Qohaito

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Qohaito was an Aksumite city, lying over 2,500 meters above sea level in the Debub region of Eritrea. It is often identified as the town known to the Ancient Greeks as Koloe. It thrived as a stop on the trade route between Aksum and Adulis, and may have been a summer capital of the empire. It is thought that crops were interspersed with buildings in the town, ruined buildings including the pre-Christian Temple of Mariam Wakino and the Sahira Dam (which may be pre-Aksumite). Qohaito's unexcavated ruins lie on a high plateau at the very edge of a dramatic escarpment that forms the edge of the great Rift Valley. The ancient port of Adulis lies directly to the east. Imported goods were carried across 50 kilometers of of one of the world's hottest deserts, then up trails carved in almost sheer cliffs to the 2,500 meter site of the commercial center of Aksum in the cool highlands. Decades of civil war and autocratic rule have prevented Eritrea from properly excavating this incredible site and learning more of the details of its poorly detailed history. A related site at Metara outside of Senafe lies about 15 kilometers to the south. Unlike the much larger Qohaito site, Metara was excavated in the 1960's.

Rock art near the town appears to indicate habitation in the area since the fifth millennium BC, while the town is known to have survived to the sixth century AD. Mount Ambasoira, Eritreas highest mountain lies near the site, as does a small successor village, itself 1,000 years old.