History Ethiopia

The major documentary sources of our knowledge of the Aksumite civilization of Ethiopia are first the Adulis Inscriptions in Greek sometime during the first two centuries A.D. The exact date and the name of author of the document were lost when the exact copy was made in 525 by the Greek monk Cosmas.

The Periplus of The Erythrean Sea, an undated work by an anonymous Greek author written sometimes in the second century A.D. The royal chronicles of the two great Aksumite Emperors Ezana and Caleb in the fourth and sixth centuries A.D., respectively, and the metallic coins issued by more than twenty Aksumite kings between the second and ninth centuries A.D. are three other sources.

The Aksumite king who wrote the Adulis Inscription boastfully enumerates, as parts of his expanding and multinational state, the following lands and peoples:

• Ganze
• Agame
• Sign
• Aua (Adwa)
• Zingabane
• Angabo
• Tiamo
• Antangau
• Kala
• Semen
• Lasine
• Zaa
• Gabala
• Atalamo
• Beja
• Tanganitae
• Annine
• Metine
• Sesea
• Rhausoi, and
• Solate

These covered approximately the general region of North-East Africa between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Awash Valley in the east and the southeast, and Egypt, Meroe, and the Lake Tana in the north, the west and the southwest respectively.

Besides, the Aksumite king crossed the Red Sea and conducted campaigns in the three Arabian districts of Leuke Kome, Kinaidokolpites and Arrabites.

During the first half of the fourth century A.D. the royal title of the Aksumite Emperor Ezana included the countries and cities of Aksum, Himyar, Kasu, Saba, Habasha (Habasat), Ethiopia (Athiopien), Raydan, Salhen, Siyamo, and Beja on both sides of the Red Sea, which were listed in his famous Bilingual inscriptions written in the two ancient languages of Greek, and Geez.

The name Ethiopia is used in the Greek version, while the name Habasha is used in the Geez version of the Ezana inscription. Both names are used in reference to the Aksumite state. Aksum was the main city of both.

Kasu, Siyamo, and Beja were located in the region betweent eh Red Sea and the Upper Nile Valley. Kasu was another name for Meroe. Indeed, Emperor Ezana set up an inscriptional monument at the very junction of the Nile and Atbara Rivers in Meroe.

Himyar and Saba were Asiatic kingdoms in Arabia, while Salhen was a Sabaean city. In the Ezana list of the regional and ethnic groups the people of Baria or today’s Nara were included.

During the first quarter of the 6th century A.D., at the height of the geographical expansion and political influence of the Aksumite state in Northern Ethiopia, the Upper Nile Valley and Arabia, the royal title of Emperor Caleb also contains the national and tributary territories and peoples of “Aksum, Kasu, Raydan, Saba, Salhen, Tiamo, Yemenites, Tihamat, Raban, Beja, Noba, and Arabites” in the three regions under reference.

Besides, in 525, when Cosmas visited the Aksumite court, the Agew country in the southwest, in the region between the Rivers Tekeze and Abay, was already under the political and commercial influence of the Aksumite state.

According to the royal chronicles of the Aksumite kings and the testimony of Cosmas, by the time of the 4th to 6th centuries A.D., in the region of North-East Africa the general area approximately between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Lower Awash Valley in the east and southeast Egypt to the north, Meroe in the west, and the Abay River in the southwest seemed to be under the effective rule of the Aksumite Empire, while Egypt was under Roman control on its northern frontiers.

As Y.M. Kobishchanov was demonstrated in his study, Axsum, the Aksumite Empire emerged as the mercantilist regional power of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa during the first centuries A.D., when the two ancient and regional Kingdoms of Saba and Meroe were in their final stages of decline.

As the mercantilist power of the Red Sea, the Aksumite state had close commercial and cultural contacts with the countries of Meroe, Egypt, the Graeco-Roman World of the Mediterranean, Arabia, and India.

The list of commercial goods imported into the Aksumite Empire from these countries included the following items:

“brass and copper, copper and bronze cups, scales and weights, lamps, tin, gold and silver vessels, glass and ceramic articles, Iron, axes, poleaxes, knives, fabrics and clothing, wine and oils,…from the Roman Empire; iron, copper, and bronze vessels, amphorae, and ceramic statuettes from Meroe; iron and steel articles, gold coins, ceramics, cotton fabrics, sugar cane, sesame oil,… from India; spears, poleaxes, bronze coins, bronze vessels, silver coins, etc. from Arabia.”

The list of the Aksumite export goods to various countries included natural products of obsidian, hippopotamus hide, tortoise shell, slaves, live animals, aromatic substances, gold, ivory, and rhinoceros horn,.

For their commercial activities the Aksumites minted and used coins of copper, bronze, silver, and gold. The four coastal centres of international trade of the Aksumite Empire were the ports of:

• Adulis
• Deire (Ras Siyan)
• Avalit (Zeila)
• Berbera

Between the coastal towns and the mainland, the trade was conducted in caravan routes going as far as Meroe in the Upper Nile Valley via Kemalke, and the Sasu gold mines to the southwest beyond the Abay River.

The presence of various inscriptions in the two ancient languages of Greek, and Geez, the monolithic steles, and the advent and expansion of Christianity in the Aksumite Empire with the systems of Geez script and writing indicates the high stage of cultural development of ancient Ethiopia.

One of the greatest cultural inventions of the Aksumites was the creation of the vowel system of the Geez language and then by extension the modern Ethiopian languages.

Keywords: Aksumite, Adulis Inscriptions, The Periplus of The Erythrean Sea, Habasha Habasat, Beja, Kasu, Adulis, Deire, Avalit, Berbera,

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