AFRI4001
LING3003
AKSUM
Meeting the scholars at Axum University
Thank you so much!
The faculty and students at Aksum University gave us a warm welcome on campus. The discussion was sparked off by introducing Aksum as an important historical city of Ethiopia. After knowing our research interest on specific topics, the pannel very kindly offered a detailed explanation on the current form of Ethiopian governance - ethnic federalism. This essential background information helped the group to factor the political aspect in while investigating on several issues. We also started to understand how "Unity in Diversity" could be possible in the contemporary Ethiopian context. We all have learnt a lot from each other during the free interactions with Ethiopian students.
Visit to Aksum University
Visit to UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Main entrance
Viewing the surrounding from the observation deck
Main entrance
To understand more about the Ancient civilization in Africa - the Aksumite Empire, we were accompanied by the scholars at Aksum University to visit the the Northern Stelae Park in Aksum. The limited significance achieved in the on-going research was noted by the archaeologist:
"...so many information that tell us about very long period of time. But still, we have a gap. We know about Aksum in Ethiopia in general, only 7%. You know even so we do have a hundred years of research here..."
Because of the remaining mystery, the visit aroused the enthusiasm in us regarding further studies in history and archaeology. In addition, we got a rare opportunity to visit the archaeology musuem where the study of the Sabaean language has been conducted. A comparative study was shown between Sabaean, Ge'ez and Ethiopic scripts. This was truly fruitful for us to peep into historical linguistics, as well as to develop more foundational understandings of Semitic languages.