November 1, 2018

Early Aksum

By Stuart Munro-Hay

The process of development of the Aksumite state is obscure. The earliest surviving literary references to Aksum, in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Huntingford 1980) and Ptolemy’s Geography (Stevenson 1932), together with some finds of early date from the site itself (Munro-Hay 1989), indicate that the city was probably established at the beginning of our era. The dates of both the above references have been disputed. It has been suggested that the Periplus could have been written in the mid-1st century (Bowersock 1983: 70; Casson 1989: 7) or even as late as the 3rd century AD (Pirenne 1961), whilst one scholar proposed that the earliest surviving versions of Ptolemy’s work relay information which was continually updated until the 4th century AD (Mathew 1975: 152). However, if they are accepted as early documents, their references to Aksum do seem to be backed up by the excavation thereof certain features which can be satisfactorily dated to the first and second centuries AD. These include stone-built platforms, perhaps originally laid out with some funerary purpose since they were found below the deposits later formed by the main cemetery (now the so-called Stele Park; see Ch. 16). They have been dated by radiocarbon tests on material found in associated contexts to the first two centuries AD (Chittick 1974; Chittick 1976i; Munro-Hay 1989). Among the finds from this region were fragments of glass vessels of particular types, datable to the first century AD; and certain types of glass were actually included in the list of imports into Aksum provided by the Periplus.

If we are right in thinking of the Periplus as a probably mid-first century document, we can hope to find at Aksum evidence of the “city of the people called Auxumites” (Schoff 1912: 23) — translated by Huntingford as “the metropolis called the Axumite” (1980: 20) — which it mentions, together with a comprehensive selection of such goods as it describes as being imported into Aksum. Ptolemy, if we accept that his reference is not a later addition, leads us to expect a city with a king’s palace at some time around the mid-second century AD. Archaeology has so far revealed little of this, but the early platforms and glass indicate that further evidence for the existence of the city by the first century AD may now be expected. With more archaeological excavation, other early remains apart from the platforms may be discovered. Much of the other material excavated is at the moment difficult to date reliably and so remains inconclusive.

Accepting, with the modern consensus of opinion, that the Periplus dates to the mid-first century AD, we find that at this stage Aksum, under the rule of king Zoskales, was already a substantial state with access to the sea at Adulis. Zoskales is the earliest king of the region known to us at the moment (though Cerulli 1960: 7; Huntingford 1980: 60, 149-50 and Chittick 1981: 186 suggested that he was not the king of Aksum but a lesser tributary ruler). In his time there was a vigorous trading economy, and already a notable demand for the luxuries of foreign countries. The monarchy was established, and Ptolemy confirms that Aksum was the royal capital by the mid-second century AD. This period, then, saw the rise of the city into the governmental center for a considerable area of the Ethiopian plateau and the coastal plain. Such a line of development is to be expected since by the time of king GDRT (Gadarat) Aksum had attained a position which allowed it to venture to send its armies on overseas expeditions and even establish garrisons in parts of Arabia.

The fact that the Periplus does not mention Aksumites in connection with South Arabia is another feature which seems to date it before the period of Abyssinian intervention there, and indeed the Periplus notes that the power of king Kharibael of Himyar and Saba, and the tyrannos Kholaibos of the southern coastal Mopharitic region (al-Ma`afir), reaching from their capitals of Zafar and Saue, was sufficient to allow them to control Azania, the east African coast to Tanzania, and its rich trade in ivory and tortoise-shell (Casson 1989: 61, 69). Though, by the early third century, Aksum had come to dominate al-Ma`afir, and much weakened the Arabian trading system, at the time of the Periplus the Ethiopians were not in a position to reach so far, and the Arabian port of Muza seems to have been rather more important than Adulis. Gradually, during the second century, Aksum must have begun to interest itself in weakening Himyarite maritime control, culminating in its allying with Saba (see below) and seizing certain areas formerly under Himyarite rule (Bafaqih and Robin 1980; Bafaqih 1983: Ch. 3).