30-Day Map Challenge / Day 08 / Utopia

A City of Towers

The storeyed stelae of Aksum, Ethiopia, drawn at their true height. Aksum carved skyscrapers it never built.

Three Aksumite stelae drawn side by side at true height, each carved like a multi-storey building with a false door at the base and rows of windows and beam ends above. King Ezana's Stele, 20.6 metres, 9 storeys, still standing. The Great Stele, 33 metres, 13 storeys, drawn dashed because it lies broken. The Rome Stele, 24.6 metres, 10 storeys, taken to Rome in 1937 and returned. A 1.7-metre person stands between them for scale. Below, a plan of the Northern Stelae Field marks where the three stand.

The three great stelae

Stele 3 · King Ezana’s Stele	20.6 m	9 storeys	standing
Stele 1 · The Great Stele	33 m	13 storeys	fallen
Stele 2 · The Rome Stele	24.6 m	10 storeys	returned 2005

Each stele is a single block of granite carved to look like a tall building: a false door at the base, then floor after floor of windows and the round ends of timber beams. Aksum’s palaces were built in the same style, but no building known from Aksum rose anywhere near thirteen floors. Raised around the 4th century AD and believed to mark royal tombs, the stelae show a city that existed only in stone.

Heights and weights as commonly published (Wikipedia, “Obelisk of Axum” and “King Ezana’s Stele”). The Great Stele’s 13 storeys as published; storeys on Steles 2 and 3 counted from photographs on Wikimedia Commons. Positions © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Elevations are schematic: heights and storey counts are true, widths and carving simplified. Code and method.