The Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum), was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from ca. 5th century BC to become an important trading nation by the 1st century AD. It converted to Christianity in 325 or 328 (various sources). A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. ... (6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC - other centuries) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) The 5th and 6th centuries BC are a period of philosophical brilliance among advanced civilizations. ... The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 AD to 100 AD, or from 0 to 99 in a more scientific notation (using a year zero), as in astronomical year numbering. ... Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the life, teachings, and actions of Jesus as recounted in the New Testament. ... Events May 20 - First Council of Nicaea - first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church: The Nicene Creed is formulated, the date of Easter is discussed. ... Events May 9: Athanasius is elected bishop of Alexandria Births Valens, Roman Emperor Wong Tai Sin Deaths April 17: Alexander I, Patriarch of Alexandria Categories: 328 ...

It was founded by people who crossed from South Arabia (what is today Yemen). The kingdom started to decline in the 7th century AD, and the population was forced to go farther inland to the highlands, finally falling to the Zagwe dynasty in the twelfth century. However, Yekuno Amlak, who killed the last Zagwe king and founded the Solomonid dynasty traced his ancestry to the last king of Axum, Dil Na'od. The Zagwe Dynasty ruled Ethiopia from the end of the Kingdom of Axum to 1270, when Yekuno Amlak defeated and killed the last Zagwe king in battle. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... Yekuno Amlak (throne name Tasfa Iyasus) was negus (1270 - 1285) of Ethiopia and founder of the Solomonid dynasty. ... The Solomonid dynasty is the traditional royal house of Ethiopia, claming descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who is said to have given birth to the traditional first king Menelik I after her Biblically-described visit to Solomon in Jerusalem. ... Dil Naod was the last Axumite king or emperor before the Zagwe dynasty of Ethiopia. ...

Geography

The Kingdom of Aksum at its height extended across portions of present-day Eritrea, northern Ethiopia and Yemen. The capital city of the kingdom was Aksum, now in northern Ethiopia. Other important cities included Adulis, Matara and Qohaito, all of which are now in Eritrea. Axum, properly Aksum, is a city in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, located at 14°07. ... Adulis is an archeological site in Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. ... Matara (or Metera), is an archeological site in Eritrea (a few kilometers south of Senafe), it was a major Aksumite & Pre-Aksumite City. ... Qohaito was an Aksumite city in what is now Eritrea, lying over 2,500 m above sea level. ...

Societal structure

The Aksumite people represented a mix of Cushitic and Semitic speaking people in Ethiopia and southern Arabia. The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages phylum, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Semitic. ... Semitic is a linguistic term referring to a subdivision of largely Middle Eastern Afro-Asiatic languages, the Semitic languages, as well as their speakers corresponding cultures, and ethnicities. ...

The Aksumite kings had the official title negusa nagast - King of Kings. Aksumite kings traced their lineage to David, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This royal heritage was claimed by all emperors of Ethiopia. King David (דָּוִד Beloved, Standard Hebrew Davíd, Tiberian Hebrew Dāwíd; Arabic داؤد Dāūd Beloved), was the second king of the united kingdom of Israel (c. ... Solomon (Hebrew, Shlomo from Shalom for peace, also Arabic as Suleiman or Sulyaman meaning peace) can mean any of the following: 1. ... The Queen of Sheba, referred to in the Bible books of 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, the Quran, and Ethiopian history, was the ruler of Sheba, an ancient kingdom which modern archeology speculates was located in present-day Ethiopia or Yemen . ...

Foreign relations and economy

Aksum traded with India and Rome (later Byzantium, a strong cultural influence on Aksum), exporting ivory, tortoise shell, gold and emeralds, and importing silk and spices. 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. For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation). ... Byzantine Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων) is the term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. ... An elaborately carved ivory decoration Ivory is a hard, white, opaque substance that is the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth, etc. ... Tortoiseshell can refer to: a Tortoiseshell cat a pattern used in clothing and jewellery the Small Tortoiseshell, a butterfly the Hawksbill turtle Tortoiseshell, a song by The Boo Radleys which appeared on their EP Every Heaven This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise... General Name, Symbol, Number gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 6, d Appearance metallic yellow Atomic mass 196. ... For other uses, see Emerald (disambiguation). ... Silk weaver Silk is a natural protein fiber that can be woven into textiles. ... External links Wikibooks Cookbook has more about this subject: Spice Food Bacteria-Spice Survey Shows Why Some Cultures Like It Hot Citat: ...Garlic, onion, allspice and oregano, for example, were found to be the best all-around bacteria killers (they kill everything). ... Today Nubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan, but in ancient times it was an independent kingdom. ...

In the 2nd century AD, Aksum acquired tributary states on the Arabian Peninsula across the Red Sea, and conquered northern Ethiopia. In 350 AD, they conquered the Kingdom of Kush. // Events Roman Empire governed by the Five Good Emperors (96–180) – Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius. ... For the son of Rama and Sita from Indian epic of Ramayana, go to Kush (hindu). ...

Aksum remained a strong empire and trading power until the rise of Islam in the seventh century AD. However, because the Axumites had sheltered Muhammad's first followers, the Muslims never attempted to overthrow Aksum as they spread across the face of Africa. Islam (Arabic: ; ( (help· info)), submission (to the will of God)) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions, and the worlds second-largest religion. ... ( 6th century - 7th century - 8th century - other centuries) Events Islam starts in Arabia, the Quran is written, and Arabs subjugate Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Central Asia to Islam. ... Muhammad (c. ...

Eventually, the Islamic Empire took control of the Red Sea and most of the Nile, forcing Aksum into economic isolation. However, it still had relatively good relations with all of its Muslim neighbors. Two Christian states northwest of Axum (in modern day Sudan), Maqurra and Alwa, survived until the thirteenth century when they were finally forced by Muslim migration to become Islamic. Aksum, however, remained untouched by the Islamic movements across Africa. Makuria (to Arabs al-Mukurra or al-Muqurra) was a kingdom located in what is today Southern Egypt and the Sudan. ... Alodia or Alwa was a kingdom in Christian Nubia. ... (12th century - 13th century - 14th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 13th century was that century which lasted from 1201 to 1300. ...

Cultural achievements

The Kingdom of Aksum developed its own alphabet (Geez or Ge'ez). An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... The Geez language (or Giiz language) is an ancient language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ...

Under King Ezana, the kingdom adopted Christianity in place of its former polytheistic religion around AD 325. The Ethiopian (or Abyssinian) Church has lasted until the present day. It is still a Monophysite church, and its scriptures and liturgy are still in Ge'ez. Aksumite Christianity may be one of the foundations for the legend of Prester John.^{[citation needed]} Ezana of Axum was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom from about 320 to 350 AD. Ezana succeeded his father Ella Amida while still a youth and his mother, Sofya served as regent. ... Polytheism is belief in, or worship of, multiple gods or divinities. ... This Ethiopian icon shows St. ... Prester John The legend of Prester John (also Presbyter John), popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, told of a mythical Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. ...

A legend has it that at that time, a foreign boy named Frumentius was made a slave of the royal court, and later a tutor to the royal children. When the king died, the queen asked Frumentius to help rule Axum. He had declined promised freedom and remained until the queen's son, Ezana, was old enough to rule. Frumentius established a number of Christian churches, and when Ezana became king he made Christianity (Monophysite) the official religion of Aksum. This custom of a slave who teaches kings remained an important tradition for the next few hundred years. Frumentius (died c. ... Monophysitism (from the Greek monos meaning one and physis meaning nature) is the christological position that Christ has only one nature, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position which holds that Christ has two natures, one divine and one human. ...

It was a cosmopolitan and culturally important state. It was a meeting place for a variety of cultures: Egyptian, Sudanic, Arabic, Middle Eastern, and Indian. The major Aksumite cities had Jewish, Nubian, Christian, and even Buddhist minorities. The term cosmopolitan refers to an individual who retains cultural roots in his or her country of origin, yet has adopted a wide taste for other cultures, and so lives both a local and global life. ... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ʻarab) are a large and heterogeneous ethnic group found throughout the Middle East and North Africa, originating in the Arabian Peninsula of southwest Asia. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Jews (Hebrew: יהודים translit. ... A replica of an ancient statue found among the ruins of a temple at Sarnath Buddhism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, a prince of the Shakyas, whose lifetime is traditionally given as 566 to 486 BCE. It had subsequently been accepted by...

The Kingdom of Aksum was also the first African polity to issue its own coins. From the reign of Endubis up to Armah (approximately 270 to 610), gold, silver and bronze coins in imitation of contemporary Roman currency were minted. Issuing coinage in ancient times was an act of great importance in itself, for it proclaimed that the Axumite kingdom considered itself equal to its neighbors. The presence of coins also simplified trade, and was at once a useful instrument of propaganda and a source of profit to the kingdom. A coin is usually a piece of hard material, generally metal and usually in the shape of a disc, which is issued by a government to be used as a form of money. ... Centuries: 2nd century - 3rd century - 4th century Decades: 220s - 230s - 240s - 250s - 260s - 270s - 280s - 290s - 300s - 310s - 320s Years: 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 Events Crisis of the Third Century Significant people Aurelian, Roman Emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus, Roman Emperor Probus, Roman Emperor Categories... Centuries: 6th century 7th century 8th century Decades: 560s - 570s - 580s - 590s - 600s - 610s - 620s - 630s - 640s - 650s - 660s Years: 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 Events: Muhammad, founding Prophet of Islam, escapes from Mecca to Medina. ... The main Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including: the aureus (gold), the denarius (silver), the sestertius (bronze), the dupondius (bronze), and the as (copper). ... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ...

In the early times of the kingdom, around 1700 years ago, an unknown king ordered the construction of giant Obelisk of Axum. The Obelisk of Axum is a 1700-year-old, 24-metre (78-foot) tall granite obelisk, weighing over 100 tonnes, carved in or around the 4th century AD by the Axumite Kingdom, an ancient Ethiopian culture. ...

Bibliography

• Stuart Munro-Hays. Aksum. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0748601066
• Yuri M. Kobishchanov. Axum (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. ISBN 0271005319

See also

• History of Ethiopia
• Kings of Axum
• Axum coinage

Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. ... Kings during the zenith of the Kingdom of Axum The following based on S.C. Munro-Hay, Aksum (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), pp. ...

External links

• Civilizations in Africa: Axum
• Ancient Horn of Africa:Axum
• Ethiopian Treasures - Queen of Sheba, Aksumite Kingdom - Aksum
• Ancient History Sourcebook: Accounts of Meröe, Kush, and Axum