Chalacot or Chelekot is a village in the Tigray Region

Tigray Region

Tigray Region is the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray people. It was formerly known as Region 1...

 of Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Located in the Enderta

Enderta (woreda)

Enderta is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. It was named for the former Enderta province, which was later merged into Tigray Province...

 woreda of the Debubawi Zone

Debubawi Zone

Debubawi is one of five Zones in the Ethiopian Region of Tigray. Debubawi is bordered on the south and west by the Amhara Region, on the northwest by Mehakelegnaw , the north by Misraqawi and on the east by the Afar Region...

, 10 kilometers north of Antalo and 17 kilometers south of Mek'ele

Mek'ele

Mek'ele , also transliterated as Makale, is a city in northern Ethiopia and the capital of the Tigray Region. It is located some 650 kilometers north of the capital, Addis Ababa, at latitude and longitude with an elevation of 2084 meters above sea level...

, the village has a latitude and longitude of 13°22′N 39°28′E with an approximate elevation of 2100 meters above sea level. The Central Statistical Agency

Central Statistical Agency (Ethiopia)

The Central Statistical Agency is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growth, as well as to act as an official training center in that field. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and...

 has not published an estimate for this village's 2005 population.

History

Chalacot is mentioned in a charter written in 1794, when Emperor Tekle Giyorgis

Tekle Giyorgis I of Ethiopia

Tekle Giyorgis I was Emperor of Ethiopia intermittently between 20 July 1779 and June 1800, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty...

 made a grant to Meqdese Selassie Church in the village; the document mentions seven properties. Ras Wolde Selassie

Wolde Selassie

Wolde Selassie He was an Overlord of Tigray-Mereb Milash and a Ras Bitwoded of Ethiopia. He was the second son of Dejazmach Kefla Iyasus Amdamikael, hereditary chief of Enderta...

 made Chalacot his capital, and received Henry Salt

Henry Salt (Egyptologist)

Henry Salt was an English artist, traveller, diplomat, and Egyptologist.-Biography:Salt, the son of a physician, was born in Lichfield. He trained as a portrait painter, first in Lichfield and then in London under Joseph Farington and John Hoppner. In 1802 he was appointed secretary and...

 there in 1810. The Ras built a palace in the village, as well as houses for his wives and the church Chelekot Selassie, which Philips Briggs described as an "architecturally impressive example of the circular tikul styles of paintings" and "covered in beautiful 19th-century paintings". When Wolde Selassie died in Chalacot (1816), his nephew Walda Rufa'el sacked it.

The town had recovered its former prosperity by the 1840s when Ferret and Galiner visited it; they described it as "one of the principal towns" of Ethiopia, with a population of 3,000 living in well-constructed houses and well-kept gardens. However, a little more than generation later Chalacot had declined; Guglielmo Massaia

Guglielmo Massaia

Guglielmo Massaia was an Italian Catholic missionary, Capuchin and Cardinal. His baptismal name was Lorenzo; he took Guglielmo as religious name.-Life:...

 found only 200 houses with about 1,000 inhabitants and in the 1880s Augustus B. Wylde reported he counted only 80 houses there. The town suffered further losses during the First Italo–Ethiopian War according to Richard Pankhurst, who included Chalacot in a list of northern Ethiopian towns affected by the "disturbed conditions of the times."

Notable inhabitant

Chelekot is the birth place of Ras Araya Dimtsu of Enderta

Enderta

Enderta may refer to:* Enderta province, a historic subdivision of Ethiopia* Enderta, a woreda within the Tigray Region of Ethiopia...

chief crown counciler to Emperor Yohavenss IV of Ethiopia 1867-1889. Ras Araya was also an influential governor of Tigray and Akale Guzay. He died at the battle of Metema while fightinng against the mahdists of Sudan along with Emperor Yohaness in March of 1889. He is the maternal uncle of Emperor Yohaness.