Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

a social stratification. At the top we can envisage the occupants of the élite dwellings and 
elaborately-constructed tombs. Further ranks would have included the merchants, traders 
or middlemen who arranged the supply-system, or the architects, builders, and artisans 
who raised the buildings. The base of the system rested upon the labourers in the fields 
and the workers in other sectors. We can assume from the apparently long existence of 
the towns that reasonably stable conditions prevailed in the country both politically and 
otherwise. This at least partly urbanised Aksumite society was in sharp contrast to the 
situation in later Ethiopia, when travellers remarked that the country contained no cities 
or substantial towns, only the mobile tented `capital' which followed the emperor, and 
was moved to another region when it had exhausted the resources of a particular spot 
(Pankhurst 1961: 137ff).  
Aksumite cultural traits are found at many of the town sites, some of which may 
originally have been the local centres for tribal groups later conquered by the Aksumites. 
The port-city of Adulis, which eventually covered at least 20,000 square metres, 
according to Paribeni (1907: 443), with its harbour and customs point a short distance 
away at Gabaza (see below), appears to have originated as the centre for the coastal 
people called Adulitae. It was the first point on the long trade route into the Sudan, and, 
favourably situated as it was in a bay on the Red Sea coast, had obvious opportunities to 
acquire wealth by trading. Evidence of its prosperity came from Sundström's and 
Paribeni's excavations in 1906, where numbers of gold coins were found in several 
different occupation levels (Sundström 1907, Paribeni 1907). It was not necessarily the 
only Aksumite port or coastal city, and another coastal town to the north called Samidi is 
known (see below). In the Dahlak Islands off the coast, Puglisi (1969: 37ff) noted four 
typical Aksumite capitals or column bases and a chamfered column re-used in a building 
at Gim'hilé and more complex carved material at Dahlak Kebir; almost certain evidence 
for Aksumite activity on the islands. It is perhaps just possible that they could have been 
taken there later, but it seems inconceivable that the long Aksumite control of the coast 
would not have encouraged them to secure these islands on the direct path to their main 
port.  
Defence was not apparently an urgent consideration for the people of Adulis; although it 
was not safe for foreign vessels to anchor in places directly accessible from the Ethiopian 
coast at the time of the Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 20), the town does not seem to have 
been walled. Paribeni (1907: 444) searched on all sides of the town for any traces of 
fortifications, but without success.  
Adulis contained large and elegant buildings, churches, and smaller town houses of a few 
rooms (Paribeni 1907; Anfray 1974). It lay a short distance inland from the port 
installations at Gabaza. The Periplus and Procopius do not name Gabaza, but mention the 
distance of 20 stades from the actual harbour to Adulis itself (Huntingford 1980: 20; 
Procopius, ed. Dewing 1914: 183). Adulis' Ethiopic name may have been Zala (Caquot 
1965: 225). The merchant Kosmas, who situates the town `2 miles' from the coast 
(Wolska-Conus 1968: 364), mentions that Adulis had a governor, Asbas (Wolska-Conus 
1968: 368), and that merchants from Alexandria and Ela (Aela or Eilat) traded there 
(Wolska-Conus 1968: 364). On Kosmas' map, preserved in much later copies, the 

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position of Adulis is shown with Gabaza a little to the south on the sea-shore, and Samidi 
to the north (Wolska-Conus 1968: 367). Paribeni wondered if perhaps Adulis had 
originally been on the seacoast, and excavated a trench at the east side of the ruin- field to 
test for any such evidence; but the trench instead revealed a church (Paribeni 1907: 529).  
Paribeni (1907: 444) also searched for the famous Monumentum Adulitanum. The 
monument, a sort of symbolic throne, seems to have been fairly elaborate in design. 
Kosmas describes it as placed at the entrance to the town, on the west side towards the 
road to Aksum. Executions took place in front of it. It was of good white marble, but not, 
Kosmas says, Proconnesian, with a square base supported by four slender columns at the 
corners and another, heavier, column carved in a twisted fashion, in the centre. The 
throne had a back, sculpted with images of Hermes and Hercules, and two arm-rests. 
Behind it was a basalt stele, fallen and broken, with a peaked top. Both monuments, 
drawings of which are included on Kosmas' map of the Ethiopian coast, had inscriptions 
in Greek on them, one of Ptolemy III (246-221BC) on the stele, and one of an unnamed 
Aksumite king on the throne (see 
Ch. 11: 5
).  
The name of Adulis' customs-point, Gabaza, has been preserved also in the Martyrium 
Sancti Arethae (Carpentier 1861: 747), where it is cited as the naval station for Adulis. In 
this account of the persecutions in South Arabia in the sixth century, a hermit called 
Zonaenus, originally from Aela, is said to have been living at the town of Sabi; this has 
been thought to refer to a coastal town near Adulis (Irvine, in  Dictionary of Ethiopian 
Biography 1975: 217), and the king is said to have descended from it to Adulis after 
receiving the hermit's blessing. But it seems rather to refer to the hermitage of Abba 
Pantelewon, very close to Aksum (Boissonade 1833; Carpentier 1861: 748, 751). 
Carpentier drew attention to Telles' note about a place called Saba, when he wrote that 
"Near to Auxum or Aczum, in the kingdom of Tigre in Ethiopia, there is still a small 
village called Saba or Sabaim, where they say the queen of Sheba or Saba was born" 
(Tellez 1710: 71).  
Ptolemy mentions a town called Sabat, which he situates to the north of Adulis 
(Stevenson 1932: 108, and map, where it is labelled Sabath). Perhaps it is identical with 
Kosmas' Samidi. Huntingford (1980: 100) suggested that Sabat might rather be identified 
with the town of Saue mentioned in the Periplus; this was three days inland on the 
Arabian side between Muza and Zafar. Taddesse Tamrat, after Conti Rossini, identified 
Sabat with Girar near Massawa (1972: 14). Carpentier referred to "Sabae, a port of 
Ethiopia on the Red Sea, noted by Strabo, and Sabat, a town of Ethiopia in the Adulitic 
gulf, mentioned by Ptolemy". Occasionally Adulis itself has been identified with Strabo's 
Saba, and Assab with his Sabai (Strabo XVI; Huntingford 1980: 168-70), and even older 
origins have been proposed for Adulis (see Munro-Hay 1982i). Until a great deal more is 
known about the earlier archaeological levels at the site of Adulis, the antiquity of its 
origins remains obscure; but Paribeni found archaeological deposits of over 10m. depth 
in one of his exploratory trenches (Paribeni 1907: 446ff, 566) and suggested that a 
considerable amount had been deposited before sustained contacts with other civilisations 
had developed.  

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