Short report on an unvocalised Geez inscription of Aksumite period from Gobo Dura, Laʿilay Maych’ew district

This short report presents an unvocalized Geez inscription found at the Aksumite site of Gobo Dura (Gobidra), located in qushet Golo, t’abiya Gobo Dura, wereda Laʿilay Maych’ew, Central Zone of Tigray Regional State, approximately 5 km west of Aksum. Identified during ethnographic fieldwork conducted in December 2025, the inscription is carved on an unfinished and broken stela situated within the church compound near the site known as Misle Anbesa ('Image of the Lion'). Gobo Dura is a well-documented Aksumite quarry site characterized by megalithic remains, unfinished stelae, and extensive stone extraction features. The inscription, tentatively read as ZSDBR, is engraved in an unvocalized consonantal form of the Geez script. Based on palaeographic considerations and the historical evolution of the Geez writing system from a purely consonantal to a quasi-syllabic form during the 3rd-4th centuries CE, the inscription is provisionally dated to this transitional period. The stela, hewn from locally available solid rock, lies broken into two adjacent fragments. Local oral tradition, as transmitted by clergy of the nearby church of Inda Sillasê Mesqele Kristos Golo, maintains that the monument once stood upright and collapsed at an unknown time, and further associates it with a pre Christian phase of regional history. This finding underscores the importance of community-based heritage documentation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.