Day 89 – So who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?

Addis Ababa to Axum, Africa Hotel

Security at Ethiopian airports is quite strange, they go for the overkill. When we entered the airport they made us open a locked suitcase to examine a pocket knife, then told us to make sure it goes cargo (which is why it was in the suitcase in the first place!). Check after check after check, multiple body searches and shoe removals – but no problems taking a two litre bottle of water onboard!

The flight was like being on a train stopping all stations rather than a plane. The plane flies a continual loop through Addis, Gonder, Lalibela, Aksum and then goes back again, We were going to Axum, so we had two stops on the way.

We arrived at our hotel around 11am and joined a hotel tour taking in the main sites of Axum, including the (supposed) Queen of Sheba’s palace, her swimming pool, some underground tombs, and of course the stelae fields, which were large monuments erected to mark the burial places of the old Axumite kings and upper classes. The stelae were quite reminiscent of the obelisks we saw in Egypt.

Is this where the Ark is?

Our last stop was a couple of churches. This was the men only part of the tour, so while the girls waited outside under a tree, the boys continued with some secret men’s business!

Black Mary?

One of the churches that can’t be entered, and only approached by foreigners to about 20 metres distance, supposedly contains the real Ark of the Covenant (which is the chest that with houses the original tablets upon which the 10 Commandments were inscribed). Every Ethiopian believes this is where the original is (it was brought from Israel by Menelik I, the son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon). However, there is a catch! The Ark is looked after by a single monk, and only he is ever allowed to see it, not even the bishop of the church can see it. When the monk dies, another monk is selected to take his place. Every church in Ethiopia contains a copy of this Ark – but in all of our church visits we haven’t been allowed to see these copies either ………

The nearby church, one of the oldest churches in Ethiopia, contains three copies of the Ark (or so M was told), and some interesting paintings, including two paintings of the Virgin Mary – one with white skin, the other with dark skin (which has fuelled speculation that she may have been black)