The Missing Tower

At the Entoto Royal Citadel, in three photographs from 1897

as published in two French contemporary travel logs, hints at the fate of two structures

Charles Michel, Mission de Bonchamps, Vers Fachoda, à la rencontre de la mission Marchand à travers l'Éthiopie, Paris, 1900, p 237

1 Introduction

Adwa hills, Tigray, , February 1896. A colonial power, freshly reunited Savoia's Italy and an Imperial African dynasty, also in the process of reuniting a vast Country, prepare to clash. The prodromes included a rather ignorant, offensive attempt on the part of the Italians to acquire Ethiopia as a protectorate via treachery: the French and Amharic versions of a peace treaty in Wechale, after initial skirmishes and the “buying” of the Assab port, used by the Savoia to gradually invade Eritrea -integral part of the since immemorial- differed substantially.

1

The Amharic version read Ethiopia could use the services of Italy in foreign relationships, the French one stated Emperor Minilik, then King of Shoa, had to pass via Italy, reducing him to a subjected ruler.

At Adwa, the two camps had similar numbers of antiquated Remington rifles, but the Italians left their tents without the optic signals, and had a badly prepared battlefield map1, so a column was well ahead of the other four, on the day of confrontation, March 2nd. Prepared easily surrounded the lost main column immediately, and concluded in about seven hours a complete, resounding victory that included the killing or capturing of all five Generals, the killing of over six thousand and the imprisonment of about three thousand enemies. They treated the latter as special guests, a few selected chose to remain as Minilik's engineers and helps, as the Ethiopians in the following treaty implicitly accepted Eritrea as an Italian colony. The Emperor was wise enough to realize his limits, and avoid provoking an industrial, though characteristically disorganized Nation, by following the fleeing troops to Massawa.

Immediately, within that very month, the unexpected total reversal of the fortunes of a colonial power lead to the fall of an Italian government, easily -till now- brought to pieces by weak politics and the squabbles of a limited elite, but also to the complete, extremely rare change of an old ruling Piedmontese class to include other ethnicities -something only major external factors could have fostered2- and, within the year, to the start or the planning of a few major official visit by European missions to Minilik.

2 Visitors in Entoto: the Pentagon

Among visitors to Ethiopia just after Adwa, three missions reached Entoto, the ridge above present day Ethiopia's capital city. Entoto had been the siege of Government, until around 1887, when Minilik started building in Addis Ababa, nearer the hot springs of Filwuha and Taitu, his consort in particular spurned the rivaling Sires of the newly unified land to build, likely to let each engage in less divisive, dangerous and more unifying activities, as internal peace finally prevailed in the Empire.

Minilik had selected Entoto for his moving camp3 on January 29th 1881, days after his men, while he was just north and below it, in Sululta, found massive ruins there.

“The almighty allowed us to recover the concrete vestiges of the Town of . As this discovery has been made in our times, it is convenient that we rebuild the city” commented Minilik according to his chronicler, Gebre Selasie W/Aregay4.

According to Pere Ferdinand, it only took less than two weeks to move the original Entoto camp from the last southeastern propage of Mount Wechacha, where his grandfather Sahle Selassie regularly camped5. About thirty years ago Anfray, of evaluated that area, a medieval site.

Subsequently, Minilik’s clergy and hagiographers built what is by now a part of Ethiopian myth. The Dersana Raguel, “Tale of Raguel” - an Archangel in the Orthodox faith, recounts how Emperor Dawit, alternatively indicated as Emperor , 1386-1402 or Dawit II/Lebna Dengel, 1509-1540, had an inspired dream about his town, abandoned and covered by tree growth, inhabited by fiery beasts, until a splendid successor would restore it, 350 years or some fifteen generations later6.

One of the colourful, elegant paintings on the sancta sanctorum walls in the Church he erected in the midst of the found ruins, in 1885/6, depicts Dawit's dream, duly next to Minilik's apotheosis.

2

The first existing photo of those coveted ruins is by Sylvain Vigneras, published in his 1897 “Une mission Francaise en Ethiopie”.

The printed cliché, available online, shows them dominating the hill next to Beta Raguel, exactly where the now so called “Pentagon” stands.

“Église de Raghuel et ruines de l'ancienne Entotto” Sylvain Vignéras, Une mission française en Abyssinie, 1897, p 139

I have claimed the Entoto Pentagon is a massive one hectare medieval fort, antecedent to modern cannons, pre ca. 1540 CE stellar style, with protruding towers and a classic two tiered structure, as the two “parapets” mentioned by Gleichen also indicate. The parapets conceal a number of internal bastions and division walls. I attribute it, on the escort of chroniclers mentioning grand construction works in Entoto in 1515 to Emperor Dawit II, not to the first7. Its clear influences of Iberian origin could also be more compatible with that period, though fortress makers and military advisers from Europe where in high demand at the Solomonic court, much like artists and architects, since Emperor Wedem Arad's thirty strong mission to the old continent, in 13068.

I leave the still scanty study and necessary description of the Pentagon to further, much needed archaeological investigations, to concentrate on its major missing tower. Some photoes here under help clarify the context in which it stood. The Pentagon still exists in its near entirety, unexpected proof of ancient Ethiopian military might, chronologically the last of a set of recovered forts, Churches, villages and towns, tangible signs of an age of rather forgotten splendor. Unless studies and protective actions happen soon, I have indications it will be imminently disfigured by the development of tourist lodges within its perimeter, by well connected investors, ignorant of its chief value to their own developments.

3

The Southern western ramparts, the first shown, against the sky in the Vigneras photo above

Two of the other South towers shows clearly a two-tiered structure: 1- the SW corner, 360cm tall in all

4

2- A South central tower, surrounded by rubbish from the recently abandoned police station above Under it -reading the Fra Mauro map, possibly five to eight miles away- was Barara, the capital city, lying in north west Addis Ababa adjacent to Mt Wechacha, and was also utterly destroyed during the winning campaign of Mohamed ibn Ibrahim “the conqueror” of Adal in 1530, like all other major settlements and Churches of the Solomonic fief in Central Shoa9.

An impressive ornament on this decorated inner west wall was a little heart, likely attached to it as an applique

5

Left: an inner bastion, eastern ramparts, near symmetric to the missing tower, next to an L shaped fascist caserne

Structures and building materials of the two, fascist L shaped fortino section and bastion, are easily distinguishable

6

The Pentagon in a 2003 DigitalGlobe Quickbird satellite view, from Googleearth. Note the rectangular small structure.

This image and visits reveal the presence of eleven towers. Five smaller ones indicate the elongated Entoto Pentagon's corners, while six, three on the south wall, two on the north walls and one only on the east rampart complete an incomplete tower count. Simmetricity would require the presence of another tower on the west side.

I long wondered how, and why the west wall appears undefended, incapable of finding more structures on that side, until seeing this second picture by Charles Michel, a member of the mission dispatched to encounter a similar expedition, the Marchand mission.

Approaching two photoes by Charles Michel and the one by Sylvain Vigneras to present day satellite views it is evident that the west tower was the biggest of twelve, massive, dominating an impressive trench, described by Windsor Royal Family member Count Albert Gleichen in his visit to the Entoto Royal Citadel, that very 1897. He left us no photoes of he ruins, to the best of my knowledge. He describes the Pentagon as an “exceedingly strong fortress”. Note he was a military adviser.

« Of the old capital of Entotto only a few huts are left, beside the ruins of what must have been an exceedingly strong fortress. Some broken walls are still in existence, and the remains of a large round stone tower dominate the height; but the most extraordinary portion of the fortress is the deep ditch cut in the solid rock. Quite 12 feet deep and 18 feet broad is it ; the labour of hewing it out must have been immense, for the rock is not a soft one, and infinite labour of slaves or prisoners must have been spent in its construction. The ditch almost surrounds the fortress and must have formed a complete defence in itself, beside the two parapets, one above the other, which command it throughout. »

Count Gleichen, With the mission to Menelik, London, 1898, pages 210-211. Lord Albert Edward Gleichen

7

Major Powell Cotton described the fort as impermeable unless attacked by modern heavy fire arms, and the trench as twenty feet tall and wide, in his 1903 recount of his ivory hunting expeditions. Cesare Nerazzini describes a fort in Entoto, on the way to the pass from Mininilik's residence, in a specific locality called 'Docondor' or 'The Elephant'10, I have no doubt all three descriptions refer to the same structure, the massive Entoto Pentagon.

Major Powel Cotton the trench 35m NW of the missing tower. The nearest point

The Royal Citadel, used by Minilik as a tool of dynastic recognition has unfortunately since slipped into oblivion and become, for real, once again a forest populated by hyenas and other wild beasts.

As a result the whole of the south west Pentagon structures were tore down, stone by stone, at an unknown date after 1897 and before author's first visit in 1995. I hope publishing this note and further interviews with local informants may narrow down the now one century long, undefined loss period.

A family occupied the land right next to the west ramparts ca. 1960; their compound though, reveals no trace of the masses of picked stones. Minilik would not have destroyed the tower, a significant part of his town foundation myth, the most visible. Nor should Empress Taitu, relegated nearby until her death in 1917, have tolerated its demise. The fascists built a structure indicated as the “fortino” by my informant, plane mechanic and pilot Mario Capussi, son of a qualified Aermacchi pilot and mechanic. It was erected with totally different building materials around 1937, during their “Adwa revenge” short colonial occupation, as inscriptions on the west remnant wall may testify. The Derg built around 1984 the abandoned police station at the centre of the northern ramparts. It used part of the fortino as a poultry shed until recently.

The stones that were used by Minilik's men, by the fascist occupants, or both, to rebuild tracts of the original walls are likely to have originated in the constructive rubble present in masses all around, not from the tower. Destroying it just to obtain building material for propping up the Entoto Pentagon's walls appears a costly enterprise. For the reason that the reconstructed tracts are not particularly near the disappeared tower. I suspect the demolition was deliberate. Though the collapse of a tract of its base (see p. 22) may indicate a fall. Where went the stones, is unknown.

The tower fate remains a mystery. I may limit the event to the Haile Selasie or early Dergue period, as the Italians were not known to destroy heritage, for different reasons, including a pride shown in the antiquities of the conquered, and in fact performed the sole full restorations of fortresses realised in . I cannot exclude the fascists, under threat, as they fortified the area with a barbed wire fence a concrete, solid post of which is visible under the SE corner tower, found the main tower of no 8 defensive use and took the pain to remove it stone by stone, to fill the gaps in the walls Count Gleichen described, stating the walls were “broken”.

Who demolished the missing tower, why, rather, did it collapse, all stand yet as unanswered questions.

3 Give to David what is David's

Minilik's claim on the finding of “Dawit's town” was never verified by professional historians, his chronicler Gebre Selasie excluded; thirty five hectares in all of imposing ruins were never mapped, protected nor excavated. The presence of his camp, moved from the original Entoto, a medieval site mentioned by the Fut'h al Habesha in the early fifteen hundreds as Antitah, near Barara note, as the “new Entoto” thus gave later the perception to some scholars, like Frances Anfray, that the vast ruins were those of a palace by Minilik. Contemporary designs first, by Jules Borelli as well as his and others' descriptions of his Entoto residence dis-spell any doubt: Minilik then lived in mud houses, received dignitaries in the red tent preserved in the Entoto Mariam museum collections, and never built a perfectly aged and semi demolished replica of a medieval huge fort, after having claimed he found it.

One further caution I took before re-publication here came from an information I received on the intention of the Emperor to build a fort in Entoto in 190711. The ailing monarch evidently never accomplished the wish, as no one ever mentioned the site, its opening or abandonment. The fort was immediately opposed by foreign legations, mostly founded under Entoto and within the range of a potential new unfriendly occupant of the supposed fort. The 1897 photoes here debated close that specific matter.

The proposed Minilik fort was certainly not the Pentagon. In fact, it was never even designed.

Its shape, grandiosity, state of preservation as the signs of deliberate destruction of the other seven forts found recently within Addis Ababa, the presence of a more ancient fort, Anchorcha, on the Fra Mauro map and over fifteen exact correspondences between that map and geographical features and, above all, recovered medieval sites indicate Entoto as an ancient Royal Citadel, as Minilik first claimed it is. Not, though, standing as a major feature around 1435, as the mentioned map, designed by local clergy for Mauro, presents no structures on Entoto. I claim, thus, it was the work of Dawit II, not the first.

Before the necessary excavations will confirm the dating as prior to the 1530 destruction, I claim it is Lebna Dengel's main fort, covered in perfectly matching opus cyclopicus, plastered to be seen as the dominating feature above the central Shoa Solomonic power house, from the Tich agricultural plain below Mount Wechacha, from Barara and its satellite conglomerations.

This massive fort thus appears to be a five hundred years old structure, worthy of comparison to equivalent coeval European Royal fortresses. It was a vast residence, not just a mountain fort. A place where banquets, receptions, foreign dignitaries would be admitted and where courtly life with its tradition of Senterej, original Ethiopian chess playing and local dances would have been cultivated in painted interiors, whose colours were described by the fort's destroyers, where paintings by noted European and Abyssinian court artists hung. Adjacent to wealthy gold adorned churches. Pillaging one Royal Church, found in the vicinity of a major fort, and its area for twenty consecutive days made each of around three thousand five hundred fighters rich.

We found evidence of ancient plastering techniques, akin to those in use in Iberian Europe at the times. Below the now missing tower stands a wall that bore decorations, the tower itself had a singular decorated stone at its base, whose relief was bashed off.

9

A plastered and coloured stone from the elitist compound found west of the citadel trench system

4- The Tower in context

The second 1897 photo by Charles Michel, the third examined here, shows clearly a small rectangular structure, also present in his first cliché, on this paper's frontispiece.

The structure appears to correspond exactly to a set of two rooms, still standing next to the north fort wall, possibly an armory or a guards' room. If the position of the tower is the one I presume, in the west Pentagon's side, as South West tower.

The Pentagon thus had a major tower, dominating the whole structure, evident from afar, like the inner bastion we discern today, only, wider and taller. The two examined photoes show it was covered by perfectly matching stones and was thus likely plastered white all over, to underline its imposing mass, when seen from below.

Second C. Michel cliché, 1897. Note the structure to the left. Size and door position are those of an existing armory

10

The first cliché by Michel shows an high pillar akin to a door side plinth (see first page). Its position can be deduced, it is now also lost. Both this photo and the one taken by Vigneras show the Pentagon's south towers. These latter from a distance of about 260 m, as it was taken from where we now know was the pillaged treasury of a major Church, likely connected to it via a rock cut passage, the “three pillar facade”, whose main base stump has been very recently damaged by a resident. The Church, or other massive structure, was on the other side of the citadel's inner trench.

The existing ruins (orange) and the missing tower (blue). A detail shows the South towers and the inner E bastion

The Pentagon, one of the South rampart towers the postierla, the back escape route

Dawit's dream. The sire is recognised by a crown, Beta Raguel. Beta Mariam Entoto. in an Alfred Ilg 1900 photo

11

The eastern protruding tower-like extension

Minilik's residence, totally in mud and straw with a thicket fence, Entoto settlements, Jules Borelli 1887 photo (design12) The caption indicates this view is from the west. It is possible thus to recognise this as the Beta Mariam hill. Quite distinct from the higher ridge on the mountain top, at 3020m ca where the Pentagon stands.

12

5- The missing tower, emplacement and an existing significant base part

An attentive examination of the three photoes of the Entoto Royal Citadel by two consecutive French missions to Minilik gives two distinct clues to its positioning. a) A rectangular structure appears on the two clichés by Charles Michel, evidently the same, though it shows only very partially on the first one examined here. It coincides undoubtedly with a two room armory, or guard's room adjacent to the North ramparts. The missing tower is placed to the near Southwest of it, as indicates the presence of a long wall leading to the tower, seen also in a photo from the west of Beta Raguel.

The rectangular house in a photo taken during an Italian and Spanish Embassy staff visit, 2015

The photo above is taken from inside the Pentagon's external walls, where the land filled one hectare wide terrace holds a set of different constructions, including three successive to the Italian invasion. b) The tower and the pillar-like structure are in the forefront, seen from Beta Raguel, next to the deepest tract of the inner three-tiered set of trenches that delimit the Royal Citadel. That is, as evident in the Sylvain Vigneras photo, to the West of the other towers of the Pentagon, in front of the 160m long towered South ramparts. Without this clearly oriented photo from a separate prior mission, any identification would be purely speculative.

Clues to the mystery of the missing tower must be looked for in a limited area, where the shape of the external walls lead to the supposition of the existence of a prior, now demolished set of structures.

13

A satellite view akin to the ground level photo from the Beta Raguel vicinity reveals their likely exact emplacement.

A satellite view to relate Vigneras' photo to the present: approaching to the presumed emplacement of the larger tower

It is possible also to know the tower's sizes, thanks to two details on the first examined photo: shemmas or traditional cloths seen hanging on the wall directly in front of the missing tower, and two heads seen as silhouettes projected on one netela or gabi, white cloth dress.

Detail of C. Michel's first photo and measurements based on pixel counts

As the heads -I evaluate projected over 18cm- stay ten times inside the white netela as indicated, considering its entire width at 1.8m, pixel count reveal the tower as 16m wide and five metres high. As inexactitude is caused by the unknown distance between the heads and the fabric and the wall and the tower right behind, these two measurements are approximations. The height to width ratio is the same in the Vigneras photo, though less defined and from afar, it shows it as complete. If the tower was 16m wide, it was 5m tall. The general emplacement defined, the diametre helps find the tower's base.

14

Successive quickbird satellite images of the area I indicate invariably show structures SW of the two room house

15

A rounded tract of 170-220cm tall wall, with a considerable out-pour of constructive rubble, where my indications site the missing tower. Its base? The diametre corresponds. There is more and varied rubble up in the centre of this area

This tract of the main tower base includes an effaced, broken off ornament. Was it perhaps the emblem of the Emperor? Note the tower base still bears what appears to be the first layer of stones of another ca. three metres high structure, as I deduce from the total five metres presumed main tower height, cfr. pixel count based approximated size evaluation.

16

This base sustained an over sixteen metres wide tower. The missing tower in the Entoto Royal Medieval Citadel.

The vast triple trench system, features of the Royal Citadel. The inner N tallest tract was used in the tower identification

SE structures: the inner bastion, symmetrically placed to the main tower, from space and in the Sylvain Vigneras photo The plastered or covered rectangular white area is an image defect, or is tied to the pillar on the frontispiece photo?

6- A majestic pillar

The pillar that stood to the right of the main tower in the Pentagon bore a Crown. It appears separate from the castle and projects a shadow on a wall tract directly behind it. It stood by itself for four to five metres, judging from the first Michel photo. On which it is cut longitudinally in half by the frame.

Near castle in Gondar two pillars delimit the access gate. They are akin to this pillar. Less rich and apparently slightly less massive, not surmounted by a crown, they appear to have sustained a now fallen arch. They led to a perfectly preserved, but much smaller, later castle. In a way, like the fortunes of Gondar relate to those of Barara, capital of a considerably vaster and richer land, the Entoto

17

Pentagon is far more majestic than the still fully standing symbol of the Ethiopian castle, Fasilides'.

C. Michel first photo, modified to show the full pillar. Fasil castle, Gondar. Courtesy J. Munsch, thetravelingmunschkin.com The crown casts a neat shadow. It could have been shaped from a single stone. I cannot so far find trace of the pillar, or of the external gate it was likely to be part of.

The presence of a crowned pillar entry is a clear sign that the Pentagon was an Imperial castle, serving as a fort and a residence at one time. A splendid predecessor to Fasil Ghimb, Gondar, a dozen times vaster, well over one hundred years older; much similar, with its protruding towers to the also much smaller, prior Azezo fort, rather than to the main royal compound building in Gondar, Fasil’s castle. A pillar, a castle, a distinctive culture. Unique in Africa and the world.

The Azezo fort, before 1600 CE, shows Portuguese influences; the Pentagon in Entoto, mathlab software edge revelation

7- A monumental door and a choreographic massive tower?

The peculiar, rich pillar must have indicated an access, thus, to the Entoto Pentagon.

I had so far found two accesses, one of a limited size, about a metre across (I presumed the “escape door”, photo on p. 11), and another one, modified today by the only road into the abandoned police station, whose original size is now impossible to guess, without excavations. It is, though, made evident by a rise in the main external wall next to it. A set of perfectly aligned cornerstones now aside the modern door pillar constitute the door's original west side.

18

A raised wall tract next to the North East door, now access to the police station

Today well cut stones close a door, under the main tower, strategically placed between it and another round, much smaller protruding tower. Where these stones part of the elements of the missing construction?

The fact that a number, higher then elsewhere, of the carefully put stones that obstruct the narrow and well protected door are inscribed with names and origin of the Italian occupants, may indicate they posed them? I suggest these two observations are related: the tower may have been demolished, or collapsed before 1936, and the “fortino” occupants used the cut stones to close that access.

The South west door. Inscriptions, fascist, concentrate on the obstruction stones

19

The door (right) and the main tower base. Note the central base collapse

One evident observation must be made concerning the tower base I report as being identified. Like the opposite tallest tract of wall to the North east of the Pentagon, the missing tower indicated one of two main entries. But it was not, in my understanding, a closed structure. Its mass served mainly as an architectural assessment of power of state, secondarily as a protection to the door. The pillar with a crown on top was leading to the door, which appears clearly in the first Charles Michel photo examined, as a procession of white, feast dressed people come across it. The same door was out of frame, to the right in the second and hidden behind the pillar and a wall in the Vigneras cliche'.

The door is clearly seen in the first examined 1897 photo, as people cross it

20

The missing tower was protruding and protected a door, as it foundation shows, but was not a closed structure

Both photographs by Charles Michel appear to have been taken from a similar point, likely during the same festive day. Actually, they also present the best perspective of a non closed tower, which is in fact, a third of a tower, massive as it appears there, in the shape of a crescent. Moving the camera to its side would have revealed its real shape. And turned the two into definitely less impressive photographs.

The South West door between towers, 2011 sat view, is not visible in the Vigneras photo. Hidden by the pillar and a wall

The tower, composed actually of a circular segment of about 120 degrees, may not have resisted the collapse of its base (first photo, p. 19 above), perhaps provoked by human activities while Entoto was Minilik's capital. The whole procession of people in two 1897 photoes appear to come from inside the Pentagon, where some camp could have been, meetings or religious activities would have taken place.

21

Conversely, it is just as possible that the demolition of its upper parts engendered the base collapse. And that passing via the now closed door was, simply, the shortest way between Beta Mariam and Raguel.

It is now possible to pinpoint with good approximation the positions of Michel's camera, too. The first was South West of the pillar, the second quite near it. Unfortunately, not knowing the objective characteristics, the emplacements cannot be precise.

Camera emplacement, Michel's photoes, June 2011 Quickbird sat image. His camera and Vigneras’ had similar pointings

8- A meaning to the orientation of a scenic tower sector: dominate the capital

While the first evident function of the tower was the protection of the door, its height, size and perfectly matching outer stone layer, like the royal pillar access easily reveal its value as, mainly, an assertion of power, visible from considerable distances.

The circle on which the tower was built, as a sector, runs for 51m, the segment the tower was built on measures approximately 17.5m, one third of the mentioned circumference. One third is the minimum circular section to still appear, from one specific direction, as a full round tower.

I claim here this orientation is of particular significance. We now need to know where the directive of the tower led. Where it was intended to be seen from.

It is simple to observe that if the orientation of the tower and the length of the circle segment -still evident in its entirety in its base- were just tied to the positioning of the SW door and its sheltering, the door could have been turned towards, or nearer to the main trench, and it could have easily been turned in a number of other directions. The tower definitely did not need at all to be so disproportionate to the one on the other side of the door, nearly four times larger, 16m against 4,4.

The tall semi-circumference was built to be seen, impress, a feature it invested from afar, the door protection being, instead, localised and likely less important. Certainly, a task it could have covered being symmetric, equal sized to the other, not needing to be so spectacularly more imposing.

22

The orientation of the tower can be deduced from a simple geometrical construction, as it was a circular segment

The camera emplacement chosen by both Michel and Vigneras easily confirm and strengthen my observation: they just had to place them where the stage had been set, along a preferential directive.

The directive takes us where the most recent quest for Barara, the capital, ca. 1400 to its 1530 destruction is on going

It is evident that if the tower was built with the purpose to be seen, it was to be imposing and directed to the main settlement, and to the paths reaching from it. It had to be oriented there.

This is a further indication to the team from the Addis Ababa University College of Development Studies now actively engaged in identifying the main sites of medieval central Shoa. I am still convinced the density of pottery and obsidian in Korke, in particular near the now sadly destroyed one hundred metre wide Sahle Selassie's granaries, where according to informants a 23 grand ancient Church stood, justifies a town-like population. This is some three miles SW of our search area.

Yet the rivers and valleys below and North of the Rebi hill, occupied by a second pentagonal fort, recently recovered and not yet evaluated, appear today as an even better match. This both to the Fra Mauro map, that shows Barara's doors turned to today's Entoto at five, maximum eight miles approximately from the Gojjam pass, and studying the positions of eight standing forts protecting it from above, all over a vast hill arch, at the northwest limits of present day Addis Ababa.

So far, visits by Hartwig Breternitz on the Wechacha slopes and hilltops, including the area indicated as Jammu above our search area, and by our team on the pathways from Sadai, Barara's sister city, at the back of the same vast volcano, towards NW Addis have yielded fortifications, not a metropolitan area.

A set of considerations, including the absence of concentrations of artefacts on the Rebi Hill, or on the main tops of Jammu appear today to confirm Richard Pankhust and Hartwig Breternitz final consideration in their “Barara, a royal city...” paper in the Annales d'Ethiopie, (bibl. n.4; conclusions, first parag.), that “The assumptions of this survey (location on hill-tops in association with wall structures) may not have been correct. If such cities were located on a more flattish area, erosion might well have covered the structures with a layer of mud”.

Our more correct understanding of the relevant area of the Venetian map, with the confirmed observation it was designed by locals, and the precise definition of numerous landmarks and sites on it, named only thanks to the map, now take us up to an area of NW Addis, relatively recently overbuilt.

The task becomes very hard, as satellite imaging is of no, or little use here. Possibly with the exception of the US military reconnaissance last Coronasat of the early seventies, with a resolution of 180 cm, we have so far no access to. The powerful “spysat” images would pre-date dense construction. They have been of considerable use in fertile crescent contexts to identify whole sites, before town developments in the last generation, and well before the 2002 Quickbird, better definition commercial satellite launch.

The search area in context, surrounded by strong forts of different shapes, white names in dark red contours We are continuing our quest. As evidently the archaeological sounding of a rather vast town area is extremely costly and difficult -practically impossible as we stand- we at least insist the mountain forts,

24 starting with the Entoto Pentagon, the churches, the pass villages within Addis Ababa should as an urgent imperative be studied, promoted and immediately preserved from their recent tragic, accelerated, unstoppable and utterly meaningless destruction.

9- Conclusions

Photoes obtained from digital copies of two travelogues of French emissaries that reached Entoto as a direct consequence of the Adwa victory prove Atze Minilik's claim of the discovery of a medieval Royal Citadel in Entoto, inclusive of a massive one hectare wide and complex pentagonal fort author re-discovered and recently published, in an incomplete form.

All three presented clichés13 are dominated by a now lost major tower, described by Albert Gleichen as seen impending a deep trench, part of the citadel's fortification system.

Comparison of satellite imaging from different dates, the three examined visitor's photoes and the results of many site visits appear to indicate clearly that the tower, the most prominent of twelve in the forts external walls, was sited in an area now visibly demolished of the extreme Southwestern ramparts.

This is maintained also on the base of the mentioned tower's description made by Count Albert Gleichen, as only if it were sited to the West of the fort it could be adjacent to the deepest tract of a vast three tiered trench system author first described. As well as on the base of its position relative to a small two room house, likely an armory or guard's rooms still standing structure, within the Pentagon.

The missing tower fate is unknown; who, when and why demolished it, totally unclear. Similarly, the loss of a pillar that appears in a second image taken by Charles Michel remains a mystery. It was probably an entry door monumental pillar. Akin to a structure repeated in Gondar, near Fasil’s castle. A now obstructed door lies beyond the pillar, next to the main tower.

These photoes confirm the hypothesis that the Entoto Pentagon is a major medieval Abyssinian fortification, an highly significant part of the last years of massive, assertive monumental Solomonic presence in Central Shoa, the age of Barara. The found base of the tower lies within a massive standing fort, whose structures I now claim recognisable as medieval, as first affirmed by Minilik -clearly not his own craft-. They should absolutely be protected from degrading petty thefts both by locals and tourists, defended from invasive prospected lodge developments in Entoto, and promoted as a unique piece of African architectural heritage, within today's continental capital, Addis Ababa.

Notes

1- La battaglia di Adua nel Centenario, Vigano, M., Avvenire, Italian Catholic Bishops Conference National newspaper, March 3rd, 1996; cfr. Zewde, B., A 1855- 1974, Currey, London.

2- Italian journalist Domenico Quirico gives a smart political interpretation of the battle's aftermath in Italy. Note political right strong man, PM Crispi fell and was effaced from politics a few days after, as crowds in main towns rioted at the cry “Viva Menelik”, “Up with Minilik”. Quirico, D., Adua. La battaglia che cambiò la storia d'Italia, Mondadori, 2004, p.383.

3- Anfray, F., « Autour du vieil Entotto », Annales d'Éthiopie vol. 14, 1987

4- « Lorsque Ménélik arriva à Souloulta, on lui apprit la découverte des ruines de l'ancienne ville bâtie par Atié David. Le Roi monta les visiter. Il les trouva comme l'ange Ragouel l'avait annoncé en une

25 vision au roi Lebne-Denguel, c'est-à-dire devenues un repaire de bêtes féroces et couvertes de broussailles épaisses. On y découvrit les traces de cette ville ancienne, des restes de chaux et des vestiges de l'enceinte. Le Roi fut très heureux de voir lui-même toutes ces choses. Il dit alors : « Dieu a permis que nous retrouvions les vraies traces de la ville d'Atié David à Antoto. Aussi, puisque cette découverte a été faite de notre temps, il convient que nous ressuscitions cette cité. ». Gebre Selasie Wolde Aregay, as translated by Maurice de Coppet, Chronique du règne de Ménélik II, roi des rois d'Éthiopie, tome 1, Paris, 1930, page 171.

5- “On detruit Entoto”, Entoto is being torn down, from the diary of Pere Ferdinand, assistant to Abbe Taurin Cahagne, who had a Church in the original Entoto. Jan. 30th 1882, in Anfray, Au tour du.., p.10.

6- The creation of the myth was like a necessity for a new kingdom, recall the first King of Shoa was Sahle Selasie, Minilik's grandfather. Jean Doresse comments that went as far as fabricating a copy of a set of precise prophecies by... the Virgin Mary and archangel Rafael, duly found in a Lake Zway island monastery. Doresse, J., L'empire du Prêtre-Jean, volume 1, L'Ethiopie antique, Plon, Paris, 1957, p. 269

7- The mention of Dawit II building a “Town” in Entotto in 1515, as he gained independence from Eleni comes from French sources, too. Cfr. wiki Dawit II d'Etiopie, in French. I could not trace the chronicler or visitor's source. Without that specific reference the attribution is left to Minilik himself, cfr. G/Selasie, p.1 and note 4 above, to an ancient effigy of St. Mary used as Entoto Mariam tabot, with a dedication by Dawit Emperor - Kesis Girum Taye, Felsite Museum, personal comm.- (possibly, I guess, made for Minilik instead). Access to the tabot, to recognize its style and date it approximately is absolutely prohibitive. This remains a weak claim, though substantiated by architectural style (pre- 1540, dominant Iberian influences), before datings from the necessary excavations. Author mentioned the Entoto Pentagon in his Medieval Ethiopia Recovered section, in eight papers, on academia.edu, see e.g. https://www.academia.edu/19552140/Prester_John_Revisited._Of_found_forts _Churches_citadels and https://www.academia.edu/26052539/The_shapes_of_medieval_Addis_Ababa

8- Robert Silverberg published, in English, the notes by Jacopo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo, the only left account of the mission, as they left their geographical and somewhat ethnological notes on Ethiopia to Giovanni da Carignano, geographer in Genua. Silverberg, R., The Realm of (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1972), pp. 164–165. The Da Carignano original text is lost, it contributed to the later identification of Prester John with Emperor Zer'a in 1441 during the Council of Florence. Silverberg speculates da Carignano actually first placed much sought for Prester John in Ethiopia. As Wedem Arad was looking for allies in his struggle against the Muslim Adal Sultanate, the 1306 visit was instrumental in supporting the idea of a powerful Ethiopian sire, a desirable Christian ally.

9- The Fut'h al Habasha, the “opening of Abyssinia” by Ahmed bin Ibrahim the conqueror's hagiographer Sihad ad Din bin Utman mentions Barara twice and Zarara, the same town in my opinion, four times as imperial residence, with its total destruction and pillaging in the 1530 campaign.

10- Cesare Nerazzini, in his 1891 translation of the Fut'h al Habasha mentions the fort in these terms, in a note on p. 64: “^ Fortezza vicina ad Antoto nella strada Antoto-Goggiam. In lingua araba significa posto dell'elefante.” the note relates to this paragraph: II re di Abissinia seppe che i Mussulmani miravano ad entrare nel Damot. Allora il re sali sopra un'alta montagna a cui si accedeva per una strada assai stretta, che terminava a una sola porta detta di Guraghe: sopra la montagna portò armi e soldati e lasciò a guardia della porta Aurei Osman. Il re si accampò in un luogo della montagna chiamato Docondor^. Nerazzini was thus aware of a “Fortress next to Entoto, on the Entoto-Gojjam road” in the locality known according to the Fut'h as Docondor, or the Elephant, where Lebna Dengel had camped. The text 26 mentions a narrow access road to present day Entoto, directed to a single door. An ancient road with what appear like the remains of a massive stone door is found half a mile after the Pentagon on the wayto the Gojjam pass. See bibliography, n.20.

11- Personal communication, Counsellor Giuliana del Papa, then Vice Ambassador of Italy, 2015. I was repeatedly objected the same point: a fort was in theory built by Minilik in Entoto after 1907. I am convinced this observation has not only contributed to the blatantly erroneous attribution of the Pentagon to Minilik, but hindered, mixed with the understandable disbelief such a major fort would have gone unnoticed within a modern megalopolis, its necessary further study and now even more urgent protection.

12- I believe this is a design by Luis Tinayre (or other illustrator) on a photo by Jules Borelli: it is hand signed, illegibly here; cfr. a fine and often reproduced illustration on a set of Borelli photoes, in Le Monde Illustre', December 1898. Borelli may well have preferred the design to a (perhaps lost?) photo in his travel diary, published in 1990. See bibliography n.2., and the mentioned illustration, next page.

13- I feel indebted to M. Pascal Bellier of the Lycee Guebre Mariam, who published in 2015 the two first photoes analyzed here, in a note on Addis Ababa, and to Mauro Ghermandi who spotted the third. Ahmed Zakariah, Andreas Wetter and author had once a simple coffee at the IES library. We taught it up then. Within a month, back in Germany with a good, non filtered, unblocked connection, Andreas created the Facebook group “Historical Photoes from the ”. Nearing one hundred thousand members have since uploaded dozens of thousands of ancient photoes. Most appear to be hitherto unpublished. A tool scholars should be aware of. Facebook reduces, necessarily, the quality of the photoes, but the uploader generally holds the original, and in my experience is invariably willing to share it to researchers. In fact, he may well be a researcher trying to elicit comments. This was the way this publication was started: I uploaded the two first photoes I found, on the Facebook group.

Le Monde Illustre' (Dec. 1898) published widely on French missions to Minilik, particularly Borelli's. Design: L. Tinayre 27

Minimal bibliography

1. Alvares, Francisco. Verdadeira informaçem das terras do Preste João das Indias, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional, 1889.

2. Anfray, F., « Autour du vieil Entotto », Annales d'Éthiopie vol. 14, 1987, 8 p

3. Borelli, J., Ethiopie méridionale, journal de mon voyage aux pays amhara, oromo et sidama (septembre 1885, novembre 1888), Ancienne maison Quantin, Paris, 1890.

4. Breternitz, Hartwig and Pankhurst, Richard, Barara, the royal city of 15th and early (Ethiopia): medieval and other early settlements between Wechecha Range and Mt Yerer: results from a recent survey, Annales d'Ethiopie,Volume 24. p. 209-249, 2009.

5. Crawford, O.G.S., ed., Ethiopian Itineraries ca. 1400-1524, including those collected by Alessandro Zorzi at Venice in the years 1519-24, Cambridge Univ. Press/Haklyut Society, 195 p

6. Garretson, P. P., A History of Addis Ababa from Its Foundation in 1886 to 1910, Otto Harassowitz Verlag, Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2000. Pp. xxi, 226; maps.

7. tzaf t'zaz Gebre Selasie, Tarika Zemen Ze dagmawi Menelik Neguse Negest Ze Yitiopia, translated into French by Blatta Merse Hazen Wolde Qirqos, Artistic P. Press, A.A., 1959.

8. Gleichen, Count Albert E.W., With the Mission to Minilik, 1897. London, 1898.

9. Hirsch B., Fauvelle-Aymar F.X., « Aksum après Aksum. Royauté, archéologie et herméneutique chrétienne de Ménélik II (r.1865-1913) à Zära Yaqob (r. 1434-1468) », dans Annales d'Éthiopie, volume 17, 2001, 51 p.

10. Huntingford, G. W. B., The historical geography of Ethiopia from the first century A.D. To 1704. Edited by Richard Pankhurst. Ethiopic spellings revised by David Appleyard. (Union Academique Internationale. Fontes Historiae Africanae. Series Varia iv.) xlix, 311pp., 20 maps. Oxford: Oxford. University Press, for the British Academy, 1989.

11. Krebs, Verena. Windows onto the world: Culture Contacts and Western Christian Art, 1400-1550. Abstract on Academia.edu.

12. Massaja, G., I miei trentacinque anni di missione nell'alta Etiopia, libro XI, Tivoli, 1930 (first edition 1885-1895).

13. Pankhurst, Richard. History of Ethiopian towns from the middle ages to the early nineteenth Century, Weisbacher, 1982.

14. Pankhurst, Richard. Menelik and the Foundation of Addis Ababa, 1961. The Journal of African History Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 103-117.

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16. Pankhurst, Richard. The Ethiopian Borderlands, Lawrenceville, Red Sea Press, 1997. Powell Cotton, P.H.G., A sporting trip through Abyssina, 1902, reprint, Kessinger, 2009, pp.564.

17. Ricci, Lanfranco. Resti di antico edificio in Ginbi (Scioa) Annales d'Ethiopie, Annee 1976, Volume 10 Numero10, pp. 177-210.

18. Strachan, Bruce. Washa Mikael, an overlooked African Treasure, washamikael.wordpress.com, 2010.

19. Sauter, R., L'Eglise monolitique de Yekka Mikael, Annales d'Ethiopie, 1957, II, pp. 15-36.

20. Sergew Habte Selassie. Bibliography of Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History. History Department I University, 1969.

21. Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin Abd al-Qader bin Salem bin Utman, The Conquest of Abyssinia (Futuh Al-Habasa), Cesare Nerazzini translation, La Conquista mussulmana dell’Etiopia nel secolo XVI, Roma, Forzani e C.,1891.

16. Vigano, M., The Shapes of Medieval Addis, 10th ICHAAE, Mekele, Nov. 2015, in publication, draft: https://www.academia.edu/26052539/The_shapes_of_medieval_Addis_Ababa

A Japan-Spanish couple, both historians of art, at the Pentagon's east section, confirmed Iberian style influences (2014): Rie and Andreu Martinez, Professor, Gondar University ©Marco Vigano' Addis Ababa, Dec. 20th, 2016 29