Columns and statues to see Ethiopia

About 10 km before the town, a track leads off to the right at Tchekorti. After 4 km, a small path (local children will be able to show you the way) leads, in just half an hour's walk, to this lion carved into a rock. A monumental and very impressive sculpture, also known as the Tchika Beret lion. Letters engraved in the Sabaean language date it to the Axumite era (that of the Queen of Sheba). But, as with the Gobedra lioness near Aksum, the significance of such a sculpture is not known.

At the end of Churchill Avenue, opposite the old railway station, the statue of the Lion of Judah stands on its black granite pedestal. Its bas-relief features portraits of Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Empress Zewditou and Mekonnen Wolde Mikael. It was sculpted by French artist Georges Gardet in 1930. Stolen by the Italians in 1935, the Lion of Judah remained at the foot of the Dogali monument obelisk in Rome until its return in 1960. Since then, the monument has been dedicated to the memory of Zerai Deres, a young Eritrean in revolt against Italian colonialism.