YEHA, the ancient capital

YEHA
Yeha, 58km north of Adwa, is considered the birthplace of Ethiopia’s earliest civilisation nearly three millennia ago.
Heated debate continues among scholars as to whether it was founded by Sabaean settlers from Arabia or by Ethiopians influenced by Sabaean ideas.
We can’t figure out who’s screaming louder, so we’ll hold off choosing sides, though the so-called temple’s immense, windowless, sandstone walls do indeed look like something straight out of Yemen.
Yeha’s ruins are impressive for their sheer age, dating between the 5th and 8th century BC, and for their stunning construction.
Some of the temple’s sandstone building blocks measure over 3m in length and are so perfectly dressed and fitted together – without a trace of mortar
– that it’s impossible to insert so much as a 5￠ coin between them. The whole temple is a grid of perfect lines and geometry.
Almost 200m to the northeast are the
remains of Grat Beal Gebri, a monumental structure distinguished for its unusual, square-sectioned, monolithic pillars (such features are also found in the Temple of the Moon in Ma’rib in Yemen). Important
rock-hewn tombs have also been found in the vicinity. Amazingly, these finds and the temple are all that remains of Ethiopia’s first capital.