Dungur (or Dungur 'Addi Kilte) is the

ruins Ruins () are the remains of a civilization's architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate ...

of a substantial

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word ''manse'' originally defined a property l ...

Aksum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Regi ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

, the former capital city of the

Kingdom of Aksum The Kingdom of Aksum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan. Emerging ...

. The ruins are in the western part of Aksum, across the road from the

Gudit Gudit () is the Classical Ethiopic name for a personage also known as Yodit in Tigrinya, and Amharic, but also Isato in Amharic, and Ga'wa in Ţilţal. The person behind these various alternative names is portrayed as a powerful female rul ...

stelae A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

field.

Description

The remains of the mansion and its associated building are limited to the lowest levels and the podium, covering about 3,250 square meters. During its prime, a double staircase led into the entrance of the complex, which opened into one of the courtyards surrounding the central structure.

Stuart Munro-Hay Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay (21 April 1947 – 14 October 2004) was a British archaeologist, numismatist and Ethiopianist. He studied the culture and history of ancient Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa region and South Arabia, particularly their his ...

, ''Ethiopia, the unknown land: a cultural and historical guide'' (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), p. 289 In the associated buildings a number of stone piers were recovered, "presumably for supporting wooden columns or floors", and brickwork which might be evidence of a

hypocaust A hypocaust () is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm the upper floors a ...

. However, the purpose of these buildings is unclear.

notes, "The 'rooms' with stone piers have no doorways, and the piers presumably supported floors, but occasional divisions on the same level do have doorways, implying that not all the lower level was merely a podium for a higher floor level. Possibly some rooms were entered from within by ladders."

Archaeology

S. Puglisi performed the first archaeological excavation in this area, excavating a 3 x 5 meter

sondage A sondage is an archaeological process to clarify stratigraphic sequences during preliminary investigations of the terrain prior to an archaeological dig. In a narrower sense it is a "deep trial trench for inspecting stratigraphy".

with the intent of revealing its stratification. The next excavations in this area were conducted in 1966–1968 by Francis Anfray, who uncovered a dwelling 250 meters west of Puglisi's trench that he described as a "

château A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking re ...

", inhabited by one of the city's elite. Based on the evidence from these excavations, Butzer dated Anfray's dwelling to the seventh century; he pointed out that the masonry was similar to the base of St Mary of Zion church (which is part of the original structure that dated from Axumite times), while the floor plan was similar to the layout of the central block of the Ta'akha Maryam palace.Stuart Munro-Hay, ''Excavations at Aksum: An account of research at the ancient Ethiopian capital directed in 1972-74 by the late Dr

Neville Chittick Dr. Neville H. Chittick (September 18, 1924 – July 27, 1984) was a British scholar and Archaeology, archaeologist. He specialized in the historic cultures of Northeast Africa, and also devoted various works to the Swahili Coast. Biography Chit ...

'' (London: British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1989), p. 30

References

{{coord, 14, 7, 36, N, 38, 42, 24, E, type:landmark_region:ET, display=title Buildings and structures completed in the 7th century 1966 archaeological discoveries Kingdom of Aksum Buildings and structures in Axum Archaeological sites in Ethiopia Architecture in Ethiopia Ruins in Ethiopia Mansions