Matara, Eritrea

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Matara (or Metera), is an archeological site in Eritrea (a few kilometers south of Senafe) and was a major Aksumite & Pre-Aksumite city. Since Eritrean Independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian Government to return artifacts removed from the site, they have thus far been rebuffed.^[1]

[edit] History

Matara is the name both of a small village and of a supremely important Eritrean archaeological site, located some 136 kilometers southeast of Asmara, just past Senafe on the road leading south to the border with Tigray. The archaeological site already has yielded evidence of several levels of habitation, including at least two different major cities, covering more than 1000 years. The topmost levels are Aksumite, roughly dating from the fourth to the eighth Centuries. This city was allied with or part of the powerful trading empire centered in the capital city, Aksum, to the southwest. It appears that Matara was one of a string of cities along the trade route that ran from Aksum to its port city, Adulis, whose extensive ruins, surveyed but largely excavated, are in the vicinity of Zula, southeast of Massawa on the Red Sea coast.

Hawulti (an Aksumite era Obelisk) is located there.