Materializing Aksumite: Power Plays through Natural Landscape in the Northern Stelae Field (AD 100–400)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper looks at how the location of the central stelae field in Aksum (in use from ~AD 100–400) took advantage of natural features to amplify Indigenous ideologies. The Northern Stelae Field is the burial location of the most powerful Aksumites, and tradition dictates that at least some were kings. The stelae field is uniquely located to take advantage of three features: the central reservoir, a nepheline syenite stone quarry 6 km away, and two mountains that flank the cemetery. Working together, the mountains create a light corridor that washes over the stelae and emphasizes the unique properties of the granite stone in the early morning when most people would have accessed the reservoir. While this location is perhaps one of the worst in Aksum for the preservation of bones, it is perhaps one of the best placed to communicate powerful ideologies through the monumentality of stone. Mortuary practices indicate the stelae perpetuated ideologies of “Aksumiteness” and “localness” (over “foreigness”). Taken together, the combination of these data showcase how Aksumite elites transformed the common traditions of local cemetery into a source of ideological power through the use of Aksum's natural features.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32229