Qohaito
Encyclopedia
Qohaito was a pre-Aksumite city that thrived during the Aksumite period. Located over 2,500 meters above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

 in the Debub
Debub
Debub Region, also known as the Southern Region, is a region of Eritrea. It lies along a portion of the national border with Ethiopia.-Overview:...

 region of Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

, on a high plateau at the very edge of the edge of the great Rift Valley
Great Rift Valley
The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...

, , Qohaito's ruins have yet to be excavated. The ancient port of Adulis
Adulis
Adulis or Aduli is an archeological site in the Northern Red Sea region of Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. It was the port of the Kingdom of Aksum, located on the coast of the Red Sea. Adulis Bay is named after the port...

 lies directly to the east.

History

Rock art
Rock art
Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...

 near the town appears to indicate habitation in the area since the fifth millennium BC, while the town is known to have survived to the sixth century AD. Mount Emba Soira, Eritrea's highest mountain, lies near the site, as does a small successor village.

It is often identified as the town Koloe of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea is a Greco-Roman periplus, written in Greek, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and India...

, a document dated to the end of the first century AD. Qohaito thrived as a stop on the trade route
Trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a single trade route contains long distance arteries which may further be connected to several smaller networks of commercial...

 between Adulis and Aksum, and Qohaito may have been a summer capital
Summer capital
A summer capital is a city used as an administrative capital during extended periods of particularly hot summer weather. The term is mostly of relevance in a historical context as political systems with ruling classes that would migrate to a summer capital are less prevalent in modern times...

 of the Aksumite empire. It is thought that crop
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

s were interspersed with buildings in the town, ruined buildings including the pre-Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 Temple of Mariam Wakino and the Sahira Dam (which may be pre-Aksumite).

The ruins at Qohaito were first located in 1868, but at the time erroneously identified as a "Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 depot". However, decades of civil war and autocratic rule have prevented Eritrea from properly excavating this important site and learning more of its poorly detailed history. A related site outside of Senafe
Senafe
Senafe is a market town in southern Eritrea, on the edge of the Ethiopian highlands. The surrounding area is inhabited by the Saho people and the Tigrinya people....

, Matara
Matara, Eritrea
Matara is an archaeological site in Eritrea. Situated a few kilometers south of Senafe, it was a major city in the Dʿmt and Aksumite kingdoms. Since Eritrean independence, the National Museum of Eritrea has petitioned the Ethiopian government to return artifacts removed from the site...

, lies about 15 kilometers to the south, and was excavated in the 1960s.
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