TRACING BACK THE TAZKAR: INTERACTION, COMMEMORATION, AND INTEGRATION IN NORTHERN ETHIOPIA
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-01-15

This paper examines the long-term change and continuity in religious/mortuary structures that accompanied the adoption of Christianity in northern Ethiopia. Christianity arrived in Ethiopia during the Aksumite period (50-800 AD) and soon became central to the northern Ethiopian cultural traditions. Art historians have noted that early Christian churches incorporated the design of earlier pre-Christian elite structures. While ostensibly a cosmetic similarity indicating religious syncretism, added to this is that the enigmatic “house” symbolism was also carved onto pre-Christian funerary stelae. Reviewing Aksumite mortuary practices, I argue that the “house” symbolism on Aksumite pre-Christian monuments indexed their integrative purpose for Aksumite social groups. I then suggest that the “house” symbolism, as part of a larger package of symbolisms associated with material sites (including stone, water, etc.), then carried its way into Christianity through the subsequent importance of the church to community building efforts, notably through commemoration rituals such as the “Tazkar.” These similarities and continuity in commemoration ritual belie against an initial tension that appears to have existed between pre-Christian and Christian mortuary traditions. While it is uncertain when the Tazkar comes into being, this long-term view allows us to understand why the Tazkar needed to emerge – not just as a religious ritual, but as a social institution that reproduced valued aspects of the social order.


Singh, Dilpreet (Northwestern University)