Kwiha (Tigray, Ethiopia): the Aksumite city

Abstract

Kwiha, some 10 km East of Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray Regional State, shows important traces of a discontinuous human occupation from the third millennium BC throughout Aksumite times to the contemporary period (Barnett 1999: 135-138). Archaeological evidence suggests that a rock shelter, excavated in the 1940s, was the place where obsidian lithics and later ceramics were produced from the third millennium to the first millennium BC. Kwiha and its surroundings were occupied during the Aksumite period and possibly also during the Pre-Aksumite period until its decline in the 7th century AD. As Kwiha is situated on the trade route to the Afar Depression with its salt mines, it was a trading centre probably from ancient times. Throughout the medieval period there were Muslim trading communities living side by side with the Christian community. From the Muslim cemetery come a substantial number of Islamic tombstones with Arabic inscriptions ranging from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Based on a Protocol of Amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding with the French Center of Ethiopian Studies (CFEE), Mekelle University has started a long-term interdisciplinary research program at Kwiha, in its first phase focusing on surveys. The aim of the study was an evaluation of Kwiha’s territory, with its natural resources and land use. Therefore surface pottery was collected from 2014 to 2017 all around Kwiha, and this paper should be considered as a preliminary study of the pottery.

Keywords

• pottery
• land use
• architecture