Orient Department Sanaa Branch

The ancient cultures of Southern Arabia are increasingly recognised as playing as major a role in the heritage of mankind as the early cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia or the Indus Valley. The beginning of the widely known Sabaean culture dates back to the end of the second millennium BC. Whereas, undoubtedly, its wealth came mainly from the trade along the

The ancient cultures of Southern Arabia are increasingly recognised as playing as major a role in the heritage of mankind as the early cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia or the Indus Valley. The beginning of the widely known Sabaean culture dates back to the end of the second millennium BC. Whereas, undoubtedly, its wealth came mainly from the trade along the

In 2009 the Sanaa Branch of the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) started research work in the two Ethio-Sabaean sites of Yeha and Hawelti in northern Ethiopia, both situated in the highlands of Tigray. Yeha is famous for its well-preserved Great Temple regarded as a holy place and national monument, and which displays a distinct South Arabian style. A second ancient monumental building is also known to have been erected in a timber framework system with direct similarities to a Sabaean building in СirwāΉ (Yemen) from the ninth century BC. An ancient necropolis as well as another temple were also found and partly excavated. Relics from ancient material culture such as pottery, terracotta figurines, and inscriptions were examined. In Hawelti new investigation of the field of stone stelae was undertaken. Some were excavated apart from two cultic buildings in the 1950s. They can now be compared with South Arabian pillars in terms of form, stonemasonry, and incised Sabaean letters. The DAI investigations have strengthened the supposition that South Arabian influence at both sites is not only visible in specific architectural components but also in several other aspects of material culture. The extent of this influence seems to indicate the presence of Sabaean settlers in northern Ethiopia and south-eastern Eritrea from the early first millennium BC onwards. As well as elements of the culture, religion, and political system of Saba, the Ethio-Sabaean kingdom of DΚMT in the Abyssinian highlands also included traditional indigenous elements and moreover, it shows a novel combination of pointing to an acculturation process between the two different population groups and their respective cultures.

Yeha and the UNESCO world heritage site Aksum, both situated in the Ethiopian highlands, was the centre of the ancient kingdoms of Di’amat and Aksumite. The ruins of these kingdoms spread all over the Tigray
Plateau, show the wealth and influence of these civilisations. Both kingdoms achieved economic and political importance since there were focal points for the trade routes of ancient Egypt, South-Arabia and the Roman Empire to Africa and the Indian Ocean (D’Andrea et al. 2008: 152-154). Yeha is deemed to be the capital of Di’amat formed in the early first millennium BC (Gerlach 2014: 5-7). It shows a strong influence of Sabean culture, which might be connected to their dominance of the Red Sea region. However, the Ethio-Sabaean culture disappeared towards the mid-first millennium BC by unknown cause and was succeeded by the Aksumite kingdom. The area of Yeha has remained inhabited through the millenniums to present day and is today known for its ruins of the monumental structure Grat Be’al Gebri as well as the Great Temple.
The motivation of the geophysical survey was to obtain more information about the existence of surrounding settlement structures and their organisation. The selection of the different prospecting areas was predetermined by the accessibility and the requirement for areal magnetometer prospection. The total Earth’s magnetic field measurements and the subsequent interpretations are complicated by the shallow magnetic inclination of 15°.

The project is an Ethiopian-German cooperation project (ARCCH and TCTB ) and supported and financed by the DFG (DFG-Projekt Yeha).

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