The sacred City of Ethiopians, Legend has it that Emperor Menelik 1st the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, brought the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Axum, where he settled and established one of the world’s known, uninterrupted monarchical dynasties. Northern Ethiopian’s ancient city of Axum is the country’s oldest extant urban settlement and major religious center, it remains site of many antiquities, including the famous monolithic obelisks or stelae, important stone inscriptions, the remains of spectacular palaces and graves, and a special gold, silver, bronze currency.

Axum also emerged as an important religious center, site of the country’s most important and revered church of St, Mary of Tseyon (Zion) which, according to Ethiopian tradition, is the repository of the biblical Ark of the Covenant. Axum’s importance survived its political decline, between the seventieth and tenth centuries. A number of year later Ethiopian Emperors – all who could do so- went to the city for their coronation. Axum so impressed nineteenth – century British traveler Theodore Bent that he described it at length in his classic travelogue The Sacred City of the Ethiopia.