Matara (or Metera), is an archeological site in Eritrea (a few kilometers south of Senafe), it was a major Aksumite & Pre-Aksumite City. Senafe is a market town in southern Eritrea. ...

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 unexcavated, are in the vicinity of Zula, southeast of Massawa on the Red Sea coast. Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 500,000 people. ... Tigray is the northern-most of the nine ethnic regions (kililoch) of Ethiopia. ... Axum, also Aksum, is a city in northern Ethiopia, located at the base of the Adoua mountains. ... Adulis is an archeological site in Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. ... Zula is a small town in Eritrea near the head of Annesley Bay (also known as the Bay of Zula) on the African coast of the Red Sea. ... Massawa in the 19th century Massawa or Mitsiwa (15° 36′ 33″ N 39° 26′ 43″ E) is a port on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. ...

Hawulti (an Aksumite era Obelisk) is located there. The Luxor obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris An obelisk is a tall, thin, four-sided, tapering monument which ends in a pyramidal top. ...

External links

• Matara