Qohaito ( Tigrinya: ቆሓይቶ)was a major ancient city in what is now the Debub region of

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopi ...

. It was a pre-

Aksumite The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in ...

settlement that thrived during the Aksumite period. The city was located over 2,500 meters above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

, on a high plateau at the edge of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it ...

. , Qohaito's stone ruins have yet to be excavated. The ancient port city of

Adulis Adulis (Sabaean: ሰበኣ 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, gez, ኣዱሊስ, grc, Ἄδουλις) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean city of Zula. It was the e ...

is directly to the east, while Matara lies to the south.

History

Rock art In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also m ...

near Qohaito appears to indicate habitation in the area since the

fifth millennium BC The 5th millennium BC spanned the years 5000 BC to 4001 BC (c. 7 ka to c. 6 ka). It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological an ...

, while the town is known to have survived to the sixth century AD. Mount Emba Soira, Eritrea's highest mountain, lies near the site, as does a small successor village. Qohaito is often identified as the town ''Koloe'' described in the ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' ( grc, Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης, ', modern Greek '), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and ...

'', a Greco-Roman document dated to the end of the first century AD. The settlement thrived as a stop on the

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...

between

and

Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), 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, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole regio ...

. It is thought that

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...

s were interspersed with buildings in the town. These old edifices included the pre-

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

Temple of Mariam Wakino and the Sahira Dam, which might also be pre-Aksumite. The ruins at Qohaito were first located in 1868. However, they were at the time erroneously identified as a "

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

depot". C. R. Markham
"Geographical Results of the Abyssinian Expedition", ''Journal of the Royal Geographical Society''
38 (1868), p. 23 A related site outside of Senafe, Matara, lies about 15 kilometers to the south, and was excavated in the 1960s.

References

Aksumite cities Archaeological sites in Eritrea Southern Region (Eritrea) Former populated places in Eritrea History of Eritrea Ancient Greek geography of East Africa {{Eritrea-geo-stub

History

See also

References