December 5, 2018

Metalwork

By Stuart Munro-Hay

The metal equipment used by the Aksumites seems to fall into two categories. In the first, items of luxury, such as jewelry, costly boxes, small decorative objects, bowls, and figures in the round appear in gold, silver, and bronze, or combinations of these metals. Appliqué plaques in bronze, decorated with enameling, glass inlay, or gilding, for fixing onto wooden boxes or furniture, are especially notable. Among figures in bronze, two (of three) Graces, an ibex, lion figures, and two dogs (or leopards?) have been found, all of small size (Chittick 1974: fig. 23; Anfray and Annequin 1965: pl. LXVIII; de Contenson 1959i: pl. XIX; 1963i: pl. XIVa-b). A lion-head figured on a bronze vase-handle at Adulis, and also on two examples of bronze door furniture found among the ruins of one of the churches there; on one of the latter, the lion holds a ring in its mouth (Paribeni 1907: 462, 530, and fig. 53). The Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 21-22) mentions that brass and bronze were imported, the first for use as money, the second for drinking-cups, cooking-pots and armlets and anklets for women. Four bronze bowls or cups found at Addi Galamo seem to be of Meroitic origin (Caquot and Drewes 1955: 41, & pl. V). A low three-legged bronze vessel with a flat handle in the shape of an ivy-leaf supported below by a ring handle, came from Adulis; though rather shallow, it may have been used for drinking wine (Paribeni 1907: 500-501, fig. 29).

Very little gold and silver has come to light at Aksum, in contrast to the treasure in the shape of Matara (Anfray and Annequin 1965: pl. LXIX and figs. 12-13), or the gold-worker’s hoard from Adulis (Paribeni 1907: 483ff), but enough to show that some Aksumites could afford gilded bronze ornaments, silver bowls or silver-overlaid objects, and gold jewelry. One tiny gold nail was found in the Tomb of the Brick Arches, perhaps the remains of an attachment to a casket. Some silver and gold objects `made in the design of the country’ are mentioned as imports by the Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 21). In the Tomb of the Brick Arches, a bullet-shaped silver amulet case was found lodged among the stones of a blocked doorway (Chittick 1974: fig. 24a). A number of gold beads, earrings, and pendants of different types, from Aksum, Kaskade, and a few other sites, have been published by Giuseppe Tringali (1987). Much of this material, not surprisingly considering Aksumite trade contacts, has a generally Eastern Mediterranean appearance.

Inland metal plaque, 113 mm square, from the Tomb of the Brick Arches, British academy

From earlier, pre-Aksumite sites such as Yeha, Sabea, and Hawelti came bronze `identity-markers’, open-work plaques sometimes in the shape of animals, and sometimes including letters, possibly forming the owner’s names, in the Epigraphic South Arabian script (de Contenson 1963ii: pls. XLIIb, LIIIa). Such sites also produced bronze tools (axes, sickles, knives) of a type different to the later Aksumite ones, and including some curved tools (chisels?) resembling the bronze object bearing an inscription of king GDR from Addi Galamo (de Contenson 1963ii: pls. L, LI). A very interesting, but unfortunately very tiny, fragment of a bronze plaque from Adulis bore traces of two Sabaean letters. Matara produced a bronze `polycandilon’ with four chains holding a circlet with six holes for candles, and a bronze pot which contained the Matara treasure of gold crosses, coins, and chains (Anfray and Annequin 1965: pl. LXVIII, 7; LXIX, 2).

From Adulis, appropriately, came parts of Roman bronze balances (Paribeni 1907: 539, fig. 55; Anfray 1974: pl. II, 2) and numerous different weights, some marked with Greek letters (Paribeni 1907: 562-3). Perhaps the most magnificent bronze object so far found in Ethiopia is a lamp from Matara (Anfray 1967: 46-8; 1968: pl. 5). The lamp seems to be formed from a bronze imitation of the lower jaw of some animal (a boar?) — though it has also been described as a conch — set on a circlet of arcaded pillars like those of the Aksumite royal crown. From the back rises a leaping dog, which is trying to seize a fleeing ibex. In the second category of metal objects come the tools, weapons, and other objects in iron (Munro-Hay 1989). Sickles, knives, chisels, saws, axes, tweezers, hinges, spear and arrowheads, hooks or staples, and other unidentifiable objects have been found.

Much of this represents the basic equipment of the artisan or soldier; the peasant might have had a spear or a knife or two, or an iron reaping hook (one was found in a tomb), and there are obvious examples of military equipment. Some iron rings found at Matara (Anfray 1963: pl. LXXXI) apparently binding a prisoner in his cell (his skeleton was also found), recall Ezana’s boast that he had chained the king of the Agwezat with his throne-bearer (Ch. 11: 5, DAE 9). The Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 21-2) mentions a number of iron tools and weapons among the imported goods from the Roman world, while from India (Ariake) came iron and steel as a raw material. Paribeni (1907: 461, 486, 492) noted small tesserae of lead, possibly for use as tokens in commercial transactions, and other formless fragments of the same material, from Adulis, and he also found traces of lead pins used for fixing metalwork to carved schist plaques (Paribeni 1907: 506-7, fig. 32).