
Prompted by my trip there in November 2018, I’m going to do two history posts on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). I’ll begin with the ancient history … and it goes way back. Because modern humans – and before that, the ancestors of humans – almost […]
November 17, 2018
Debre Damo, sitting atop a mesa in Tigray, is one of Ethiopia’s oldest Christian monasteries, dating back to the 6th Century AD. According to legend, the saint Abuna Aregawi found his way to the summit when a snake lowered its tail for him to climb. The mountaintop monastery of Debre Damo, seen from a distance. […]
November 18, 2018
From November 2018. Getting ready to climb to the rock-hewn churches of Maryam Korkor and Daniel Korkor atop this butte in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. (You can just spot the latter as a tiny shadow near the top of the second bulge from the left). It was already a hike to get here, following footpaths between […]