Kingdom of Aksum

==Culture==
[[File:Garima-Gospels-completed-project-2.jpg|left|thumb|[[Geʽez script]] in the Garima Gospels]]
[[Image:Yeha, chiesa di abuna aftse, museo, manoscritto del xviii secolo 01 sogno di giuseppe.jpg|left|thumb|An [[illuminated manuscript]] of [[Mary, mother of Jesus|Holy Mother Mary]]]]
The Empire of Aksum is notable for a number of achievements, such as its own alphabet, the [[Geʽez script]], which was eventually modified to include [[vowel]]s, becoming an [[abugida]]. Furthermore, in the early times of the empire, around 1700 years ago, giant obelisks to mark emperors' (and nobles') tombs (underground grave chambers) were constructed, the most famous of which is the [[Obelisk of Aksum]].

Under Emperor [[Ezana of Axum|Ezana]], Aksum adopted [[Coptic Orthodox Church|Coptic Christianity]] in place of its former [[polytheistic]] and [[Judaic]] religions around 325. The Axumite Coptic Church gave rise to the present day [[Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church]] (only granted autonomy from the Coptic Church in 1959) and [[Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church]] (granted autonomy from the Ethiopian Orthodox church in 1993). Since the schism with Orthodoxy following the [[Council of Chalcedon]] (451), it has been an important [[Miaphysite]] church, and its [[scriptures]] and [[liturgy]] continue to be in Geʽez.<ref name="britishmuseum.org">{{cite web |last1=The British Museum |last2=The CarAf Centre |title=The wealth of Africa – The kingdom of Aksum: Teachers' notes |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/KingdomOfAksum_TeachersNotes.pdf |website=BritishMuseum.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191104191259/https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/KingdomOfAksum_TeachersNotes.pdf |archive-date=4 November 2019}}</ref><ref name="Daily Life">{{cite web |title=Daily Life in Aksum |url=https://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/writing/03_aksum.pdf |website=www.hmhco.com/ (formerly eduplace.com) |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803075358/https://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/writing/03_aksum.pdf |archive-date=3 August 2020 |series=Research Reports: Daily Life in Ancient Times}}</ref><ref name="georgeocox">{{cite book |title=African Empires and Civilizations : Ancient and Medieval|author=George O. Cox|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|pages=71}}</ref>

===Religion===
[[File:South Arabian - Fragment of a Frieze with an Ibex and Oryxes - Walters 2138.jpg|thumb|right|A stela with an [[Nubian ibex|ibex]] and three [[Arabian oryx]], associated with [[Astar (god)|Astar]] ({{lang|gez|ዐስተር}}), Semitic god of the [[Venus in culture|Morning and Evening Star]]]]
Before its conversion to Christianity, the Aksumites practiced a [[polytheistic]] religion related to the religion practiced in southern Arabia. This included the use of the crescent-and-disc symbol used in southern Arabia and the northern horn.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nx-qYO3zqlIC&pg=PA292|title=Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the northern Horn, 1000 BC – AD 1300|last=Phillipson|first=David|publisher=James Currey|year=2012|isbn=978-1847010414|page=91}}</ref> In the [[UNESCO]] sponsored ''[[General History of Africa]]'' French archaeologist Francis Anfray, suggests that the pagan Aksumites worshipped [[Astar (god)|Astar]], his son, [[Mahrem]], and [[Beher (god)|Beher]].<ref>{{cite book|title=UNESCO General History of Africa: Ancient Africa v. 2|publisher=University of California Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0520066977|editor=G. Mokhtar|page=221}}</ref>
[[File:James Heath - No 1 - A Table of Hieroglyphics found at Axum - B1977.14.8631 - Yale Center for British Art.jpg|thumb|A Table of Hieroglyphics found at Axum c. 19th century]]
[[Steven Kaplan (Africanist)|Steve Kaplan]] argues that with Aksumite culture came a major change in religion, with only Astar remaining of the old gods, the others being replaced by what he calls a "triad of indigenous divinities, Mahrem, Beher and Medr." He also suggests that Aksum culture was significantly influenced by Judaism, saying that "The first carriers of Judaism reached Ethiopia between the reign of [[Queen of Sheba]] BC and conversion to Christianity of King Ezana in the fourth century AD." He believes that although Ethiopian tradition suggests that these were present in large numbers, that "A relatively small number of texts and individuals dwelling in the cultural, economic, and political center could have had a considerable impact." and that "their influence was diffused throughout Ethiopian culture in its formative period. By the time Christianity took hold in the fourth century, many of the originally Hebraic-Jewish elements had been adopted by much of the indigenous population and were no longer viewed as foreign characteristics. Nor were they perceived as in conflict with the acceptance of Christianity."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From the Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century|last=Kaplan|first=Steve|publisher=New York University Press|year=1994|isbn=978-0814746646}}</ref>

Before converting to Christianity, King Ezana II's coins and inscriptions show that he might have worshiped the gods Astar, Beher, Meder/Medr, and Mahrem. Another of Ezana's inscriptions is clearly Christian and refers to "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0XNvklcqbwC&pg=PA77|title=Encyclopedia of Africa Vol. I|last=Munro-Hay|first=Stuart|publisher=Oxford University press|year=2010|isbn=978-0195337709|editor=Henry Louis Gates Jr., Kwame Anthony Appiah|page=77}}</ref> Around 324 AD the King Ezana II was converted to Christianity by his teacher [[Saint Frumentius|Frumentius]], who established the Axumite Coptic Church, which later became the modern [[Ethiopian Orthodox Church]].<ref name="isbn0-313-32273-2">{{cite book|last=Adejumobi|first=Saheed A.|title=The History of Ethiopia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Un6_LGIEyQC&pg=PA171|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32273-0|page=171}}</ref><ref name="goblues.org">{{Cite web|url=http://goblues.org/faculty/weekse/files/2012/08/axum-and-the-solomonic-dynasty.pdf|title = GoBlues - Asheville School| date=16 May 2023 }}</ref><ref name="obelisk bekerie">{{cite web |location=Newark, USA |url-status=dead |url=http://hornofafrica.newark.rutgers.edu/downloads/aksum.pdf |title=The Rise of the Askum Obelisk is the Rise of Ethiopian History|last1=Bekerie|first1=Ayele |access-date=2017-01-06 |publisher=Rutgers University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107100939/http://hornofafrica.newark.rutgers.edu/downloads/aksum.pdf |archive-date=2017-01-07 }}</ref> Frumentius taught the emperor while he was young, and it is believed that at some point staged the conversion of the empire.<ref name="ruperthopkins.com"/><ref name="otik.uk.zcu.cz"/> We know that the Aksumites converted to Christianity because in their coins they replaced the disc and crescent with the cross.  

Frumentius was in contact with the [[Church of Alexandria]], and was appointed Bishop of Ethiopia around the year 330. The Church of Alexandria never closely managed the affairs of the churches in Aksum, allowing them to develop their own unique form of Christianity.<ref name="users.clas.ufl.edu" /><ref name="whc.unesco.org" /> However, the Church of Alexandria probably did retain some influence considering that the churches of Aksum followed the Church of Alexandria into [[Oriental Orthodoxy]] by rejecting the Fourth Ecumenical [[Council of Chalcedon]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jmeca.org.uk/christianity-middle-east/history-christianity-middle-east-north-africa|title=A History of Christianity in the Middle East & North Africa|last=Wybrew|first=Hugh|publisher=Jerusalem & Middle East Church Association|access-date=25 February 2013|archive-date=3 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203152710/http://www.jmeca.org.uk/christianity-middle-east/history-christianity-middle-east-north-africa|url-status=dead}}</ref> Aksum is also the alleged home of the holy relic the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is said to have been placed in the [[Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion]] by Menelik I for safekeeping.<ref name="britishmuseum.org" /><ref name="Daily Life" />

Islam came in the 7th century at the reign of [[Ashama ibn-Abjar]], when the first followers of the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]] (also known as the [[Companions of the Prophet|Sahabah]]) migrated from [[Arabian Peninsula|Arabia]] due to their persecution by the [[Quraysh]], the ruling [[Arabs|Arab]] tribal confederation of [[Mecca]]. The [[Quraysh]] appealed to the [[Ashama ibn-Abjar]], arguing that the early [[Muslims|Muslim]] migrants were rebels who had invented a new religion, the likes of which neither the Meccans nor the Aksumites had heard of. The king granted them an audience, but ultimately refused to hand over the migrants. A [[Second migration to Abyssinia|second migration]] consisting of 100 Muslim migrants occurred a few years later. Arabic inscriptions on the [[Dahlak Archipelago]] dated to the mid 9th century A.D. confirm the existence of an early Muslim presence in Aksum.<ref>Trimingham, Spencer, ''Islam in Ethiopia'', p. 47.</ref>

===Coinage===
{{Main|Aksumite currency}}
[[File:KingEndybisEthiopia227-235CE.jpg|250px|thumb|Coins of king [[Endybis]], 227–235 AD. The right coin reads in Greek ΕΝΔΥΒΙC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC, "King Endybis".]]

The Empire of Aksum was one of the first African polities to issue [[Aksumite currency|its own coin]]s,<ref name="ruperthopkins.com"/><ref name="otik.uk.zcu.cz"/> which bore legends in Geʽez and Greek. From the reign of Endubis up to [[Armah]] (approximately 270 to 610), gold, silver and bronze coins were minted. Issuing coinage in ancient times was an act of great importance in itself, for it proclaimed that the Aksumite Empire considered itself equal to its neighbours. Many of the coins are used as signposts about what was happening when they were minted. An example being the addition of the cross to the coin after the conversion of the empire to Christianity. The presence of coins also simplified trade, and was at once a useful instrument of [[propaganda]] and a source of profit to the empire.

===Architecture===
{{Main|Ethiopian architecture}}
====Palace architecture====
[[File:Aksum, chiesa nuova di santa maria di zion, costruita da haile selassie negli anni '60, esterno 00,0.jpg|thumb|An Axumite Cathedral, [[Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion|Lady Mary of Zion]].]]

In general, elite Aksumite buildings such as palaces were constructed atop [[podia]] built of loose stones held together with mud-mortar, with carefully cut granite corner blocks which rebated back a few centimeters at regular intervals as the wall got higher, so the walls narrowed as they rose higher. These podia are often all that survive of Aksumite ruins. Above the podia, walls were generally built with alternating layers of loose stone (often whitewashed, like at [[Yemrehana Krestos Church]]) and horizontal wooden beams, with smaller round wooden beams set in the stonework often projecting out of the walls (these are called 'monkey heads') on the exterior and sometimes the interior. 

Both the podia and the walls above exhibited no long straight stretches but were indented at regular intervals so that any long walls consisted of a series of recesses and salients. This helped to strengthen the walls. Worked granite was used for architectural features including columns, bases, capitals, doors, windows, paving, water spouts (often shaped like lion heads) and so on, as well as enormous flights of stairs that often flanked the walls of palace pavilions on several sides. Doors and windows were usually framed by stone or wooden cross-members, linked at the corners by square 'monkey heads', though simple lintels were also used. Many of these Aksumite features are seen carved into the famous stelae as well as in the later [[rock-cut architecture|rock hewn churches]] of [[Tigray Region|Tigray]] and [[Lalibela]].<ref name="Munro-Hay57" />

[[Palace]]s usually consisted of a central [[pavilion]] surrounded by subsidiary structures pierced by doors and gates that provided some privacy (see [[Dungur]] for an example). The largest of these structures now known is the Ta'akha Maryam, which measured 120 × 80m, though as its pavilion was smaller than others discovered it is likely that others were even larger.<ref name="Munro-Hay57"/>

Some clay models of houses survive to give us an idea of what smaller dwellings were like. One depicts a round hut with a conical roof thatched in layers, while another depicts a rectangular house with rectangular doors and windows, a roof supported by beams that end in 'monkey heads', and a parapet and water spout on the roof. Both were found in [[Hawulti (monument)|Hawelti]]. Another depicts a square house with what appear to be layers of pitched thatch forming the roof.<ref name="Munro-Hay57" />

====Stelae====
[[File:Stela aksum.jpg|180px|thumb|The [[King Ezana's Stela]], an Aksumite [[obelisk]] in [[Axum]], Ethiopia]]
The stelae are perhaps the most identifiable part of the Aksumite architectural legacy. These stone towers served to mark graves and represent a magnificent multi-storied palace. They are decorated with false doors and windows in typical Aksumite design. The largest of these towering obelisks would measure 33 meters high had it not fractured. The stelae have most of their mass out of the ground, but are stabilized by massive underground counter-weights. The stone was often engraved with a pattern or emblem denoting the king's or the noble's rank.<ref name="users.clas.ufl.edu"/><ref name="whc.unesco.org"/>

For important monuments built in the region, a particular type of granite is used called ''nepheline syenite''. It is fine grained and has also been used in historic monuments like the Stelae. These monuments are used to celebrate key figures in Axum history, especially kings or priests. These Stelae's are also called "Obelisk's," they are located in the Mai Hejja stelae field, where complex sedimentology of the land can be observed. The foundations for the monuments are around 8.5 m below the surface of the Mai Hejja stelae field. Sediments in this area have undergone a lot of weathering over the years, so the surface of this area has undergone a lot of changes. This is part of the reason for the complex stratigraphic history in this site, some previous layers under the surface of the site.<ref name="Butzer 471–495">{{Cite journal |last=Butzer |first=Karl W. |date=July 1981 |title=Rise and Fall of Axum, Ethiopia: A Geo-Archaeological Interpretation |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/abs/rise-and-fall-of-axum-ethiopia-a-geoarchaeological-interpretation/B5B3D127F93D1C975C3D3C0CCD3BF773 |journal=American Antiquity |language=en |volume=46 |issue=3 |pages=471–495 |doi=10.2307/280596 |jstor=280596 |s2cid=162374800 |issn=0002-7316}}</ref>

===Foreign relations, trade, and economy===
[[File:Periplous of the Erythraean Sea.svg|left|250px|thumb|Aksum was an important participant in international trade from the 1st century AD ([[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]]) until circa the later part of the 1st millennium when it succumbed to a long decline against pressures from the various Islamic [[regional power|powers]] leagued against it.]]

Covering parts of what is now northern [[Ethiopia]] and southern and eastern [[Eritrea]], Aksum was deeply involved in the trade network between the [[Middle kingdoms of India|Indian subcontinent]] and the [[Greco-Roman world|Mediterranean]] ([[Roman Empire|Rome]], later [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantium]]), exporting [[ivory trade|ivory]], tortoise shell, gold and [[emerald]]s, and importing [[silk]] and spices.<ref name="britishmuseum.org"/><ref name="Daily Life"/> Aksum's access to both the Red Sea and the Upper Nile enabled its strong navy to profit in trade between various African ([[Nubia]]), Arabian ([[Yemen]]), and Indian states.

The main exports of Aksum were, as would be expected of a state during this time, agricultural products. The land was much more fertile during the time of the Aksumites than now, and their principal crops were grains such as wheat, [[barley]] and [[teff]]. The people of Aksum also raised [[cattle]], sheep, and camels. Wild animals were also hunted for things such as ivory and rhinoceros horns. They traded with Roman traders as well as with Egyptian and Persian merchants. The empire was also rich with gold and iron deposits. These metals were valuable to trade, but another mineral was also widely traded: [[salt]]. Salt was abundant in Aksum and was traded quite frequently.<ref name="goblues.org" /><ref name="obelisk bekerie"/>

It benefited from a major transformation of the maritime trading system that linked [[Indo-Roman trade relations|the Roman Empire and India]]. This change took place around the start of the 1st century. The older trading system involved coastal sailing and many intermediary ports. The Red Sea was of secondary importance to the [[Persian Gulf]] and overland connections to the [[Levant]]. Starting around 100 BC a route from Egypt to India was established, making use of the Red Sea and using monsoon winds to cross the [[Arabian Sea]] directly to [[South India|southern India]]. By about 100 AD, the volume of traffic being shipped on this route had eclipsed older routes. Roman demand for goods from southern India increased dramatically, resulting in greater number of large ships sailing down the Red Sea from [[Roman Egypt]] to the Arabian Sea and India.<ref name="ruperthopkins.com">[http://www.ruperthopkins.com/pdf/Kingdom_of_Axum.pdf Kingdom of Axum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925100701/http://www.ruperthopkins.com/pdf/Kingdom_of_Axum.pdf |date=2020-09-25 }}</ref><ref name="otik.uk.zcu.cz">{{Cite web |last1=Záhoří |first1=Jan |date=February 2014 |title=Review: Phillipson, (2012). ''Foundations of an African civilization: Aksum & the Northern Horn, 1000 BC - AD 1300'' |url=https://otik.uk.zcu.cz/bitstream/handle/11025/15553/Zahorik.pdf?sequence=1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107100243/https://otik.uk.zcu.cz/bitstream/handle/11025/15553/Zahorik.pdf?sequence=1 |archive-date=2017-01-07 |access-date=2017-01-06}}</ref> 

In 525 AD, the Aksumites attempted to take over the Yemen region to gain control over The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; one of the most significant trading routes in the medieval world, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Rulers were inclined to establish a spot of imperialism across the Red Sea in Yemen to completely control the trading vessels that ran down the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is located in the maritime choke point between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea. Because of the ruler of Yemen's persecution of Christians in 523 AD, Kaleb I, the ruler of Aksum (a Christian region) at the time, responded to the persecutions by attacking  the Himyarite king Yūsuf As'ar Yath'ar, known as Dhu Nuwas, a Jewish convert who was persecuting the Christian community of Najran,Yemen in 525 AD, with the help of the Byzantine empire, with whom had ties with his kingdom. Victoriously, the Aksum empire was able to claim the Yemen region, establishing a viceroy in the region and troops to defend it until 570 AD when the Sassanids invaded.

The Kingdom of Aksum was ideally located to take advantage of the new trading situation. [[Adulis]] soon became the main port for the export of African goods, such as ivory, incense, gold, slaves, and exotic animals. In order to supply such goods the kings of Aksum worked to develop and expand an inland trading network. A rival, and much older trading network that tapped the same interior region of Africa was that of the [[Kingdom of Kush]], which had long supplied Egypt with African goods via the [[Nile]] corridor. By the 1st century AD, however, Aksum had gained control over territory previously Kushite. The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' explicitly describes how ivory collected in Kushite territory was being exported through the port of Adulis instead of being taken to [[Meroë]], the capital of Kush. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD the Kingdom of Aksum continued to expand their control of the southern Red Sea basin. A caravan route to Egypt was established which bypassed the Nile corridor entirely. Aksum succeeded in becoming the principal supplier of African goods to the Roman Empire, not least as a result of the transformed Indian Ocean trading system.<ref>The effect of the Indian Ocean trading system on the rise of Aksum is described in [http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/interactions/burstein.html State Formation in Ancient Northeast Africa and the Indian Ocean Trade] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114074953/http://www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/interactions/burstein.html |date=2009-01-14 }}, by Stanley M. Burstein.</ref>

====Climate change hypothesis====
[[File:Balaw Kalaw (metera), stele axumita 06.JPG|thumb|Axumite Menhir in Balaw Kalaw (Metera) near [[Senafe]]]]
[[Climate variability and change|Climate change]] and trade isolation have also been claimed as large reasons for the decline of the culture.{{Citation needed|date=November 2019}} The local subsistence base was substantially augmented by a climatic shift during the 1st century AD that reinforced the spring rains, extended the rainy season from 3 1/2 to six or seven months, vastly improved the surface and subsurface water supply, doubled the length of the growing season, and created an environment comparable to that of modern central Ethiopia (where two crops can be grown per annum without the aid of irrigation).

Askum was also located on a plateau {{cvt|2000|m|ft}} feet above sea level, making its soil fertile and the land good for agriculture. This appears to explain how one of the marginal agricultural environments of Ethiopia was able to support the demographic base that made this far flung commercial empire possible. It may also explain why no Aksumite rural settlement expansion into the moister, more fertile, and naturally productive lands of Begemder or Lasta can be verified during the heyday of Aksumite power.

As international profits from the exchange network declined, Aksum lost control over its raw material sources, and that network collapsed. The persistent environmental pressure on a large population needing to maintain a high level of regional food production intensified, which resulted in a wave of soil erosion that began on a local scale {{circa|650}}, and reached crisis levels after 700. Additional socioeconomic contingencies presumably compounded the problem: these are traditionally reflected in a decline in maintenance, the deterioration and partial abandonment of marginal crop lands, shifts toward more destructive exploitation of pasture land—and ultimately wholesale, irreversible [[land degradation]]. This decline was possibly accelerated by an apparent decline in the reliability of rainfall beginning between 730 and 760, presumably with the result that an abbreviated modern growing season was reestablished during the 9th century.<ref name="butzer1981">{{Cite journal |last=Butzer |first=Karl W. |date=1981 |title=Rise and Fall of Axum, Ethiopia: A Geo-Archaeological Interpretation |url=http://sites.utexas.edu/butzer/files/2017/03/Butzer-1981-Axum.pdf |journal=American Antiquity |volume=46 |number = 3 |pages=471–495 |via=University of Texas at Austin |jstor = 280596 |doi = 10.2307/280596|s2cid=162374800 }}</ref>{{rp|495}}