Communities and the Dead in Africa and Ancient Ethiopia (50–800 CE)

Abstract

In the Global North, death is often treated as the departure of a person. However, across Africa, families and communities often include living and dead members, usually called “ancestors.” In this article, we use archaeology to support educators in communicating key aspects of deathways and the study of ancestors in Africa. We do this through an example drawn from the ancient kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia (50–800 CE). Archaeologist Dilpreet Singh Basanti previously analyzed human remains from Aksum and reconstructed an ancient community’s burial and ongoing engagement with a young woman. Artist Naomi Mekonen has created a surrealist lens to present this woman’s story of death in this article’s figures. Surrealism is a rising perspective in modern art from the Tigray region and is used here to shift the tone from death as a grim tale of loss to death as a love story. We show how ongoing actions around the young woman’s tomb relate to her continued role in her family and community. Our example illustrates that ancestors are elements of healthy community life. Ancestors provide a guiding voice that helps to define people’s values and experiences of the world. In this way, ancestors are inseparable from “culture,” and exploring these themes helps us to appreciate the role of culture as a guiding way that connects generations of loved ones, living and dead.