Nazret, Tigray, the metropolitan seat of the Church of Ethiopia from the twelth to the fourteenth century:Material and written evidence

This article challenges the widely held belief that the seat of the Christian metropolitan bishopric in Ethiopia remained in Aksum (the ancient capital) or Lalibela (the hypothetical medieval capital) following the seventh century collapse of the Aksumite kingdom. To the contrary, our article, based on two seasons of archaeological fieldwork as well as a reassessment of the documentary evidence, suggests that the metropolitan seat was the now ruined place of Nāzret in southern Tǝgrāy. Evidence from the remains of two churches there (Māyām [Mary] and Golǝgotā [Golgotha]), as well as fresh readings of scattered sources, argues in favor of Nāzret as the seat of the Ethiopian metropolitan from the early twelfth century (at the latest) until the fourteenth century (at the earliest). By examining the material and documentary evidence, the ruined church of Nāzret reveals a new history, reorienting not only current narratives of medieval Christian Ethiopia but also its relationship with Coptic and Islamic Egypt. Moreover, the profoundly cosmopolitan archaeological context of the church ruins suggests broad implications for medieval Christian and Islamic exchange.