The Tabot and the Ancient City

The Aksum tradition of the Ark is not an isolated relic-claim but the summit of a practice that runs through all of Ethiopian worship. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church keeps in its sanctuary a tabot, a consecrated tablet or model that represents the Ark of the Covenant and on which the Eucharist is celebrated; without its tabot a church is not consecrated.

At the festival of Timkat, the Ethiopian Epiphany, each church's tabot is carried out in solemn procession, wrapped in rich cloth, so that the whole country enacts the carrying of the Ark. Aksum, holding what it believes to be the original, stands at the head of this system. The church precinct lies within the archaeological zone of Aksum, inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1980 for the towering carved stelae, royal tombs and ruins of the Aksumite civilisation, the church of Saint Mary of Zion standing across from the main field of obelisks. The setting ties the Ethiopian Ark tradition directly to one of the oldest Christian landscapes in Africa.