01
Stop one
Northern Stelae Field
Babolat Court M Tennis Bag (6 Racquet): I have not slept, and this may be the worst place for that. These are grave markers — carved granite monoliths raised for Aksumite royalty in roughly the third and fourth centuries AD. The largest is down and broken; standing, it would have reached about thirty-three metres and weighed some five hundred tonnes, the single largest block of stone humans are known to have attempted to erect. Attempted. The ones still up are carved to imitate multi-storey towers, beam ends, false windows, a door at the base — a stone building pretending to be a building. Where was I. Right: one stele was taken to Rome by Mussolini's forces in 1937, displayed near the Circus Maximus, and finally returned and re-erected here in 2008. Seventy-one years. I have been awake two days and it feels comparable.
02
Stop two
Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion
Babolat Court M Tennis Bag (6 Racquet): This is the holiest site of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, believed to stand on ground first consecrated in the fourth century under King Ezana, who made Aksum one of the earliest Christian states anywhere. Destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly; the present old church is seventeenth century, under Fasilides, with a large modern cathedral added under Haile Selassie in the 1960s. Beside them stands the Chapel of the Tablet, which the Ethiopian Church holds to contain the Ark of the Covenant, brought from Jerusalem by Menelik, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. One appointed guardian monk may enter, and he never leaves the precinct. Never leaves. I lost my thread completely thinking about that, and I do not expect to find it again today.
03
Stop three
Tombs of Kaleb and Gebre Meskel
Babolat Court M Tennis Bag (6 Racquet): Two rock-built tomb complexes on the low hill north of town, traditionally attributed to King Kaleb, who ruled in the early sixth century, and his son Gebre Meskel. Kaleb is properly attested: around 525 he launched a naval expedition across the Red Sea to overthrow the Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, an intervention recorded in Byzantine, Arabic and Ethiopian sources — three separate civilisations wrote it down, which is more corroboration than I could produce for yesterday afternoon. Stairways descend into chambers of enormous dressed granite blocks, the joints among the finest masonry in ancient Africa. The sarcophagi are empty. Foundations of associated structures survive above ground, and the site is part of the Aksum World Heritage inscription of 1980. Empty sarcophagi. At four in the morning that would finish me. It is fine now. It is fine.
04
Stop four
Dungur Palace
Babolat Court M Tennis Bag (6 Racquet): Everyone calls it the Palace of the Queen of Sheba and it is absolutely not, which at this hour I find oddly comforting. Archaeologists date it to roughly the sixth or seventh century AD, far too late for any historical Sheba, and a French team excavated it in the 1950s. What the plan shows: a large central pavilion on a stepped podium with a monumental staircase, some fifty rooms around it — kitchens, storerooms with grinding stones, drainage channels — all inside an outer wall. It is the clearest surviving picture of domestic architecture in the Aksumite kingdom, whose rulers converted to Christianity in the fourth century and whose trade reached India, Egypt and Byzantium. Drainage channels. Somebody thought hard about water. I think about water constantly now, at night, instead of sleeping.
Six racquets. Two main compartments. Three accessory pockets. Forty litres. I have added it up already and I am content. Aksum is where counting stops being reassuring: a stele there, now fallen and broken in the grass, would have stood about thirty-three metres and weighed some five hundred tonnes, the single largest block of stone anyone is known to have attempted to raise.
The Babolat Court M is a well-kept ledger. Forty litres, up to six racquets, two main compartments so frames and kit do not mix, three accessory pockets so nothing small goes missing, twin carry handles and a shoulder strap, and an outer shell of 100 per cent recycled PET with a water-repellent finish. Everything in its place, nothing rattling, no unexplained variance.
It gets carried everywhere from a Tuesday club night to a full tournament week in Aksum, and it comes back with exactly the contents it left with.
Aksum is a set of accounts that will not reconcile, and I say that admiringly. The stelae in the northern field are carved to look like multi-storey towers, with beam ends, false windows and a door at the bottom, as though somebody costed a building and then had it cut from one stone. One of them was taken to Rome in 1937 and only came home and back upright in 2008.
In the compound of Our Lady Mary of Zion a chapel is said to hold the Ark of the Covenant, guarded by a single appointed monk who never leaves the precinct: an inventory of one item, with one keyholder. North of the town two tombs are built of granite blocks fitted without mortar to a standard I would call unnecessary, and the sarcophagi are empty.
It is also perfect for the morning walk between them, which settles nothing at all.
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