The Sign and the Seal

by Graham Hancock

  Nor was this influence limited to the Falashas and the Qemant. On the contrary, in Gondar and throughout Ethiopia, supposedly ‘Orthodox’ Christians displayed many customs and beliefs that were unmistakably Jewish in origin. Just like the Falashas, as I already knew, they circumcised their sons on the eighth day after birth, a date commanded by the book of Leviticus – a date that, amongst all the peoples of the world, was now observed only by Jews and by Ethiopians.27 Likewise (in a remarkable instance of the phenomenon known as religious syncretism) the Jewish Sabbath was still being respected in the twentieth century by millions of Abyssinian Christians – not instead of the Sunday Sabbath adhered to by their co-religionists elsewhere but in addition to it.28

  There were other holidays which, although superficially Christian, were also clearly Judaic in origin. I had learned, for example, that the Ethiopian New Year feast (Enkutatsh) corresponded closely to the Jewish New Year (Rosh Ha-shanah). Both were held in September and both were followed a few weeks later by a second festival (known as Maskal in Ethiopia and Yom Kippur in Israel). In both cultures, furthermore, this second festival was connected to the New Year by a period of expiation and atonement.29

  Ethiopian Christians also strictly obeyed many of the Pentateuchal laws of cleanliness and purity. No man, for example, would consider going to church after having had sexual intercourse with his wife, nor would he have intercourse prior to having contact with any consecrated thing, nor would he have intercourse during days of fasting, nor would he have intercourse with any menstruating woman.30 None of these restrictions were called for by Christian lore; all of them, however, were demanded in the Pentateuch (notably in the books of Exodus and Leviticus31).

  In a similar fashion Ethiopian Christians also observed the Old Testament food laws, scrupulously avoiding the flesh of ‘unclean’ birds and mammals (pork being particularly abhorred) and even attending to the minutiae such as the ‘sinew which shrank’ referred to in Chapter 32 of the book of Genesis.32 This same sinew, I was able to establish, was shunned by all Abyssinian Christians and was known in Ge’ez as ‘the forbidden muscle’.33

  Another intriguing link that I had turned up while researching this subject was that Ethiopian clerical vestments seemed to be modelled upon the special garments worn by the priests of ancient Israel34 – the k’enat (belt) corresponding to the High Priest’s girdle;35 the k’oba (skull-cap) corresponding to the mitre;36 and the askema (scapular), with its twelve crosses in four rows of three, corresponding to the priestly breast-plate (which, as Chapter 28 of the book of Exodus makes clear, was adorned with twelve precious stones also arranged in four rows of three.37

  All in all, therefore, I found it difficult to disagree with Archbishop David Matthew who, in 1947, had described ‘the whole cast of religious expression in Ethiopia as antique and ceremonial and imbued with an undercurrent of Judaic practice.’38 It was not until I participated in the Christian Timkat celebrations on 18 and 19 January 1990, however, that the real pervasiveness and power of this undercurrent was finally brought home to me.

  The preparations for Timkat were already well advanced when, in the mid-afternoon of Thursday 18 January, I slipped through a wildly excited crowd, up a flight of steps and on to the exterior walkway of the church of Medhane Alem (literally ‘Saviour of the World’). Situated in the oldest part of Gondar, this was a large, circular building laid out in the traditional fashion – somewhat like an archery target if viewed from above – with a series of concentric ambulatories surrounding the Holy of Holies (mak’das).

  This distinctively Ethiopian pattern, as I already knew, was repeated in a slightly different manner in rectangular and octagonal as well as in round churches, and had been recognized by scholars as being based ‘on the threefold division of the Hebrew Temple’.39 According to Edward Ullendorff, the first Professor of Ethiopian Studies at the University of London:

  The outside ambulatory of the three concentric parts of the Abyssinian church is called k’ene mahlet, i.e. the place where hymns are sung, [and] corresponds to the ulam of Solomon’s Temple. The next chamber is the k’eddest, where communion is administered to the people; and the innermost part is the mak’das where the tabot rests and to which only priests have access … This division into three chambers applies to all Abyssinian churches, even to the smallest of them. It is thus clear that the form of the Hebrew sanctuary was preferred by Abyssinians to the basilica type which was accepted by early Christians elsewhere.40

  Professor Ullendorff declined to speculate as to precisely why the Abyssinians should have favoured a pre-Christian model for their Christian churches. As I stepped into the first ambulatory of Medhane Alem, however, it seemed to me that the answer was obvious: the Syrian evangelist Frumentius, who was responsible for the conversion of the Axumite kingdom and who was appointed as Ethiopia’s first archbishop by the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria in AD 331, must deliberately have adapted the institutions of the new faith to the pre-existing Judaic traditions of the country.41 Furthermore, as Ullendorff did admit:

  It is clear that these and other traditions, in particular that of the Ark of the Covenant at Axum, must have been an integral part of the Abyssinian national heritage long before the introduction of Christianity in the fourth century; for it would be inconceivable that a people recently converted from paganism to Christianity (not by a Christian Jew but by the Syrian missionary Frumentius) should thereafter have begun to boast of Jewish descent and to insist on Israelite connections, customs and institutions.42

  Walking in stockinged feet – since it is considered sacrilege to wear shoes inside any Ethiopian church – I made a circuit of the k’ene mahlet studying the faded paintings of saints and holy men that adorned its walls: here was Saint George, mounted on his white charger, slaying the dragon; there was God Almighty, ‘the Ancient of Days’, surrounded by the ‘living creatures’ described by the Prophet Ezekiel; here was John baptizing Christ in the Jordan; there the Kings and Shepherds at the Manger; and over there Moses receiving the Tables of the Law from the hand of God on Mount Sinai.

  Standing lost in contemplation before a portrayal of the Queen of Sheba’s journey to Jerusalem, I became aware of the slow, deep throb of a kebero – the large oval drum, made of cowskin stretched over a wooden frame, that features in so much of the music of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. To this barbaric sound was now added a chorus of voices chanting a Ge’ez hymn, and then the mystic jingle of sistra.

  My curiosity aroused, I proceeded round the ambulatory and, at last, near the doorway that led inwards to the k’eddest, I came across a group of priests and deacons gathered about the drummer, who was seated cross-legged on the floor hunched over his kebero.

  This was a strange and archaic scene: nothing about it belonged to the modern world and, as I watched, I felt myself transported backwards through time, riding the eerie waveforms of the music – which seemed to me to belong neither to Africa nor to Christianity but to some other place and to some infinitely older faith. Dressed in their traditional white robes and black shoulder-capes, leaning on tall prayer sticks, the deacons swayed and chanted, swayed and chanted, absorbed in the primal cadence of the dance. Each held in his hand a silver sistrum which, in the silent interstices between the drum-beats, he raised and then let fall, producing a clear and melodious tintinnabulation.

  The chanting was antiphonal in form, with phrases uttered by one group of singers being given their response by others, a dialogue in which verses and choruses were passed back and forth amongst the participants allowing the hymn to build to its ponderous crescendo. This same system, I knew, had been an established part of the Jewish liturgy in Old Testament times.43

  As I was reflecting on this coincidence a fragrant cloud of incense billowed from the open door of the k’eddest. Edging forward I looked inside and saw a swirling figure wrapped in robes of green embroidered with golden threads, a figure out of a dream, half sorcerer, half priest, who whirled and turned with drooping eyes.
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  Gathered round him were other men, similarly attired, each holding a smoking censer suspended in a fine net of silver chain. I strained my eyes to look beyond these figures through the fumes and darkness and could just make out, at the very centre of the k’eddest, the curtained entrance to the Holy of Holies. I knew that beyond that heavy veil, venerated and mysterious, guarded by superstition, concealed and secret within its sanctuary, lay the tabot – the symbol of the Ark of the Covenant. And I was reminded that in ancient Israel the High Priest could not approach the Ark unless he had first burnt sufficient quantities of incense to cover it completely with smoke.44 The thick fumes were thought necessary to protect his life – necessary to ensure, as the book of Leviticus rather chillingly put it, ‘that he die not.’45

  I stepped across the threshold into the k’eddest to get a closer look at what was going on there but was almost immediately waved back into the outer ambulatory. At the same time the song of the deacons ceased, the drum-beats stilled and, for a moment, absolute silence fell.

  I could sense an intangible atmosphere of imminence, as though a huge charge of lightning were building up within a thundercloud. A general stirring and movement then ensued, with people scurrying in all directions. At the same time a smiling priest took my arm lightly but firmly, and guided me out of the k’eddest, through the k’ene mahlet, to the main door of the church where I stood blinking in the brilliant afternoon sunlight, amazed at the rapid change of mood that seemed to have overtaken the proceedings.

  The crowd, big enough when I had arrived, had now swelled into a huge multitude that completely filled the extensive compound in which Medhane Alem was situated and that also spilled out on to the road as far as I could see. Men and women, small children, the very elderly, lame people, obviously sick and dying people, laughing, happy, healthy people – half of Ethiopia seemed to be here. Many clutched musical instruments of one kind or another: cymbals and trumpets, flutes and fiddles, lyres and biblical harps.

  Moments after my own exit from the church, a group of richly robed priests appeared. These were the same men whom I had last seen amidst the incense cloud before the drawn veil of the Holy of Holies, but now one of them – slender and bearded with fine, delicate features and smouldering eyes – bore on his head the tabot wrapped in costly brocades of red and gold.

  At once the crowd erupted into a frenzy of shouts and stamping feet and, from the women, shrill ululations – a rousing, tremulous vibration that, I knew, had been connected by more than one scholar to ‘certain musical utterances in ancient Hebrew worship (Hebrew hallel, Ethiopic ellel) … the mode of exultation is to repeat the sound ellel many times, saying ellellellellellell, etc.… The proper meaning of “Halleluyah” will probably be “sing hallel or ellel unto Jehovah.” ’46

  After standing at the doorway of the church for some minutes while the agitation of the crowd grew, the priests now wheeled and turned, making a complete circuit of the exterior walkway before descending the flight of steps to ground level. The instant that their feet touched the earth, the multitude parted before them – creating a pathway through which they might pass – and the shouts and ululations, the blowing of trumpets, the whistle of flutes, the strumming of lyres, and the jingle of the tambourines built up to a pitch that deafened the ear and filled the mind with wonder.

  I followed as closely as I dared behind the group of priests, drawn along in their turbulent wake. And though the people were gathered in their hundreds on either side of me, though many were intoxicated either by millet beer or by the tumult, though I was repeatedly jostled, and though more than once I was almost knocked off my feet, I did not for a second feel threatened or alarmed.

  Sometimes funnelled through narrow alleyways, sometimes spreading out across patches of open land, sometimes stopping inexplicably, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, always bursting with music and song, we progressed through the ancient city. And all the time I struggled to keep my eyes fixed on the red and gold wrappings of the tabot, which was now far ahead of me. For a while, as a new horde of revellers joined us from a side street, I completely lost sight of the sacred object. Then standing on tiptoe, craning my neck, I found it and hurried forward. Determined not to be separated from it again I scrambled up a grassy bank, put on a burst of speed, overtook a massed block of two or three hundred people, skidded past the priests, and lumbered back down on to the road perhaps twenty yards in front of them.

  Here I found the reason for the curious stop-start, halting, lurching motion of the multitude. In the space ahead of the tabot several impromptu troupes of dancers had formed themselves – some of mixed sex, some all male, some all female, some dressed in everyday working clothes, some in church vestments. At the centre of each of these groups was a drummer, his kebero slung around his neck, beating out an ancient and savage rhythm, whirling, jumping, turning and shouting while those around him exploded with energy, leaping and gyrating, clapping their hands, beating tambourines and cymbals, pouring with sweat as they capered and reeled.

  Now, urged on by trumpet blasts and by shouts, by the thrum of a ten-stringed begegna47 and the haunting tones of a shepherd’s flute, a young man dressed in traditional robes of white cotton performed a wild solo dance while the priests stood in their place stopping the eager crowd behind them and bearing the sacred tabot aloft. Beautiful in his lithe vigour, splendid in his ferocious energy, the youth seemed entranced. With all eyes upon him he circled the pulsing kebero, pirouetting and swaying, shoulders jerking, head bobbing, lost in his own inner rhythms, praising God with every limb, with every ounce of his strength, with every particle of his being. And I thought … this was what it must have been like, three thousand years ago at the gates of Jerusalem when

  David and all the house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet [and] played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals … and David danced before the Lord with all his might … leaping and dancing before the Lord.48

  In mid-stride, without any warning, the youth collapsed and sank to the ground in a dead faint. He was picked up by several of the spectators, carried to the roadside and made comfortable. Then the crowd surged forward again much as before, with new dancers constantly taking the place of those who were exhausted.

  Soon afterwards a transition occurred. After tumbling and charging down a last narrow street the crowd debouched into a huge open square. And into this same square, from three other directions, I could see three other processions also approaching – each of which was similar in size to our own, each of which was centred upon a tabot borne up by a group of priests, and each of which seemed inspired by the same transcendent spirit.

  Like four rivers meeting, the separate processions now converged and mixed. The priest carrying the tabot from the church of Medhane Alem – whom I had followed faithfully thus far – stood in line with other priests carrying the tabotat from three of the other principal churches of Gondar. Behind this first sacred rank were more priests and deacons. And behind them again were the assembled congregations, forming an army that could not have been less than ten thousand strong.

  Almost as soon as the processions had joined we were on the move again, welling forth out of the square and down a steep, broad highway with the tabotat ahead of us. Now and then children would be pushed close to me and would shyly take my hands, walk with me for a while and then release me … An old woman approached and addressed me at length in Amharic, smiling toothlessly … Two teenage girls, giggling and nervous, touched my blond hair with fascinated curiosity and then rushed off … And in this fashion, entirely caught up in the gaiety and power of the occasion, I allowed myself to be swept along, oblivious to the passing hours of the afternoon.

  Then, quite suddenly, an imposing walled compound set amidst grassy woods appeared around a bend in the track like an image out of a legend. At some distance behind the s
urrounding ramparts, I thought that I could just make out the turrets of a great castle – turrets high and ‘marvellously embattled’. Not for the first time in my travels in Ethiopia I was hauntingly reminded of the wondrous Grail sanctuary described by Wolfram von Eschenbach – of the ‘impregnable stronghold’ with its ‘clusters of towers and numerous palaces’ that had stood at the edge of a mysterious lake in the realm of Munsalvaesche.49

  At the centre of the enclosure wall was a narrow arched gateway through which those ahead of me in the procession now began to stream – and towards which I felt myself irresistibly drawn. Indeed there was a tremendous force and compulsion in this human flow, as though we were being sucked helter-skelter into a vortex.

  As I was impelled beneath the arch, jostled and crushed by the scrum of eager bodies, I was shoved momentarily against rough stone and my wristwatch was knocked off; almost immediately, however, some unknown person behind me managed to retrieve it from the ground and pressed it back into my hand. Before I could thank or even identify my benefactor I burst through the bottleneck and arrived, slightly dazed, on the wide and open lawns within the compound. In the same second the enormous constriction and compression was relieved and I experienced a delicious sense of freedom …

  The compound was rectangular in shape and covered an area as large as four city blocks. Set in the midst of this great grassy space was a second walled enclosure about one-third of the size of the first – which in turn contained the tall, turreted castle that I had glimpsed earlier and, to the rear and sides of this structure, a man-made lake half filled with water. The castle itself had been built by Emperor Fasilidas in the seventeenth century and appeared to be accessible only by way of a narrow stone bridge that passed over a deep moat and that led directly to a massive wooden doorway set into the front of the building.