have buildings of great strength, magnitude, and expence, especially at Azab, worthy the magnificence and riches of a state, which was from the first ages the emporium of the Indian and African trade, whose sovereign, though a Pagan, was thought an example of reproof to the nations, and chosen as an instrument to contribute materially to the building of the first temple which man erected to the true God.
The ruins of Axum are very extensive; but, like the cities of ancient times, consist altogether of public buildings. In one square, which I apprehend to have been the center of the town, there are forty obelisks, none of which have any hieroglyphics upon them[1]. There is one larger than the rest still standing, but there are two still larger than this fallen. They are all of one piece of granite; and on the top of that which is standing there is a patera exceedingly well carved in the Greek taste. Below, there is the door-bolt and lock, which Poncet speaks of, carved on the obelisk, as if to represent an entrance through it to some building behind. The lock and bolt are precisely the same as those used at this day in Egypt and Palestine, but were never seen, as far as I know, in Ethiopia, or at any time in use there.
I apprehend this obelisk, and the two larger that are fallen, to be the works of Ptolemy Evergetes. There is a great deal of carving upon the face of the obelisk in a Go-thic
- ↑ Poncet says that these obelisks are covered with hieroglyphics; but in this he is wrong; he has mistaken the carving, I shall directly mention, for hieroglyphics. London edit, 12mo. 1709, p. 106.
