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Ethiopian legend has it that the famous Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum is the repository of the Ark of the Covenant. Axum is equally, if not more, mysterious for the seven monolithic stelae fashioned out solid granite. The biggest monolith (and the largest in the world), measures over thirty-three meters (108 feet) and weighing about 500 tons.

Giant stelea at Axum

Rock hewn reservoir known as Queen of Sheba's bath

The Great Stelea

The old St Mary of Zion Church

The huge new St Mary of Zion Church

axum Obelisk

The adherents of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faith make yearly pilgrimages on Hidar 21 (November 30) to the famous Church of St. Mary of Zion (also known as Axum Tsion), not an ordinary church this one! Ethiopian legend has it that the Church is the repository of the Ark of the Covenant (the subject of the controversial The Sign and the Seal), which is said to have been stolen (with God's will) from the temple of Jerusalem by Menelik I, Solomon?s own son by the legendary Queen of Sheba. Unfortunately, for visitors, the chamber in which the Ark is secreted away is not accessible to anyone, including, even the Ethiopian emperors.

Axum is equally, if not more, mysterious for the seven monolithic stelae fashioned out solid granite. Their mystery lies in that it is not known exactly by whom, and for what purpose, they were so fashioned.

The biggest monolith (and the largest in the world), measuring over thirty-three meters (108 feet) and weighing about 500 tons fell at some period in the past, and now lies in broken fragments on the ground. The second largest Stella, which measured 24 meters (78 feet) high, had also fallen and was stolen by the invading forces of Fascist Italy and token to Rome, where it stood, from 1937 to 2005, when it finally returned to Ethiopia.

The stelae have identical decoration, each erected in the center of a step platform of stone on a terrace of polished limestone. At the base of each standing Stella is a stone altar containing several bowl-shaped cavities, which, it is believed, served as receptacles for sacrificial offerings to the dead. Each Stella resembles a tall, slender, multi-storyed house in the architectural style of the Axumite houses and palaces, with walls displaying an alternate recession and projection, made of alternating horizontal layers of stone and timber, with projecting ends of timber-beams technically called "monkey heads", and a flat roof surrounded by a parapet.

They are also decorated with representations of doors, windows, and, in some cases, door handles. Riveted to the top at the front and back were inscribed metal ornaments in the form of the ?pagan? crescent and disc, symbols of the moon, with an arc at the top of the Stella representing the cosmic universe, which certainly makes the obelisks a pre-Christian heritage.

There are a number of other obelisks, including many roughly hewn, undecorated, slabs of stone, symbolizing one thing or another.

To the left of the principal obelisks, in the Park of the Stelae, one can enter the newly excavated tomb of Ramha, a former king of Axum.

The old Church of St. Mary of Zion, which stands near the new church, and which was built in the early seventeenth century by Emperor Fasiladas, founder of Gondar, houses many crowns of former kings and emperors.