Mapping Ethiopia’s Ancient Spirituality and Amba Gishen: From Sacralisation to Desacralisation

Abstract Amba Gishen, a cross-shaped mountainous place in the Southern Wollo Zone of Ethiopia, has for centuries been the site of a royal medieval prison thanks to its geographical isolation on the top of an amba (flat-top mountain). The first African narrative source of the deposition of a relic at Amba Gishen is cited in one of the most sacred Christian manuscripts of Ethiopia, the Mäshafä Tefut (fifteenth century). The presence of a holy relic, the fragment of the True Cross brought here by emperor Zara Yacoq in 1446, changed the meaning of that space for the Ethiopian people. The shifting topographies, from Mountain of the Royal Family to Mount of Myrrh, metaphorically referring to the myrrh associated with the Passion of Christ, have given way to a devotional focus and function, making Amba Gishen one of the holiest places in the land. As a place and site of confinement, however, the space inspired distorted imagery of Abyssinia, as conveyed by Anglophone travel narratives. The scope of the present research is to illustrate the dynamics in determining the sacralisation of spaces by their topographical morphology. This is achieved through the (re-)appropriation of natural spaces from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and through resisting the desacralisation featured in Western narratives.