December 1, 2018

The Fleet

By Stuart Munro-Hay

There are numerous occasions when ships and shipping are mentioned in Aksumite contexts. The various expeditions and trading ventures overseas would suggest that Aksum was mistress of a fleet of some kind. Though there is no really clear statement to that effect in the local sources, a fleet is mentioned in the Monumentum Adulitanum inscription, and other inscriptions (DAE 2, Marib inscription; see Ch. 11: 5) also refer to expeditions by land and sea. In the case of the Adulis inscription, concern for the sealant and the coastal defense of the country, as well as land routes, is manifested. The king cites the area from Leuke Kome to the Arabian kingdoms as one area of operations, then on the Ethiopian side he established the Solate people to guard the coasts. The Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 20) notes that ships anchored cautiously at the island of Oreine since, in the past, the anchorage which was to become Adulis’ harbor, Gabaza, had proved dangerous because of raids from the local people. This could not have been tolerated later, when the port’s function as a gateway to trade had grown more important, and the Periplus may indeed refer to a period when Aksum was still consolidating its position on the coast.

Some of the commentators on Kaleb’s expedition to Yemen allude to ships, and even to the shipyards of Adulis/Gabaza (Munro-Hay 1982: 117; Sergew Hable Sellassie 1972: 132-3). Perhaps the most interesting comment of all came from the sixth-century historian Procopius, who not only stated that Kaleb — whom he called Hellestheaios, his version of Elle Atsbeha — collected a fleet of ships, but also described Ethiopian and Indian ships. He mentions that

“all the boats which are found in India and on this sea (the Red Sea) are not made in the same manner as are other ships. For neither are they smeared with pitch, nor with any other substance, nor indeed are the planks fastened together by iron nails going through and through, but they are bound together by a kind of cording. The reason is not as most persons suppose, that there are certain rocks there which draw the iron to themselves (for witness the fact that when the Roman vessels sail from Aelas into this sea, although they are fitted with much iron, no such thing has ever happened to them), but rather because the Indians and the Aethiopians possess neither iron nor any other thing suitable for such purposes. Furthermore, they are not even able to buy any of these things from the Romans since this is explicitly forbidden to all by law” (Procopius, ed. Dewing 1914: 183-4).

The Aksumite technique whereby ships were made by binding with ropes, not by using nails, which is also mentioned by the Periplus as existing on the East African coast (Huntingford 1980: 29), lasted until recently in the Somali, Hadrami, and East African coastal regions, where such `sewn boats’ were common. Procopius’ information is a very good indication that when he speaks of Kaleb’s fleet he was actually referring to Aksumite ships rather than others simply using Aksumite ports. It cannot be said what proportion of goods might have been shipped in Aksumite vessels, but as a trading nation with a maritime outlet of great importance, and later on an empire to administer overseas, it is certain that Aksum’s merchant fleet or navy was a useful, even vital, part of the apparatus of commerce and government.