“ Described by a Greek merchant of the time of Vespasian as “a well arranged market,” the place has been for centuries buried under sand. The ruins visible include a temple, obelisks and numerous fragments of columns.
In 1857 an agreement was entered into by Dejaj Negusye, a chief of Tigré, in revolt against the Negus Theodore of Abyssinia, to cede Zula to the French. Negusye was defeated by Theodore, and the commander of a French cruiser sent to Annesley Bay in 1859 found the country in a state of anarchy. ”