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An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity
November 4, 2018

Modern Study of the Coinage

By Stuart Munro-Hay

The rediscovery of the Aksumite coinage has been a slow process. Nathaniel Pearce, who was in Ethiopia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, may have been the first to describe Aksumite coins (although parts of his descriptions are hard to reconcile with the Aksumite series, and may have referred to Roman coins found at Aksum instead). He says, speaking of the wells at Aksum, “I was told . . . that in clearing out the rubbish of a well which, (the Greek Apostella) had discovered, he found some gold coins which he shewed me; and indeed, two of the same kind came into my possession several months afterwards, but, unfortunately, having forwarded them to Mr. Salt, they were lost upon the road. One of them had a bald man’s head upon one side and apparently arms upon the reverse, the second had a woman’s head, with a forked crown on it, and something imitating a balance or scales; the characters were Greek. The coin was as thick in the middle as an English half crown, though not thicker than a shilling round the edges, and in circumference about the size of a guinea” (Pearce 1831: 163). The thicker central part of the flan sounds like a description of the coins of Endubis, as does the `bald man’s head’, whilst the forked crown might be a description of the Aksumite tiara; but neither of the reverses sounds Aksumite.

As the nineteenth century progressed, a few scholars noted a coin here and there; Halévy in 1837, Rüppell in the 1840s, Langlois in 1859, Kenner, von Heuglin, Longperier and d’Abbadie in the 1860s, Friedländer in 1879, Drouin, Prideaux, von Sallet and Schlumberger in the 1880s. In 1913 Littmann published the DAE report, with a chapter on the coins. Much more significant were the publications of Arturo Anzani in 1926, 1928, and 1941, and of Carlo Conti Rossini in 1927. Since then there has been a steady, though sparse, appearance of publications gradually enlarging the known corpus of coins, and commenting on their historical and numismatic significance. A full bibliography is given in Munro-Hay (1984).

Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity

1. Introduction

2. Legend, Literature, and Archaeological Discovery

  • 2-1. The Legends of Aksum
    2-2. Aksum in Ancient Sources
    2-3. The Rediscovery of Aksum in Modern Times

3. The City and the State

  • 3-1. The Landscape
    3-2. Origins and Expansion of the Kingdom
    3-3. The Development of Aksum; an Interpretation
    3-4. Cities, Towns, and Villages
    3-5. The Inhabitants
    3-6. Foreign Relations

4. Aksumite History

  • 4-1  The Pre-Aksumite Period
    4-2  Early Aksum until the Reign of Gadarat
    4-3  Gadarat to Endubis
    4-4  Endubis to Ezana
    4-5  Ezana after his Conversion, to Kaleb
    4-6. Kaleb to the End of the Coinage
    4-7. The Post-Aksumite Period

5. The Capital City

  • 5-1. The Site
    5-2. The Town Plan
    5-3. Portuguese Records of Aksum
    5-4. Aksumite Domestic Architecture
    5-5. The Funerary Architecture
    5-6. The Stelae

6. The Civil Administration

  • 6-1. The Rulers
    6-2. Officials of the Government

7. The Monarchy

  • 7-1. The King and the State
    7-2. The Regalia
    7-3. Dual Kingship
    7-4. Succession
    7-5. The Royal Titles
    7-6. The Coronation

8. The Economy

  • 8-1. Population
    8-2. Agriculture, Husbandry, and Animal Resources
    8-3. Metal Resources
    8-4. Trade, Imports and Exports
    8-5. Local Industries
    8-6. Food

9. The Coinage

  • 9-1. The Origins
    9-2. Introduction and Spread of the Coinage
    9-3. Internal Aspects of the Coinage
    9-4. The Mottoes
    9-5. The End of the Coinage
    9-6. Modern Study of the Coinage

10. Religion

  • 10-1. The Pre-Christian Period
    10-2. The Conversion to Christianity
    10-3. Abreha and Atsbeha
    10-4. Ecclesiastical Development
    10-5. Churches

11. Warfare

  • 11-1. The Inscriptional Record
    11-2. The Military Structure
    11-3. Weapons
    11-4. The Fleet
    11-5. The Aksumite inscriptions

12. Material Culture; the Archaeological Record

  • 12-1. Pottery
    12-2. Glassware
    12-3. Stone Bowls
    12-4. Metalwork
    12-5. Other Materials

13. Language, Literature, and the Arts

  • 13-1. Language
    13-2. Literature and Literacy
    13-3. The Arts
    13-4. Music and Liturgical Chant

14. Society and Death

  • 14-1. Social Classes
    14-2. Funerary Practice

15. The Decline of Aksum

  • 15-1. The Failure of Resources
    15-2. The Climate
    15-3. External and Internal Political Troubles
    15-4. The Najashi Ashama ibn Abjar
    15-5. The NatsaniDaniell

16.The British Institute in Eastern Africa’s Excavations at Aksum

Metal Resources The Ever-changing Geopolitical Rule-book of Ethiopia,

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