Senafe (, ) is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

in southern

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 ...

, 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 The Saho are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group who are one of the 9 official ethnic groups Eritrea. They speak Saho as a mother tongue. History The Saho were originally a northern extension of the Afar people, Afar who moved along the G ...

and the

Tigrinya people The Tigrinya people (, ), also known as the Biher-Tigrinya () or Kebessa, are a Tigrinya-speaking ethnic group indigenous to the highlands of Eritrea, specifically the historical provinces of Hamasien, Akele Guzai and Seraye. History One view b ...

. It's well known for its cultural and religious historical background, as well as for the ruins of Metera (also known as ''Balaw Kalaw''), Qohayto to the south, and Kaskase to the north. The soil in the is derived from volcanic

ignimbrite Ignimbrite is a type of volcanic rock, consisting of hardened tuff. Ignimbrites form from the deposits of pyroclastic flows, which are a hot suspension of particles and gases flowing rapidly from a volcano, driven by being denser than the surrou ...

, and Senafe sits on the southeastern edge of a twenty kilometer wide caldera.

History

An early record of Sanafe is on the Egyptus Novello map, published in 1454. This map shows Sanafe at the edge of

Tigray 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 ...

, connected to two routes, one leading west to

Axum 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 Re ...

, the other south to Lake Ashangi. According to

James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the fir ...

, the party of Jesuits which included the Catholic patriarch

Afonso Mendes Father Afonso Mendes (18 June 1579 – 21 June 1659) was a Portuguese Jesuit theologian, and Patriarch of Ethiopia from 1622 to 1634. While E. A. Wallis Budge has expressed the commonly accepted opinion of this man, as being "rigid, uncompromisi ...

and Fr.

Jerónimo Lobo Jerónimo Lobo (1595 – 29 January 1678) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. He took part in the unsuccessful efforts to convert Ethiopia from the native Ethiopian church to Roman Catholicism until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1643. Afterw ...

, passed through Senafe in 1625, having entered the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

by way of

Beilul Beilul (, , alternatively, Beylul) formerly known as Baylour is a small cape (geography), cape town in the Southern Red Sea Region of Eritrea. Beilul was the historical main port ruled by the Dankali Sultanate, Kingdom of Dankali and as a point ...

and having crossed the Danikil Desert. Senafe is mentioned in a 1794–95 land grant (1787 E.C.) from the

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 ...

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Tekle Giyorgis to Ras

Wolde Selassie Wolde Selassie (; c.1736 – 28 May 1816) was Ras of the Tigray province between 1788 and 1816, and Regent of the Ethiopian Empire between 1797 and 1800. John J. Halls, in his ''Life and Correspondence of Henry Salt'', preserves a description of ...

. During his reconnaissance work for the 1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia,

Clements Markham Sir Clements Robert Markham (20 July 1830 – 30 January 1916) was an English geographer, explorer and writer. He was secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) between 1863 and 1888, and later served as the Society's president fo ...

visited Senafe, finding it situated "at the foot of the grand mass of sandstone rock about half a mile north-west of the camp, called Amba-Adana." The town itself consisted "of about a dozen houses built of rough stones and mud, with flat roofs branches being placed in rows across the beams, and covered with mud. Broken jars plastered into the roof, serve as chimneys." He estimated the population to be around 240 inhabitants. During Italian rule, the town grew notably. The modern town suffered extensive destruction during the

Eritrean–Ethiopian War The Eritrean–Ethiopian War, also known as the Badme War, was a major armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that took place from May 6, 1998 to June 18, 2000. After 1993 Eritrean independence referendum, Eritrea gained independence from E ...

.Okubaghergis, Biyan Ghebreyesus. (2020
"The Impact of the Eritrean-Ethiopian Border on the Borderland Communities (2000-2018): A case Study of Senafe and Tserona."
PHD thesis,

University of Cagliari The University of Cagliari () is a public research university in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. It was founded in 1606 and is organized in 11 faculties. History The ''Studium Generalis Kalaritanum'' was founded in 1606 along the lines of the old ...

. Requires subscription.

Climate

The prevailing climate in Senafe is known as a

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...

; more precisely it lies on the border between a cool semi-arid climate (

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BSk'') and a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

(''BSh'').

Notes and references

{{coord, 14, 42, N, 39, 25, E, region:ER_type:city, display=title Southern region (Eritrea) Populated places in Eritrea