Just as the obelisk was being returned to Ethiopia after 68 years absence, the team sent by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to assess the Axum World Heritage Site have discovered yet more major archaeological relics. The team, who were sent to prepare the site for the reconstruction of the obelisk, have found underground chambers and arcades in the vicinity.

Using geo-radar and electromographic prospection, the team found several vast funerary chambers under the site’s parking ground, which was built in 1963. According to experts, the site is a royal necropolis used by several dynasties before the Christian era. Date collected is to be processed at La Sapienza University in Rome and used to create 3D models of the royal tombs.

A number of tombs have been discovered in Axum since the 1970s, with their riches now held at the archaeological museums of Axum and Addis Ababa. One tomb – the Tomb of the False Door – is open to the public.

The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, welcomed the discovery saying that opening these new tombs to the public “would represent an additional asset for the site, which, by boosting cultural tourism, would contribute to the economic development of the country.”

Axum was added to the World Heritage List in 1980. UNESCO became involved last November when the Italian and Ethiopian governments signed a bilateral agreement on the return of the Axum Obelisk, within the framework of the organisation’s 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

ENDS