Cited in the third century of our era by the Persian prophet Mani as one of the four greatest empires of his time alongside Rome, India and China, the ancient empire of Aksum (present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea) nevertheless remains relatively little known to the Francophone Black public. We will attempt here to present this prestigious state which took up the torch of East African great-power status after the fall of Pharaonic Egypt and the Kingdom of Kush, and which converted to Christianity before the Roman Empire did
As in ancient Egypt, where the pharaonic state was supposedly founded by invaders from Mesopotamia, or at Ife in Nigeria, whose artistic tradition was once thought to be the result of Greek influence, the origins of civilization in what is now modern Ethiopia and Eritrea were initially attributed to South-Arabian colonists from Saba who, after subjugating the indigenous Cushitic-speaking Black African Ethio-Eritrean populations, were said to have founded, among other things, the culture of the Kingdom of Dʿmt.
This kingdom, centered on the city of Yeha in the Tigray region of present-day Ethiopia and which developed during the first millennium BCE, combined African and South-Arabian cultural traits. However, the most recent studies show that this state was not a South-Arabian colony in Africa but rather the result of processes of cultural and economic exchange. Moreover, Dʿmt is not, as once believed, the sole ancestral culture of Aksum. Among them we also find a culture called by the archaeologist Niall Finneran “Proto-Aksumite,” which shows characteristics in common with the cultures of the Middle Nile Valley, notably those of the various Kushite cultures.
The beginnings
According to tradition, the name Aksum would be composed of the word ak, from a Cushitic root meaning “water,” and the Semitic root shum, meaning “chief.” It would thus mean “chief of the water” and would refer to a head of state controlling a space open to water. Its etymology, drawn from different language families, would illustrate the union of two peoples, one Cushitic-speaking group and another Semitic-speaking group. Aksum is both the name of the kingdom and of its capital.
The first king of Aksum whose name has come down to us is Zoskales. His name appears in an Alexandrian trade manual from the first century of our era, which states that his territory included the port of Adulis (present-day Eritrea), where exotic goods and slaves were traded with the Mediterranean world. The influence of the kingdom also extended into South-Arabian territory. Thus, the names of the next Aksumite kings, GDRT and DBH (around 200 CE), are known only from inscriptions found in those regions and written in the South-Arabian script inherited from the old Ethio-Sabaean exchanges. This mastery of trade would develop further, leading to the creation of the first Aksumite coinage around 270 CE under King Endybis, and then to a gradual monopoly over the export of exotic products destined for the Roman Empire.
This monopoly would weaken its commercial rival, the Kingdom of Kush, which would also suffer military attacks from Aksum under the reign of Ezana at the beginning of the fourth century. A stela bearing his name has in fact been found on Kushite territory.
In another stela, he claims to have fought victoriously against the Noba, the eponymous ancestors of the modern Nubians, crossing Kushite territory. These inscriptions are written in South-Arabian, in ancient Greek, and in Geʿez. The reign of Ezana also saw the erection of one of the three monumental stelae of Aksum still standing today, measuring 21 meters. These monuments probably had a funerary function and disappeared with Christianization.
It is also under Ezana that the first fully vocalized texts in the Geʿez script are attested. Although derived from the South-Arabian script, it was now distinct from it, notably in the notation of vowels. The reign of Ezana is also marked by his conversion to Christianity, replacing the former polytheistic religion that combined local and South-Arabian deities and in which the king was regarded as the son of the war god Mahrem. This conversion of the king, and then of the entire kingdom, would have taken place under the influence of Frumentius, a Syrian or a Greek from Tyre (in present-day Lebanon).
This conversion would make Ethiopia the second oldest continuously Christian country after Armenia. Over the years, Aksum would further increase its external influence, becoming a commercial partner of states in present-day India and perhaps of the Chinese empire. The years following the reign of Ezana, up to the sixth century, would also see a strengthening of Aksum’s political and military presence in South Arabia. Thus, around 520, King Kaleb, at the request of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, attacked the South-Arabian king Yusuf Asar Yathar to free the Christians of the region whom he was persecuting. Victorious, he installed a governor there. The Aksumite Empire now extended its borders beyond Africa.
The end of Aksum
Soon afterward, however, at the end of the sixth century, the Aksumite governors were expelled from South Arabia with the support of the Persians, one of Aksum’s main commercial rivals. The Aksumites at first maintained good relations with the Arab-Muslim empire. It was, moreover, an Aksumite architect by the name of Baqum who is said to have remodeled the Kaʿaba in Mecca. With the expansion of Islam, Aksum would enter into commercial conflict with the Arab-Muslim empire. Isolated, Aksum attempted to seize the prosperous port of Jeddah. The Arabs retaliated by destroying the port of Adulis. The economy of Aksum, weakened by the loss of Adulis, would also suffer from the erosion of local land between 650 and 800 of our era. It is during this period that, as a symbol, the minting of coins bearing the royal effigy ceased, under the reign of King Armah, who may have converted to Islam.
Local tradition explains the definitive fall of the Kingdom of Aksum by its destruction by the armies of a pagan or Jewish queen of Agaw ethnicity called Gudit around 950. The balance of power in Ethiopia would then shift from the Semitic-speaking north to the Cushitic-speaking south, as testified by the emergence of the medieval Zagwe dynasty two centuries later at the head of the country.
Bibliography:
The Archaeology of Ethiopia / Niall Finneran
Histoire de l’Éthiopie, d’Axoum à la révolution / Berhanou Abebe
