Metera or መጠራ (𐩣𐩷𐩧) is a small

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

and important

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

located in the Debub Region of

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

. Situated a few kilometers south of

Senafe Senafe (, ) is a market town in southern Eritrea, on the edge of the Eritrean highlands ሶይራ. The name Sanafe driven from ana-feenyemeni words.The surrounding area is inhabited by the Saho people and the Tigrinya people. It's well known f ...

(ሰንዓፈ), it was a major city in the

Dʿmt Dʿmt (Unvocalized Ge'ez: ደዐመተ, ''DʿMT'' theoretically vocalized as ዳዓማት, *''Daʿamat'' or ዳዕማት, *''Daʿəmat'') was an Ethio- Sabaean kingdom located in present-day Eritrea and the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia. ...

(𐩵𐩲𐩣𐩩) and

Aksumite 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 ...

kingdoms. The town has the oldest example of Ge’ez, which is a pre-Aksumite Obelisk,

Hawulti (monument) Hawulti () is a Qohaito, pre-Aksumite obelisk located in Matara, Eritrea, Matara, Eritrea. The Aksumite architecture, monument bears the oldest known example of the ancient Geʽez script. Description The Hawulti monument is high, with a disk ...

. Since Eritrean independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian government to return artifacts removed from the site. However, the efforts have thus far been rebuffed.

History

Matara is the name of both a small village and an important archaeological site in Eritrea. The latter is located some 136 kilometers southeast of the capital

Asmara Asmara ( ), or Asmera (), is the capital and most populous city of Eritrea, in the country's Central Region (Eritrea), Central Region. It sits at an elevation of , making it the List of capital cities by altitude, sixth highest capital in the wo ...

, just past Senafe on the road leading south to the border with the northern

Tigray Region The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

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 archaeological site already has yielded evidence of several levels of habitation, including at least two different major cities, covering more than 1,000 years. The topmost layers are associated with the Aksumite Empire and date from the fourth to the eighth centuries. This city was allied with or part of the powerful trading empire centered in the capital,

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 ...

, to the southwest. It appears that Matara was one of a string of cities along the trade route that ran from Aksum to its port city,

Adulis Adulis (Sabaic, Sabaean: 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, , ) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean list of cities in Eritrea, city of Zula. It was the emporium (antiquit ...

, whose extensive ruins, surveyed but largely unexcavated, are in the vicinity of

Zula Zula is a small town in central Eritrea. It is situated near the head of Annesley Bay (also known as the Gulf of Zula), on the Red Sea coast. Four kilometers away is the archeological site of Adulis, which was an emporium and the port of Axum. ...

, southeast of

Massawa Massawa or Mitsiwa ( ) is a port city in the Northern Red Sea Region, Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, located on the Red Sea at the northern end of the Gulf of Zula beside the Dahlak Archipelago. It has been a historically important port for ...

on the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

coast. Keskese is located north of Matara. Hawulti, a pre-Aksumite or early Aksumite era

obelisk An obelisk (; , diminutive of (') ' spit, nail, pointed pillar') is a tall, slender, tapered monument with four sides and a pyramidal or pyramidion top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called ''tekhenu'', the Greeks used th ...

, is situated here.

References

External links

Matara
Aksumite cities Archaeological sites in Eritrea Southern region (Eritrea) Former populated places in Eritrea {{Africa-archaeology-stub

History

See also

References

External links