Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

mortality, have been excavated, although the bones collected by Leclant (1959i) and de 
Contenson (1959i) and Chittick (Munro-Hay 1989) may eventually supply some 
information on the people of Aksum through the centurie s. The first two found bones 
conjectured to date from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, while Chittick cleared a 
few tombs, notably that called Shaft Tomb A, in the main cemetery, and a tomb near the 
Kaleb/Gabra Masqal building, which contained a number of bodies.  
2. Agriculture, Husbandry, and Animal Resources 
 
Aksumite Ethiopia possessed a mainly agricultural and pastoral economy, and its 
geographical situation gave it access to an unusual variety of environments which could 
be seasonally exploited for crop growing or grazing (Connah 1987; Phillipson 1989). The 
agricultural resource base, depending on rainfall and soil quality, seems to have been of 
far richer potential in Aksumite times than today, according to the work of Butzer (1981). 
Although the decline of the Red Sea trade links removed Ethiopia from the 
Roman/Byzantine orbit, it still remained a relatively rich and powerful state, according to 
the Arab authors who occasionally mention the kingdom of the najashi (
Ch. 4: 8
). Much 
of this prosperity must have been due to the considerable agricultural and domestic and 
wild animal resources of the country, amplified by a certain amount of trade with the 
Arabs. The soils in the Aksum region may have suffered from excessive exploitation and 
erosion (though there are still some good farmlands in the area), but the rich lands to the 
south which were the heartland of the later Ethiopian kingdom were very fertile. Famine 
is apparently first noted in Ethiopia in the ninth century (Pankhurst 1961: 236 after Budge 
1928: I, 275); the story of the metropolitan John of Ethiopia (
Ch. 4: 8.3
) in the 
patriarchates of James (819-830) and Joseph (830-849) of Alexandria, attributes 
Ethiopia's condition to war, plague, and inadequate rains (Evetts 1904: 508ff).  
The existence of the dam at Qohayto (Littmann 1913: II, 149-52), and the basin Mai 
Shum at Aksum (Littmann 1913: II, 70-73) indicates that water conservation was 
practised (as was inevitable in a country linked so closely to South Arabia both culturally 
and in the nature of the environment). However, so far no excavations have been 
undertaken at these sites, and neither the dam nor the basin can be securely dated. Butzer 
(1981) suggested that there had been an earth dam set across the Mai Hejja in Aksum, 
perhaps to augment the flow of water into the Mai Shum basin, and there may have been 
another pond for water conservation at the foot of Mai Qoho hill (
Ch. 5: 3
; Alvares, ed. 
Beckingham and Huntingford 1961: 155), but again neither have yet been investigated. In 
short, though control of water for agricultural and drinking purposes can almost certainly 
be posited for Aksumite times, we have no contemporary reports or archaeological 
evidence to indicate the level to which irrigation or water-conservation were actually 
employed in the Aksumite kingdom.  

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Illustration 44. Drawing of a bronze coin (d. c. 15mm) of king Aphilas of Aksum, 
showing a wheat stalk in the reverse field; on all the gold coins of Aksum two such stalks 
frame the king's head on the obverse.  
The importance with which at least one of the agricultural staples was regarded can be 
inferred by the depiction on all Aksumite gold coins of ears of bearded wheat or primitive 
two-row barley (both identifications have been proposed), acting as a frame for the head 
of the king. On some bronze coins, the wheat or barley- head is the sole motif on the 
reverse, and the important place accorded to it seems to indicate that it was the specially 
selected symbol of Aksum or its rulers. The inscription of Ezana about his Beja war (see 
Ch. 11: 5
; 
DAE 4, 6 & 7
 and 
Geza `Agmai
) shows that the kings had access to stores of 
food and were able to issue food rations on a substantial scale when necessary. The Safra 
inscription (Drewes 1962: pp. 30ff) appears to deal with special allotments of food for 
specific purposes, possibly on the occasion of the residence of the king in the area. Meat, 
bread and beer are the basic subsistence foods mentioned.  
At the Gobedra rock-shelter very near Aksum, David Phillipson (1977) found evidence of 
finger millet apparently from pre-Aksumite times; but this has since turned out to be 
intrusive (Phillipson 1989). The Safra inscription appears to be the earliest mention of 
grain products such as beer, flour, and bread. Ethiopia's special native cereal, eragrostis 
teff, is not attested from Aksumite times, but, like wheat, barley and spelt, it is very likely 
to have been cultivated on the Ethiopian plateau where numerous ancient forms of these 
crops are found. So far no evidence from oven or platter types has been adduced from 
excavated material which might lead one to assume that the characteristic injera-bread 
made from teff, now a staple of the Tigray diet, was known in Aksumite times.  
The Russian scientist N. I. Vavilov investigated Ethiopian wheat and barley, and found 
that the majority was grown on the high plateaux between 2000 and 2800m, while the 
late Ruth Plant added a note in an unpublished article that the distribution of wheat and 
barley-growing regions in the north of Ethiopia closely follows that of the distribution 
map of Aksumite sites. Vavilov considered that Ethiopia was the centre of origin for 
cultivated barley (but see Fattovich 1989ii: 85). However, it is also possible that 
cultivated wheat and barley entered the region long ago from perhaps Egypt, where they 
have been found in contexts dating to around the fifth millenium BC. In any event, the 
existence of these crops in Ethiopia from an early period supports the possibility that 
settled farming communities had long lived on the plateaux of Ethiopia, prior to the 
South Arabian influences in the country. The crops they farmed were bequeathed to their 
Aksumite successors, though, as noted above, the identity of the grain ears depicted on 
the coins is still disputed. It has been identified as a primitive two-row barley (Munro-

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