Aksum

A UNESCO World Heritage site since 1980, Aksum is ‘Sacred’ as Jerusalem, old as Rome and historical as Constantinople, is an exceptional place in Ethiopia. Considered the beacon of Ethiopian Christianity, Axum is the mirror of the glorious period of Ethiopia. It served as the capital of the Aksumite Kingdom, which was the dominant trade entity in the Horn of Africa for over a millennium prior to the rise of Islam, stretching from the Sudanese Nile across the Red Sea to Yemen. Ruined palaces, obelisks, mausoleums, ruined churches, megalithic erected stones, coins, and manuscripts witness the golden period of the Aksumite Empire. The importance of the city is much elevated as it houses the most valuable and sacred relics of the tablet of Mosses or the arks of the covenant and as the place where one of the ‘Three Wise Men’ buried here.