Much more is known about the historic highland city of Axum, once a great commercial and civilization, trading center via the Red Sea chief port of Adulis & founded perhaps 500 years after the decline of Yeha. Axum stands in the highlands of north western Tigray, commanding spectacular views over the nearby Adwa hills. This ancient settlement is frequently referred to as ''the sacred city of the Ethiopians''-a description that adequately sums up its significance in national culture as a centre of Orthodox Christianity. Many remarkable monuments here attest to the great antiquity of religious expression in this country, and as a former capital that has never lost its special appeal to the hearts & minds of all Ethiopians and still remains the sacred center for Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Axum is renowned for its cathedral of St. Mary of Zion, where, legend has it; the original Ark of the Covenant is housed. Axum is also famous for its seven mysterious monolithic obelisks, hewn from single pieces of solid granite. The most notable are carved to resemble multi-storey houses; several weigh more than 500 tones & stand 20 meters high. They seem less like prayers of stone and more like lightning-rods to heaven. Just out of town are the remains of an early Axumite palace, which is popularly thought to have belonged to the Queen of Sheba. Axum's greatest significance ,however, is as the epicenter of the Queen of Sheba dynasty, upon which rests the notion for the sacred kinship of the Semitic peoples of Ethiopia- a notion that links the recent past to ancient times. The former Emperor Haile Selassie claimed to be the 225th monarch of the Solomonic dynasty line. His death in 1975 marked the end of an era- and the beginning of an entire way of life. .
