In 2015, CWA reported on the discovery by Louise Schofield of the remarkable grave of a young woman she nicknamed ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Now further excavation in in Ethiopia’s Tigray Province has revealed that ‘Beauty’ was not alone – and nearby remains, assumed to be a fort, are looking suspiciously like those of a royal residence. […]
Ethiopia
Before Aksum: Excavating Ethiopia’s Earliest Civilisation
In the 1st millennium AD, Ethiopia was home to the great civilisation of Aksum, one of the world’s first Christian kingdoms. But what came before Aksum? A joint Ethiopian-German project near Wuqro in the Tigray highlands is uncovering unprecedented finds and revealing a fascinating picture, as Steven Matthews and Saskia Büchner explain. The mighty civilisation of Aksum, […]
Ethiopia: Land of Angels
From the imposing stelae at Axum to the churches at Lalibela carved out of solid rock, Ethiopia has an incredibly rich heritage. Travel writer Judith Baker takes us on a journey through the North to discover more.
Ethiopia: When climate changes
Over the past two summers Timothy Clack and Marcus Brittain have directed the first archaeological teams in the Lower Omo Valley, a remote part of south-western Ethiopia, to research long-term human responses to environmental change. What did they find there?
Tool use pushed back 1 million years
The butchered bones of cow and goat-like animals from a riverbed in Dikika, in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, show early humans were using tools 3.4m years ago – more than a million years earlier than previously thought. Until the discovery, it was believed tools were first employed by Homo habilis – hence the […]
Lucy
A snapshot of the Australopithecus afarensis, otherwise known as ‘Lucy’.
Lalibela, Ethiopa, Rock-Hewn Churches
One of the original 12 sites to be added to the World Heritage list, Lalibela is one of the most important pilgrimage places of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and famed for its 11 Medieval churches, all of which are hewn into the rock. These exceptional buildings are said to have been built during the 25 year reign of King Lalibela – with more than a little help from the angels. But archaeologists question miracles; and here, David Phillipson, Professor of African Archaeology at Cambridge, introduces us to the wonders of Lalibela and offers a new interpretation of its chronology and creation.
Aksum
One of the first civilisations to be converted to Christanity: but what was there before Christanity?
Earliest Man
160,000 year old human skull discovered in Afar