The Hawulti monument is high, with a disk and crescent at the top;
Edward Ullendorff believes these symbols "no doubt meant to place the stele under the protection of the gods, probably of
Šams, the Sun goddess, and of
Sin, the Moon god". These pre-
Christian symbols, as well as paleographical characteristics such as the lack of vowel marks in the
Geʽez script, convinced Ullendorff that the monument dated "to the early part of the fourth century A.D." Ullendorff translated the inscription as follows: : This is the obelisk which had made : ʾAgaz for his fathers who have : carried off the youth of : as well as of . His translation differs from
Enno Littmann at several points. First, Littmann believed the third line referred to the digging of canals nearby (his translation, "zog die Kannaele von ʾAwʿa") despite the lack of any signs of canals or ditches in the area; Ullendorff argues that the
triliteral verb in the inscription should be translated as "to drag along, to capture". Second, he believed the nouns , , and were placenames, and based on discussions with local informants, Ullendorff identified them with nearby communities: the earlier name of Baraknaha, the site of a 12th-century
Orthodox Tewahedo church from Maṭara in
Eritrea, had been
Ṣubli, and the equally well-known church at
Gunda Gunde Monastery, from Maṭara, had once been known as
ʾAwʿa ʾilfi. == Modern history ==