• Church Unearthed in Ethiopia Rewrites the History of Christianity in Af

    From Steve Hayes@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 11 13:03:35 2019
    XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox, alt.christian.religion
    XPost: soc.history, alt.history

    Church Unearthed in Ethiopia Rewrites the History of Christianity in
    Africa
    Archaeologists now can more closely date when the religion spread to
    the Aksumite Empire
    Site
    At an archaeological site in Ethiopia, researchers are uncovering the
    oldest Christian basilica in sub-Saharan Africa. (Ioana Dumitru)
    By Andrew Lawler
    smithsonian.com
    December 10, 2019 3:01PM

    In the dusty highlands of northern Ethiopia, a team of archaeologists
    recently uncovered the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan
    Africa, a find that sheds new light on one of the Old World’s most
    enigmatic kingdoms—and its surprisingly early conversion to
    Christianity.

    An international assemblage of scientists discovered the church 30
    miles northeast of Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, a
    trading empire that emerged in the first century A.D. and would go on
    to dominate much of eastern Africa and western Arabia. Through
    radiocarbon dating artifacts uncovered at the church, the researchers
    concluded that the structure was built in the fourth century A.D.,
    about the same time when Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized
    Christianty in 313 CE and then converted on his deathbed in 337 CE.
    The team detailed their findings in a paper published today in
    Antiquity.

    The discovery of the church and its contents confirm Ethiopian
    tradition that Christianity arrived at an early date in an area nearly
    3,000 miles from Rome. The find suggests that the new religion spread
    quickly through long-distance trading networks that linked the
    Mediterranean via the Red Sea with Africa and South Asia, shedding
    fresh light on a significant era about which historians know little.

    “The empire of Aksum was one of the world’s most influential ancient civilizations, but it remains one of the least widely known,” says
    Michael Harrower of Johns Hopkins University, the archaeologist
    leading the team. Helina Woldekiros, an archaeologist at St. Louis’ Washington University who was part of the team, adds that Aksum served
    as a “nexus point” linking the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine Empire with distant lands to the south. That trade, by camel, donkey
    and boat, channeled silver, olive oil and wine from the Mediterranean
    to cities along the Indian Ocean, which in turn brought back exported
    iron, glass beads and fruits.
    Pendant
    A stone pendant with a cross and the term "venerable" in Ethiopia's
    ancient Ge'ez script found outside the eastern basilica wall. (Ioana
    Dumitru)

    The kingdom began its decline in the eighth and ninth centuries,
    eventually contracting to control only the Ethiopian highlands. Yet it
    remained defiantly Christian even as Islam spread across the region.
    At first, relations between the two religions were largely peaceful
    but grew more fraught over time. In the 16th century, the kingdom came
    under attack from Somali and then Ottoman armies, but ultimately
    retained control of its strategic highlands. Today, nearly half of all Ethiopians are members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

    For early Christians, the risk of persecution from the Romans
    sometimes ran high, forcing them to practice their beliefs in private,
    posing a challenge for those scholars who study this era. Christianity
    had reached Egypt by the third century A.D., but it was not until Constantine’s legalization of Christian observance that the church
    expanded widely across Europe and the Near East. With news of the
    Aksumite excavation, researchers can now feel more confident in dating
    the arrival of Christianity to Ethiopia to the same time frame.

    “[This find] is to my knowledge the earliest physical evidence for a
    church in Ethiopia, [as well as all of sub-Saharan Africa,]” says
    Aaron Butts, a professor of Semitic and Egyptian languages at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved with the
    excavation.

    Harrower’s team conducted their work between 2011 and 2016 at an
    ancient settlement called Beta Samati, which means “house of audience”
    in the local Tigrinya language. The location, close to the modern-day
    border with Eritrea and 70 miles to the southwest of the Red Sea,
    appealed to the archaeologists in part because it was also home to
    temples built in a southern Arabian style dating back many centuries
    before the rise of Aksum, a clear sign of ancient ties to the Arabian Peninsula. The temples reflect the influence of Sabaeans, who
    dominated the lucrative incense trade and whose power reached across
    the Red Sea in that era.

    The excavators’ biggest discovery was a massive building 60 feet long
    and 40 feet wide resembling the ancient Roman style of a basilica.
    Developed by the Romans for administrative purposes, the basilica was
    adopted by Christians at the time of Constantine for their places of
    worship. Within and near the Aksumite ruins, the archaeologists also
    found a diverse array of goods, from a delicate gold and carnelian
    ring with the image of a bull’s head to nearly 50 cattle
    figurines—clearly evidence of pre-Christian beliefs.

    They also uncovered a stone pendant carved with a cross and incised
    with the ancient Ethiopic word “venerable,” as well as incense
    burners. Near the eastern basilica wall, the team came across an
    inscription asking “for Christ [to be] favorable to us.”

    In the research paper, Harrower said that this unusual collection of
    artifacts “suggests a mixing of pagan and early Christian traditions.”
    Ring
    A gold and carnelian ring depicting a bull's head from the excavation
    site. (Ioana Dumitru)

    According to Ethiopian tradition, Christianity first came to the Aksum
    Empire in the fourth century A.D. when a Greek-speaking missionary
    named Frumentius converted King Ezana. Butts, however, doubts the
    historical reliability of this account, and scholars have disagreed
    over when and how the new religion reached distant Ethiopia.

    “This is what makes the discovery of this basilica so important,” he
    adds. “It is reliable evidence for a Christian presence slightly
    northeast of Aksum at a very early date.”

    While the story of Frumentius may be apocryphal, other finds at the
    site underline how the spread of Christianity was intertwined with the machinations of commerce. Stamp seals and tokens used for economic
    transactions uncovered by the archaeologists point to the cosmopolitan
    nature of the settlement. A glass bead from the eastern Mediterranean
    and large amounts of pottery from Aqaba, in today’s Jordan, attest to long-distance trading. Woldekiros added that the discoveries show that “long-distance trade routes played a significant role in the
    introduction of Christianity in Ethiopia.”

    She and other scholars want to understand how these routes developed
    and their impacts on regional societies. “The Aksumite kingdom was an important center of the trading network of the ancient world,” says
    Alemseged Beldados, an archaeologist at Addis Ababa University who was
    not part of the study. “These findings give us good insight ... into
    its architecture, trade, civic and legal administration.”

    “Politics and religion are important factors in shaping human
    histories, but are difficult to examine archaeologically,” says
    Harrower. The discoveries at Beta Samati provide a welcome glimpse
    into the rise of Africa’s first Christian kingdom—and, he hopes, will
    spark a new round of Aksum-related excavations.

    Source: https://tinyurl.com/r25uom8

    <URL:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/church-unearthed-ethiopia-rewrites-history-christianity-africa-180973740/#jTvGojec0zTk1VUh.01>
    --
    Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
    Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
    Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com

    For information about why crossposting is (usually) good, and multiposting (nearly always) bad, see:
    http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm#xpost

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  • From Steve Hayes@21:1/5 to hayesstw@telkomsa.net on Wed Dec 11 13:22:26 2019
    XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox, alt.christian.religion
    XPost: soc.history, alt.history

    On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 13:03:35 +0200, Steve Hayes
    <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

    Church Unearthed in Ethiopia Rewrites the History of Christianity in
    Africa

    <snip>

    In the dusty highlands of northern Ethiopia, a team of archaeologists >recently uncovered the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan
    Africa, a find that sheds new light on one of the Old World’s most >enigmatic kingdoms—and its surprisingly early conversion to
    Christianity.

    Misleading headline and first paragraph.

    It doesn't rewrite history, it confirms what was already known from
    other sources -- that Frumentius and Aedisius, two Christian
    businessmen, were shipwrecked in the Red Sea, made their way to Axum,
    organised the Christians they found there, interested the king in
    Christianity, then hitched a ride home on another ship.

    Frumentius took a detour via Alexandria to let the Pope know what they
    had done, and urge him to send a bishop there. The Pope in question
    was -- wait for it -- Athanasius the Great, who was (surprise!
    surprise!) a contemporary of Constantine.

    Athanasius told Frumentius that with his experience he was the best
    candidate for bishop, ordained him and sent him back. And the rest is,
    as they say, history. And, according to this article, archaeology.


    --
    Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
    Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
    Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com

    For information about why crossposting is (usually) good, and multiposting (nearly always) bad, see:
    http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/unice.htm#xpost

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  • From reader@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 11 17:17:23 2019
    XPost: soc.history, alt.history, soc.history.ancient

    Forwarded:

    Church Unearthed in Ethiopia Rewrites the History of Christianity in
    Africa
    Archaeologists now can more closely date when the religion spread to
    the Aksumite Empire
    Site
    At an archaeological site in Ethiopia, researchers are uncovering the
    oldest Christian basilica in sub-Saharan Africa. (Ioana Dumitru)
    By Andrew Lawler
    smithsonian.com
    December 10, 2019 3:01PM

    In the dusty highlands of northern Ethiopia, a team of archaeologists >recently uncovered the oldest known Christian church in sub-Saharan
    Africa, a find that sheds new light on one of the Old Worlds most
    enigmatic kingdomsand its surprisingly early conversion to
    Christianity.

    An international assemblage of scientists discovered the church 30
    miles northeast of Aksum, the capital of the Aksumite kingdom, a
    trading empire that emerged in the first century A.D. and would go on
    to dominate much of eastern Africa and western Arabia. Through
    radiocarbon dating artifacts uncovered at the church, the researchers >concluded that the structure was built in the fourth century A.D.,
    about the same time when Roman Emperor Constantine I legalized
    Christianty in 313 CE and then converted on his deathbed in 337 CE.
    The team detailed their findings in a paper published today in
    Antiquity.

    The discovery of the church and its contents confirm Ethiopian
    tradition that Christianity arrived at an early date in an area nearly
    3,000 miles from Rome. The find suggests that the new religion spread
    quickly through long-distance trading networks that linked the
    Mediterranean via the Red Sea with Africa and South Asia, shedding
    fresh light on a significant era about which historians know little.

    The empire of Aksum was one of the worlds most influential ancient >civilizations, but it remains one of the least widely known, says
    Michael Harrower of Johns Hopkins University, the archaeologist
    leading the team. Helina Woldekiros, an archaeologist at St. Louis >Washington University who was part of the team, adds that Aksum served
    as a nexus point linking the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine
    Empire with distant lands to the south. That trade, by camel, donkey
    and boat, channeled silver, olive oil and wine from the Mediterranean
    to cities along the Indian Ocean, which in turn brought back exported
    iron, glass beads and fruits.
    Pendant
    A stone pendant with a cross and the term "venerable" in Ethiopia's
    ancient Ge'ez script found outside the eastern basilica wall. (Ioana
    Dumitru)

    The kingdom began its decline in the eighth and ninth centuries,
    eventually contracting to control only the Ethiopian highlands. Yet it >remained defiantly Christian even as Islam spread across the region.
    At first, relations between the two religions were largely peaceful
    but grew more fraught over time. In the 16th century, the kingdom came
    under attack from Somali and then Ottoman armies, but ultimately
    retained control of its strategic highlands. Today, nearly half of all >Ethiopians are members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

    For early Christians, the risk of persecution from the Romans
    sometimes ran high, forcing them to practice their beliefs in private,
    posing a challenge for those scholars who study this era. Christianity
    had reached Egypt by the third century A.D., but it was not until >Constantines legalization of Christian observance that the church
    expanded widely across Europe and the Near East. With news of the
    Aksumite excavation, researchers can now feel more confident in dating
    the arrival of Christianity to Ethiopia to the same time frame.

    [This find] is to my knowledge the earliest physical evidence for a
    church in Ethiopia, [as well as all of sub-Saharan Africa,] says
    Aaron Butts, a professor of Semitic and Egyptian languages at Catholic >University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved with the
    excavation.

    Harrowers team conducted their work between 2011 and 2016 at an
    ancient settlement called Beta Samati, which means house of audience
    in the local Tigrinya language. The location, close to the modern-day
    border with Eritrea and 70 miles to the southwest of the Red Sea,
    appealed to the archaeologists in part because it was also home to
    temples built in a southern Arabian style dating back many centuries
    before the rise of Aksum, a clear sign of ancient ties to the Arabian >Peninsula. The temples reflect the influence of Sabaeans, who
    dominated the lucrative incense trade and whose power reached across
    the Red Sea in that era.

    The excavators biggest discovery was a massive building 60 feet long
    and 40 feet wide resembling the ancient Roman style of a basilica.
    Developed by the Romans for administrative purposes, the basilica was
    adopted by Christians at the time of Constantine for their places of
    worship. Within and near the Aksumite ruins, the archaeologists also
    found a diverse array of goods, from a delicate gold and carnelian
    ring with the image of a bulls head to nearly 50 cattle
    figurinesclearly evidence of pre-Christian beliefs.

    They also uncovered a stone pendant carved with a cross and incised
    with the ancient Ethiopic word venerable, as well as incense
    burners. Near the eastern basilica wall, the team came across an
    inscription asking for Christ [to be] favorable to us.

    In the research paper, Harrower said that this unusual collection of >artifacts suggests a mixing of pagan and early Christian traditions.
    Ring
    A gold and carnelian ring depicting a bull's head from the excavation
    site. (Ioana Dumitru)

    According to Ethiopian tradition, Christianity first came to the Aksum
    Empire in the fourth century A.D. when a Greek-speaking missionary
    named Frumentius converted King Ezana. Butts, however, doubts the
    historical reliability of this account, and scholars have disagreed
    over when and how the new religion reached distant Ethiopia.

    This is what makes the discovery of this basilica so important, he
    adds. It is reliable evidence for a Christian presence slightly
    northeast of Aksum at a very early date.

    While the story of Frumentius may be apocryphal, other finds at the
    site underline how the spread of Christianity was intertwined with the >machinations of commerce. Stamp seals and tokens used for economic >transactions uncovered by the archaeologists point to the cosmopolitan
    nature of the settlement. A glass bead from the eastern Mediterranean
    and large amounts of pottery from Aqaba, in todays Jordan, attest to >long-distance trading. Woldekiros added that the discoveries show that >long-distance trade routes played a significant role in the
    introduction of Christianity in Ethiopia.

    She and other scholars want to understand how these routes developed
    and their impacts on regional societies. The Aksumite kingdom was an >important center of the trading network of the ancient world, says
    Alemseged Beldados, an archaeologist at Addis Ababa University who was
    not part of the study. These findings give us good insight ... into
    its architecture, trade, civic and legal administration.

    Politics and religion are important factors in shaping human
    histories, but are difficult to examine archaeologically, says
    Harrower. The discoveries at Beta Samati provide a welcome glimpse
    into the rise of Africas first Christian kingdomand, he hopes, will
    spark a new round of Aksum-related excavations.

    <URL:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/church-unearthed-ethiopia-rewrites-history-christianity-africa-180973740/#jTvGojec0zTk1VUh.01>

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  • From Robert@21:1/5 to hayesstw@telkomsa.net on Wed Dec 11 10:12:55 2019
    XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox, alt.christian.religion
    XPost: soc.history, alt.history

    On Wed, 11 Dec 2019 13:03:35 +0200, Steve Hayes
    <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

    The excavators biggest discovery was a massive building 60 feet long
    and 40 feet wide resembling the ancient Roman style of a basilica.
    Developed by the Romans for administrative purposes, the basilica was
    adopted by Christians at the time of Constantine for their places of
    worship. Within and near the Aksumite ruins, the archaeologists also
    found a diverse array of goods, from a delicate gold and carnelian
    ring with the image of a bulls head to nearly 50 cattle
    figurinesclearly evidence of pre-Christian beliefs.

    They also uncovered a stone pendant carved with a cross and incised
    with the ancient Ethiopic word venerable, as well as incense
    burners. Near the eastern basilica wall, the team came across an
    inscription asking for Christ [to be] favorable to us.

    In the research paper, Harrower said that this unusual collection of >artifacts suggests a mixing of pagan and early Christian traditions.
    Ring
    A gold and carnelian ring depicting a bull's head from the excavation
    site. (Ioana Dumitru)

    Since when was a Bull part of the Gospel Message?

    What this signifies is the RCC early adoption of pagan beliefs being incorporated into their church doctrine.
    --
    But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
    (Heb 11:6 KJV)

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  • From servant@21:1/5 to Robert scratches his head and on Wed Dec 11 20:42:51 2019
    XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.christian.religion, soc.history
    XPost: alt.history

    <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

    The excavators=92 biggest discovery was a massive building 60 feet long
    and 40 feet wide resembling the ancient Roman style of a basilica. >>Developed by the Romans for administrative purposes, the basilica was >>adopted by Christians at the time of Constantine for their places of >>worship. Within and near the Aksumite ruins, the archaeologists also
    found a diverse array of goods, from a delicate gold and carnelian
    ring with the image of a bull=92s head to nearly 50 cattle >>figurines=97clearly evidence of pre-Christian beliefs.

    They also uncovered a stone pendant carved with a cross and incised
    with the ancient Ethiopic word =93venerable,=94 as well as incense
    burners. Near the eastern basilica wall, the team came across an >>inscription asking =93for Christ [to be] favorable to us.=94

    In the research paper, Harrower said that this unusual collection of >>artifacts =93suggests a mixing of pagan and early Christian traditions.=94 >>Ring
    A gold and carnelian ring depicting a bull's head from the excavation
    site. (Ioana Dumitru)

    Robert scratches his head and asks:>
    Since when was a Bull part of the Gospel Message?

    What a shame, robert is victim of his now familiar reading comprehension problem once again.

    No such claim to that effect appears above.>

    What this signifies is the RCC early adoption of pagan beliefs being >incorporated into their church doctrine.

    Correction, what it demonstrates once more is robert's ignorance of church history and his willingness to invent it on the fly, no?

    The rcc as now known did not appear until aftrr 1000 AD, long after the
    time of this church.

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