Africa. Where the human race began.
Nearly a billion people live here.
It's a continent with an incredible diversity
of communities and cultures.
Yet we know less of its history than almost anywhere else on earth.
But that's beginning to change.
In the last few decades, researchers and archaeologists
have begun to uncover a range of histories
as impressive and extraordinary as anywhere else on earth.
It's a history which has been neglected for years
and it's largely without written records.
But it is preserved for us - in the gold and statues,
the culture, art and legends of the people.
My name is Gus Casely-Hayford.
Over many years, I've studied the history and culture of Africa.
As an art historian,
I'm used to drawing stories from mute objects from the past.
I'm going to discover the history
and find out what really happened to the lost kingdoms of Africa.
'The Army, which set-off the present crisis with a mutiny...'
These of the moments when Ethiopia's Kingdom came to an end.
In February 1974, the Ethiopian military rose up in revolt.
By September, they deposed the Emperor Haile Selassie.
It was a coup that brought to an end
one of the world's oldest continuous kingdoms.
'...gave it its first written constitution.
Realising that times must change,
he has decreed constitutional reforms be made,
apparently with a view to making...'
Haile Selassie was the last Emperor of a dynasty that claimed
it could trace its roots back thousands of years.
The country is now a democratic republic
but Ethiopians haven't forgotten their kingdom's proud past.
In the capital, Addis Ababa, this statue of Emperor Menelik II
celebrates Ethiopia's long tradition of independence.
At a time when much of Africa was being colonised by European powers,
Menelik II's army fought off an Italian attempt at conquest.
Ever since that famous victory,
Ethiopia has been a beacon of self determination
for black people around the world.
But I'm here to get back beyond that, to the ancient history.
I've got here the Kebra Nagast, the Glory Of Kings.
The story that tells you of all of those kings, those ancient empires.
I want to get behind that and find out exactly what made this country.
The book I'm carrying is a modern translation
of the most important text in Ethiopian history.
The Kebra Nagast was written in the 13th century.
It sets out the lineage of Ethiopia's emperors.
It makes some grand claims.
It says the dynasty began in 950 BC.
And the First Emperor, Menelik I,
was the son of illustrious parents -
Solomon, King of Israel, and Queen Makeda,
better known as the legendary Queen of Sheba.
The link to the Old Testament gave a legitimacy to the Ethiopian empire.
But is there any truth in it?
Is there really a connection between Solomon, Sheba and the Ethiopians?
That's what I want to find out.
I can't speak to an Emperor but I do have an audience
with Ethiopia's most important spiritual leader -
the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
As with most ancient kingdoms,
the Ethiopian emperors claimed their power came from God.
The Church and state were inextricably linked.
So, evidence of the origins of the Church might throw some light
on the history and origins of the Ethiopian Kingdom.
Could you tell me something about the history,
or the origins, of the Ethiopian Church?
1,000 years before Christianity,
Ethiopians have accepted officially
the Old Testament order.
And they have followed...
for 1,000 years.
So, we accepted Judaism,
and then we accepted Christianity.
Now it is 3,000 years old altogether.
According to the patriarch, Ethiopia's Judeo-Christian tradition
does date from the beginning of the Ethiopian Kingdom.
He says that the faith and the emperors came together.
The foundation of this belief lies in the astonishing claim
that the very basis of Judaism is actually here, in Ethiopia.
He tells me the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments,
was brought here from Jerusalem by Menelik, the son of Solomon.
The Ark of the Covenant
and the Solomonic descent...
comes together.
The Ark of the Covenant is with us in Ethiopia.
Can that really be true?
If the Ark is in Ethiopia,
it would be evidence of a link between Ethiopia's founding Emperor
and the people of the Old Testament.
But there's a problem.
The Ark is deemed so holy a relic that no-one is allowed to see it.
And there's no historical evidence
that Menelik I was the son of Solomon and Sheba.
Yet faith in this legend is still strong.
DRUMS BEAT
I want to find out why it endures and discover whether it's true.
I'm going to look for continuities that might appear over centuries -
in religious traditions, in language,
and in Ethiopia's old buildings.
I want to see if I can connect them to Solomon and Sheba.
My journey will take me from Addis
to some of the most important historical sites in Ethiopia,
going further and further into the past,
to see if I can reach the time of the Old Testament.
My guide here is Habtamu Mamo.
We've come to one of Ethiopia's most important cities
and it's something of a surprise to me.
So this is the old city?
Right.
The legend of Ethiopia's unbroken Judeo-Christian history
isn't that straightforward. Harar is a Muslim city.
It's like a warren.
It confounds my expectations in other ways too.
Ethiopia's modern history has been blighted by drought and famine.
But in places unaffected by shortages, like Harar's market,
trade is brisk.
Historically, Ethiopia's highlands are one of nature's store houses.
More crop species are found here
than in any other part of the continent.
Frankincense, used in churches and temples, for centuries grows wild.
Oh! That's gorgeous!
What do I do with this incense?
It smells beautiful as it is but how do I make it even more powerful?
Thank you very much. Thank you.
What should I be saying to her?
HE ATTEMPTS LOCAL DIALECT
I apologise for being so English about it.
For at least 2,000 years, Ethiopians have traded frankincense north
to the eastern Mediterranean, along with a lively trade in other goods.
Coffee was first cultivated here in the ninth century.
But it isn't the most popular item for sale.
This is khat?
This is stuff they eat?
And what is it? Is it good for you? What does it do?
It's a stimulant.
It makes you strong?
Stimulate me? Really?
As well as its secular uses, khat is used here by Muslim mystics
to help them on their spiritual journey.
Perhaps it's not a surprise
that there should be such a strong Muslim population here.
After all, it's only a short hop to Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
But what is remarkable is the role the Muslim population played
in maintaining Ethiopia's independence -
shoring up the relationship between Ethiopian Christianity
and royal legitimacy.
Back in the 17th century,
Ethiopian Muslims made common cause with Ethiopian Christians
in a deal brokered by Emperor Fasilides.
I'm heading to his capital to find out more about him
and the Ethiopian Kingdom he ruled over.
I'm travelling to Gondar, across Lake Tana,
on the ancient trade route which avoids the mountains.
The unlikely alliance of Christians and Muslims
came about as a reaction against foreign interference.
During the 16th century,
the Portuguese arrived with two purposes in mind.
One was to take over Muslim trade routes,
the other was to find a mythical Christian ruler called Prester John.
They travelled right down the west coast of Africa in search of him.
When the boat technology improved, they came up the east coast.
And it was here, here in Ethiopia,
that they thought they'd found him.
Prester John turned out to be a figment of European imagination.
Instead, the Portuguese found a real Ethiopian Christian kingdom.
And whilst they enjoyed some success
in converting the local population to Catholicism,
their attempts angered many.
A foreign imported version of Christianity united
Ethiopian Christian and Muslim alike
under the banner of Emperor Fasilides.
They expelled the Portuguese and executed their Jesuit priests.
Ethiopian traditions were again free from outside influence.
Some seem unchanged to this day.
Papyrus canoes, like this one,
have been used for thousands of years.
Could you ask him if he's caught anything today?
FISHERMAN AND GUIDE CONVERSE IN LOCAL DIALECT
So you can buy the fish. How much?
What kind of fish is this?
Tilapia. Tilapia. Give him the money.
Thank you very much.
To the north of Lake Tana lies Gondar,
Ethiopia's 17th-century capital.
It's dominated by an impressive castle.
The city was built by Emperor Fasilides in 1635 -
the man who bought Christian and Muslim together in common cause.
I've arranged to meet the curator here.
Hello, sir. Hello. Lovely to meet you.
This is so spectacular. What am I looking at here?
The man who built it was determined to defend Ethiopia's independence.
He tells me that Emperor Fasilides was a strong leader,
in control of a significant capital.
Fasilides wasn't just displaying his power with this building.
There are clues he was also asserting his legitimacy,
by reminding people of the link to King Solomon
and the people of the Old Testament.
Up here, I can see there's a star of David.
And connection to Solomon?
What was that? Is it a legend or is this an actual real...?
This is the real connection.
I knew it would be difficult to separate fact from myth.
Here, it seems impossible.
Of course, the star of David is only one hint
that the Emperors claim to be descended from Solomon.
I'm wondering whether there is anything else in this castle
that points back to the world of the Old Testament.
For me, the best way of getting a real sense of the building
is to sit down, just spend a few quiet minutes just sketching.
I suspect that Fasilides may have been more influenced by outsiders
than he would have cared to admit.
The battlements look Portuguese to me
and the domes look east towards, perhaps, India.
I can also see what looks like a curious technique
in the way long wooden beams have been used in the stone building.
I'm particularly interested
in how... the architect has used this beam
to support the masonry.
It's a wooden beam. It's quite unusual for it to be that long.
The beams are necessarily long for its function.
My hunch is the design may be a throwback to an earlier time.
It's almost like an architectural quote.
To see it here, in this site,
where they've absorbed influences
from all over the neighbouring regions is absolutely fascinating.
Details like the beam suggest
that while there were some outside influences on the kingdom,
local heritage and traditions were fundamental.
The execution of Portuguese Jesuits shows the Emperor's determination
to defend the distinctive role of the Ethiopian Church.
Just as in western Europe,
many of the oldest buildings still standing in Ethiopia are churches.
I feel sure these buildings can tell me about the relationship
between the emperors, their faith and their history.
This church was built by Emperor Iyasu,
a close successor to Fasilides in the 17th century.
This astonishing painting
is completely different to anything I've seen in European churches,
or in missionary churches elsewhere in Africa.
I spend so much of my time trying to rationalise
and explain beautiful things but, very occasionally,
I'm just completely knocked sideways by something.
And coming in here, to this particular church,
and seeing a lot of the Christian tradition I was brought up with,
depicted in a completely new way,
with a level of intensity I've never seen before...
It's just absolutely astounding.
The paintings have been completed on cloth
which has been glued to the mud plaster walls.
Emperor Iyasu seems to have been reassuring his subjects
that he could look after them.
He commissioned artists to paint angels on the ceilings,
as if protecting the worshippers below.
It's a stunning example of the individuality
that the emperors were so determined to preserve.
I can't help wondering whether other telling traces of the past
still survive within Ethiopia's ancient churches.
It's Sunday morning.
I'm going to a service at a church in the highlands of East Gondar.
MAN PREACHES IN GE'EZ
Bible passages are being read in Ge'ez,
the ancient language of the Ethiopian Kingdom.
It's related to Arabic and also, significantly, to Hebrew -
the language of the Old Testament and King Solomon himself.
My guide says no-one speaks it now.
For Ethiopians, it's like the Latin Mass.
But this isn't the main event.
The crowds are outside a cave
and it's this cave that has the real significance here.
MAN SINGS RELIGIOUS CHANT
This place contains beehives
which are regarded as holy by the congregation.
How amazing.
They're right in the church.
They came by themselves?
I see.
You can really feel... a palpable feeling of...
..people believing in this place.
In a sense that... it's not just communing with God.
It's making contact with a very profound past.
Honey is a staple of Ethiopian religious and everyday life.
From the honey, the Ethiopians make a kind of mead which is called tej.
It's both the national drink and the communion wine.
This honey is believed to have healing powers.
A cure for everything,
from minor ailments to major ones, like leprosy.
Honey has long had a special place in other cultures
in Africa and the Middle East.
What's unique to Ethiopia is its connection
to one of the kingdom's greatest rulers.
It's said that a swarm of bees prophesied his future greatness
when he was a baby and that he was named after their humming sound.
His name was Lalibela.
The city he built, which today bears his name,
is a place which has no parallel with anywhere else on earth.
I've travelled east from Gondar.
Now I'm heading to one of the most important places
in Ethiopian history - Lalibela.
There's not much that can prepare you for that.
It's just astonishing!
'This is one of the churches of Lalibela.
'They've been sculpted out of the mountain,
'each one carved from solid rock.'
You get a sense of just what a huge...
..amount of energy it must have taken to excavate this hole
and with such incredible precision.
Every single one of those angles is just so precise.
You can still see the subtle incline of the hill on the roof
but the actual body of the church...
And if you'd designed it,
made it in concrete with moulds,
you couldn't make it more... precise.
It's just astonishing.
The man responsible for commanding the building of 11
of these incredible structures was Emperor Lalibela.
But according to the Kebra Nagast,
which was written more than a century after they were built,
Lalibela was an interloper -
a member of a rival dynasty which could not claim Solomonic descent.
However, Lalibela claimed God commanded him to build churches.
In so doing, he attempted to claim legitimacy as an emperor
because he was doing God's work.
A legend grew over centuries
that the buildings were completed at super-human speed.
But recent research by a team of French archaeologists,
led by Francois-Xavier Fauvelle, suggests otherwise.
The usual story on Lalibela says that the whole churches
were built at the same time, within a very short period of time.
Whether it was three nights and three days or 24 years.
Basically this is the same story.
And now we are starting to expand the sequence,
which covers now a number of centuries.
We have occupations here, human occupations,
centuries before the 13th century.
And the architectural programme of Lalibela
develops on two or three centuries.
From the 12th to the 15th century, at least.
We can go inside here.
There's a great deal historians still don't know about Lalibela.
It's unlike any other archaeological site,
in that it's almost a case of archaeology in reverse.
In that way, it is not an archaeological site.
It is... You have to...
wash your mind about all this kind of previous...
way of thinking about architecture and archaeology.
Instead of successive deposits,
you have just successive removals of stone. I see.
And instead of having this deposit accumulating
and giving you information
about the successive occupiers of the place,
you have people who, the more they removed,
the more they erased traces of people that came before. Yes. Of course.
The French investigations are expected to go on
for at least four years.
Emperor Lalibela left an intriguing legacy,
one which underlines the uniqueness of his kingdom.
It's down here, outside,
when you don't actually have the light...
..radiating straight down on to it
that you can begin to see the intensity of the colour of the rock.
And...it almost glows.
It just blows you away
because it's completely unlike anything I've seen before.
And that isn't just in terms of the design but it's just thinking about
what does it take to do something like this?
It's a breathtaking display of the Emperor's power
to command his people to excavate thousands of tons of rock
without any form of mechanisation.
It speaks of the cosmopolitanism of this part of Africa at the time.
They brought images,
influences from all over Christendom and beyond.
I look at the influences and I'm just amazed that there's...
a two-headed eagle that you might see in Constantinople.
There's a star of David. In the centre of that is a cross.
'And in the friezes above the arch are what look like Greek icons.'
It's an astounding coming together of different cultural influences...
to create something which...
certainly aesthetically works
but also sends a signal
about this being
a new centre of religious thinking.
A new Jerusalem.
This is a scale and quality of architecture
on a par with many of the achievements of medieval Europe.
It's fascinating to see this cosmopolitan approach
in a place which many medieval Europeans
considered the extreme fringe of Christendom.
Thousands of pilgrims made the journey here to worship
and 700 years later they still do.
People come here to the 11 churches from all over Ethiopia and beyond.
MAN SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT
GUIDE TRANSLATES:
There's no doubt that Emperor Lalibela left the kingdom
something lasting and significant.
It might also provide me with another clue
that takes me further back in my search for the kingdom's origins.
The architectural features are very distinctive.
These shapes are thought to represent the rising sun.
And the lower windows have a variety of cross designs.
It's a double cross, so that you can actually see it
both as a cross and then also extruded.
And then, at the very top, is this shape that you see everywhere.
One of the things that I am...
beginning to think about this building is...
just looking at these windows,
you are forced to ask the question, why? Why these shapes?
But also why go to this length of bother
to create something quite so complex?
But more intriguing than the windows are the blocks at each corner.
They look almost like beams but the way the churches have been created
means that they are architecturally unnecessary.
This building is completely made from solid rock.
There would be no need to have any supporting structures inside it.
And yet it has some of those sorts of supports
running all the way along the length of this building.
The use of apparently structural features as pure decoration
tells me they've been copied from buildings that already existed.
Architectural quotations, if you like.
It also suggests that those earlier buildings
may have been important to the people who built Lalibela.
Remember, according to The Kebra Nagast,
Lalibela was not descended from Solomon.
So perhaps in copying an architectural style,
he was emphasising his claim to be the heir of earlier rulers.
Maybe in this architecture lies his claim to royal legitimacy,
to Biblical descent, and to greatness.
I don't know how old the buildings that inspired Lalibela might be,
or whether they lead to a connection between the kingdom
and Solomon and Sheba.
To find out, I'm going to head even further into Ethiopia's past.
This is one of the oldest inhabited places in the world.
Archaeologists have discovered signs
of the earliest human development here from four million years ago.
Even things that appear recent are ancient.
These terraces in Tigre Province
are believed to have been ploughed for 3,000 years.
In pre-colonial times, Ethiopia was the only sub-Saharan country
to use the ox-drawn plough -
a crucial step away from the pastoralist culture
of the rest of the continent further to the south.
The terraces rise from the bottom of the valleys to the mountain peaks.
They all have to be ploughed in time for the rains in a few weeks' time.
I want to try my hand at a 3,000-year-old skill.
I'm a natural!
I nearly had my eye out there!
How do I stop them?
What do I do to them? Stop!
THEY LAUGH
There is a serious point to all of this.
This method of agriculture was unique to these highlands.
It doesn't appear to have spread quickly to surrounding areas.
It underlines the isolation and separateness of life here.
It's hard work! It must be about 90 degrees out here!
I must admit, I really wouldn't want this as a job.
He's as bad at steering as I am!
I might have to give him tips, I think.
We're 10,000ft above sea level here.
And visitors to towns like this are unusual.
I wonder whether isolation like this
is why Ethiopia's traditions seem to have lasted so long.
They could develop independently
and free from outside interference.
There are few places in the world more self-consciously cut off
than my next destination.
In the far north of Ethiopia lies Debre Damo,
one of the most important sites in the country.
Debre Damo is one of the oldest buildings in Ethiopia
and it sits on top of this imposing table mountain.
It's a monastery dating back to the sixth century.
Its famed isolation is justified.
The only way to get to it is by climbing a rope made of goatskin
up a steep cliff.
Hopefully do a quick prayer for us as well.
I need all the help I can get!
Good luck! Thank you!
'It seems like a good idea to send Habtamu up first.
'He can show me how it's done.'
Oh!
Oh! No, he's fine.
Well done!
OK, let's get this safety on.
This has worked for thousands of years?
I mean, who am I to doubt it?
Even if my stomach is absolutely full of butterflies
and doesn't seem completely convinced,
I'm the sort of person who gets vertigo if I stand up too quickly!
But I really want to see Debre Damo,
so I think all of this is really worth it.
Oh. Oh!
Oh, I made it!
Oh, that probably wasn't very dignified but I don't care.
Just look at those views!
We're right at the top of the world.
Coming up here, getting up here,
I wouldn't have missed this for the world.
It's just amazing.
When the monastery was first established,
it's believed that up to 1,000 monks lived up here.
Today there are around 300.
It's said to be one of the oldest permanently occupied
Christian communities in the world.
And it's at least 500 years older than Lalibela.
It was built thanks to another Ethiopian emperor - Gebre Mesqel.
He ordered the construction of a colossal ramp
to help get building materials up on to the plateau.
Once the monastery was completed,
the ramp was demolished and Debre Damo was isolated once more.
And the monks continue to take their separation seriously.
So they don't allow women up here, is that right?
That's right.
No women. No women at all? No women at all?
And there were never any women allowed up here? That's the church?
'In fact, ever since the sixth century,
'they haven't even allowed female animals up from the valley floor.'
The fact that Debre Damo has been so cut off for so long
could be useful in my search for how this kingdom's traditions
have echoed through the ages.
I need to see the most important building here.
Tomorrow I'm going to join the monks at a special service
inside the sixth-century church.
So we're going to try and get a little bit of shut eye
and then be up with the sun because that's when the monks get up.
BELL RINGS
MONKS CHANT RHYTHMICALLY
Like every religious ceremony I've seen in Ethiopia,
their unique approach to Christianity is evident.
But it isn't just the service catching my eye,
it's the building it's held in.
WHISPERS: The most amazing thing is to see some of the features
that I saw earlier in my trip.
But yes, structurally you begin to get a sense of that history,
that was being evoked by the architects of Lalibela and Gondar
but here it's actually holding up this structure.
This was what they were echoing.
'Here are the square-ended beams
'I saw on the corners of the windows at Lalibela's rock churches.
'The rising sun window design is here too.'
'And I last saw these distinctive long wooden beams in Gondar,
'where the architecture struck me as being
'from an older local tradition.'
And here it is in a sixth-century church,
made from small uneven stones.
It's only these kind of beams that can hold up walls like these.
And another feature literally stands out -
different shaped beams which extend beyond the walls.
These are called monkey heads.
WHISPERS: Just trying to spend a few minutes just thinking about
how this monkey head technology was actually put together.
What I think is that...
these heads represent the end of a sort of...
dumbbell-like piece of wood...
that sat across a beam.
And, basically, because the ends were wider
than the body of these structures,
it actually meant that the pressure from above
helped to keep the building taut.
This meant you could build more than one storey on the buildings.
Here is a distinct continuity of architectural styles,
which it's almost certain were developed indigenously 2,000 years.
If this continuity stretches back even further,
to pre-Christian times, perhaps there is evidence somewhere
of the connection to King Solomon and to the Queen of Sheba.
Debre Damo deliberately cut itself off from the world.
My next destination was the busiest and most important city in Africa -
Aksum.
The interesting thing is that...
at the time that Debre Damo was being founded,
Aksum was a huge thriving city.
And I'm just reading this book about Aksum at its height,
about it being a huge ivory market
and people coming from all about to trade with this enormous empire.
The book is The Periplus Of The Erythraean Sea -
a first-century travel guide
which describes Aksum as a thriving, bustling city.
In fact, other documents of the time ranked Aksum alongside Rome,
Persia and China as one of the four great world powers.
Given its significance,
I think it's remarkable we know so little about its history.
After all, Aksum has a considerable claim to fame.
This, according to Ethiopians and their Orthodox Church,
is where the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon
actually brought the Ark of the Covenant 3,000 years ago.
Ethiopian Christians believe that beyond these walls
is one of the foundations of the Judeo-Christian tradition -
the Ark containing the Ten Commandments.
Until 1974, that Ark was the cornerstone
of the legitimacy of the kingdom itself.
The existence of the Ark here
would go a long way to prove that the Ethiopian dynasty of emperors
was founded by King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
It would confirm the legends that have lasted for centuries.
But the Ark is deemed so holy that no-one is allowed anywhere near it.
I can't go beyond this point here because, in that chapel there,
is where the Ark of the Covenant is said to be held.
Security's tight and it must be kept that way
to maintain the faith and foundations of the Orthodox Church
and, by extension, the legitimacy of centuries of kings.
If the Ark is not inside this building,
then the foundations of the Church
and the Ethiopian royal line would be destroyed.
But the Ark is not the only potential evidence
of this kingdom's ancient heritage.
My search for Ethiopia's past continues,
right next to the Ark's purpose-built resting place.
Now that building may be very new
but come and have a look over here.
Down here is something very, very old.
This is the remains of a building which is fourth century,
said to have been built by King Ezana.
Ezana, archaeologists believe,
was responsible for Ethiopia's first Christian church.
He was the first Ethiopian Emperor to convert to Christianity.
Archaeologists know this for certain
because coins minted during his rule
show almost the moment of Ezana's conversion.
One coin has a Christian cross in its design.
But another, earlier, coin shows the pre-Christian religious symbol -
the crescent moon and the sun.
This is hugely significant.
It means there was a continuity of ruler
before and after Ethiopia became a Christian country.
The Judeo-Christian tradition here does seem to be unbroken.
The coins confirm another fact.
By the fourth century,
this was a significant, well-established Kingdom.
This was the only place in sub-Saharan Africa at that time
known to have issued currency.
The coins aren't the only objects in Aksum
that show the power this place had at the start of the Christian era.
These are the grave markers, or stelai, of the emperors at Aksum.
They were made from solid granite
and some date back to the first and second centuries.
They are thought to be the largest pieces of stone
ever to come out of a quarry in the ancient world.
The tallest stood at over 30 metres
and weighed around 500 tons.
I think they're as impressive as any monument in Athens or Rome.
My guide here is showing me their amazing carvings,
which are still beautifully clear 2,000 years after they were made.
They depict the great buildings
it was believed the emperors would inhabit in the afterlife.
Skyscrapers to immortality.
This architecture was the architecture of the Aksumite people.
It is an architecture of a building. Yes. Multi-storey house. I see.
These are the...? Wooden beams, they represent.
The end of wooden beams.
When the Aksumites were practising this architecture first,
they start to use wood. I see. So we have the windows.
So we have the wooden beams. Then we have another.
This, in general, is multi-storey house building.
I've seen this before.
This is the architecture used at Debre Damo around 500 years later.
Over 1,000 years later, it appears to have inspired
the stonework of the churches of Lalibela.
At the top is the symbol of the rising sun once more.
I've had just a very quiet epiphany moment,
when this journey has begun to really make sense.
I mean, this...
..stelai, this single piece of rock,
holds many of the elements that I've seen on my journey up until now.
But, here, configured in a way that gives them a kind of sense,
gives them a continuous historical narrative,
which I suppose is the history of Ethiopia.
The features on these stelai,
marking the ancient burial places of Ethiopian emperors 2,000 years ago,
have been consciously echoed by the emperors that followed them.
What I'm seeing at Aksum are continuous traditions,
taking the story of the Ethiopian kingdom
back to the beginning of Christianity.
But I still want to find evidence
that the kingdom might go back even further -
to the days of Solomon and Sheba.
My guide has one more ancient artefact to show me.
Wow! What's this?
Here we have a memorial stone and inscription
which was written in the beginning of the fourth century by King Ezana,
the first Christian king of the Aksumite kingdom.
So what's inscribed on it?
The message of the inscription is more about his military victories
and more about his political power.
It's a proclamation, a kind of tourist information sign,
telling visitors to Aksum about the might of the Emperor.
And it's multilingual.
The inscription is in the local Ge'ez language,
still used in Church traditions.
It's in the international language of the day, ancient Greek
and it's in a language called Sabaean.
Sabaean was spoken only for a brief time
and only in this part of Africa and southern Arabia.
Historians think it died out around the eighth century
but it first appeared around 1000 BC.
It's the language of Saba,
the part of Yemen where the Queen of Sheba is said to have come from.
This stone is from the fourth century AD,
1,400 years after the Queen of Sheba is supposed to have reigned.
It's not the Ark of the Covenant
but it does point me deeper into the past
in my search for the kingdom's origins.
It's thought the kingdom of Aksum
was a continuation of a civilisation which had existed nearby.
That's where I'm headed now.
Just 20 miles away is the town of Yeha.
It could be the Old Testament world I've been looking for.
In this ancient town is a pre-Christian temple.
There were worshippers here when the Old Testament prophets were writing.
Over here, there would have been an altar.
And it's quite a deep well beneath the altar
because there would have been ritual sacrifice here.
This would have been a place
in which the blood would have been allowed to drain.
An important part of Old Testament Judaism was making offerings
in the form of slaughtered sheep and goats.
And this may well have been a bath,
where people would have come to cleanse themselves.
This building suggests all sorts of things.
Not much is known about the people who built this temple
but archaeologists believe
this is the oldest surviving building in Ethiopia.
It predates everything we've seen up until now.
The quality of this brickwork...
it just belies the fact that this building is...
500 BC.
That means it's older than the Parthenon in Greece
and centuries older than Rome's Colosseum.
It echoes the Judaism of the Old Testament,
the faith that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
claims was adopted here 1,000 years before Christ.
It echoes what the Patriarch told me at the start of my journey.
So we accepted Judaism.
Then we accepted Christianity.
And now it is 3,000 years old altogether.
But the most exciting thing about this temple
is a collection of artefacts found inside it.
They're now kept nearby in this small Christian church.
I think they might offer a final clue about Solomon,
the Queen of Sheba and the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.
HE GREETS HIM IN LOCAL DIALECT
Thank you.
I didn't know it would be like this.
'There are crosses and scriptures spanning years of Christianity.'
Thank you.
And there's an incense burner which doesn't belong in any church.
It's been carved with a pre-Christian symbol
of the crescent moon and the sun.
Archaeologists think it dates from the fifth century BC.
And from the same era as the burner are these stones,
inscribed in the language of the Queen of Sheba - Sabaean.
These are almost certainly objects from the time of the Old Testament
and they show an ancient link between Ethiopia and Saba -
the home of the Queen of Sheba.
This takes us back to... well, to the very beginning.
I mean, a lot of people talk about the Queen of Sheba
and here you're showing me a stone inscription
which may well mean that all of that is true.
It's pre-Christian evidence of the Queen of Sheba's language
in the heart of ancient Ethiopia.
It means it's just possible
that the legend of her son founding Ethiopia's kingdom is based in fact.
I wanted to find out whether there was any truth
in the legend of Ethiopia's kingdom
being founded by the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
In Ethiopia, separating legend from fact is difficult.
The stones in the church inscribed with Sabaean characters
are estimated to be 2,500 years old -
not quite the 3,000 years the Church claims
for its connection to the Old Testament but not far off.
And whilst there might not be proof of a blood connection to Solomon,
there is a striking cultural connection
to the world of the Old Testament.
It's also striking that faith in the legend has lasted centuries,
closely tied to the unique traditions of the Ethiopian Church.
I think it's endured because of Ethiopia's determination
to resist the influence of outsiders and to remain independent.
Ethiopia's emperors may have died out
but the kingdom, in many senses, still survives -
in the language, the people, the history, the traditions.
It's an extraordinary history, a proud history,
one that deserves to be better known.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2010
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