Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

4. Trade, Imports and Exports 
 
The vigorous trade which Aksum undertook was an important element in the acquisition 
of its power and position in the early centuries AD, and was probably the origin of a good 
part of its wealth. Policing of the trade-routes was therefore of vital importance, and it is 
mentioned in the anonymous Monumentum Adulitanum inscription (
Ch. 11: 5
) that the 
land route to Egypt, and the defence of the Red Sea coasts on both the African and the 
Arabian sides, were objects of vigilance to the Aksumite monarchy. Apart from long-
distance land and sea routes, internal transport must have depended on some sort of state 
maintenance of at least the main roads in reasonable condition for porters or pack-
animals; a practical move also useful for military purposes. We have no reports about 
Aksumite bridges, though the Portuguese later built some of which vestiges are still 
visible today. Ethiopian rivers are scarcely navigable, though some of the lakes are. Lake 
Tsana, which the Aksumites must have reached, is well-known for its reed boats, which 
rather resemble ancient Egyptian types. However, the river valleys, when dry, can also 
supply relatively easy passage from place to place. We have several accounts of the trade 
of the Aksumite kingdom, both internal and external, and archaeological work has 
confirmed many of the chief categories of goods being handled. The earliest account of 
the trade of Ethiopia, that of Pliny, (ed. Rackham 1948: 467) mentions the goods brought 
to Adulis by the `Trogodites and Ethiopians'. These exports were all animal (or human) 
products of the region and are listed as ivory, rhinoceros horn, hippopotamus hides, 
tortoise shell, monkeys, and slaves.  
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea includes a brief chapter on Aksum, and as this 
information is of the first importance for any analysis of Aksumite economic affairs it is 
here quoted in full (Huntingford 1980: 20-21; for a more recent translation see Casson 
1989: 51ff);  
"After Ptolemais of the Huntings, at a distance of about 3000 stades, there is the 
customary mart of Adouli, lying in a deep bay that runs southwards; in front of it is an 
island called Oreine, which is about 200 stades out in the sea from the inmost part of the 
bay, lying along the mainland on both sides, where ships entering anchor on account of 
attacks from the mainland. For at one time they used to anchor right inside the bay at the 
Island called Of Didoros along the mainland where there was a crossing on foot, by 
means of which the Barbaroi living there attacked the island. And opposite Oreine on the 
mainland, twenty stades from the sea, is Adouli, a village of moderate size, from which to 
Koloe, an inland city and the first ivory market, it is a journey of three days; and from 
this, another five days to the metropolis called the Axomite, to which is brought all the 
ivory from beyond the Nile through the district called Kueneion, and thence to Adouli. 
For the whole quantity of elephant and rhinoceros which is killed grazes in the interior, 
though occasionally they are seen by the sea round about Adouli. Out to sea beyond this 
mart, on the right, lie several small sandy islands called Alalaiou, where there is 
tortoiseshell, which is brought to the mart by the Ikhthuophagoi.  

---

And at a distance of nearly 800 stades there is another very deep bay, at the mouth of 
which on the right hand is a great sandbank, in the depths of which is found deposited the 
opsian stone, which occurs in this place only. Zoskales rules these parts, from the 
Moskhophagoi to the other Barbaria, mean [in his way] of life and with an eye on the 
main chance, but otherwise high-minded, and skilled in Greek letters.  
To these places are imported:  
Barbaric unfulled cloth made in Egypt, Arsinoitic robes, spurious coloured cloaks, linen, 
fringed mantles, several sorts of glassware, imitation murrhine ware made in Diospolis, 
orokhalkos, which they use for ornaments and for cutting [to serve] as money, material 
called `copper cooked in honey' for cooking-pots and for cutting into armlets and anklets 
for women, iron used for spears both for hunting elephants and other animals and for 
war, axes, adzes, swords, big round drinking cups of bronze, a little money for foreigners 
who live there, Ladikean and Italian wine, but not much. For the king are imported: 
silver and gold objects made in the design of the country, cloaks of cloth, unlined 
garments, not of much value.  
Likewise from the inner parts of Ariake: Indian iron and steel, the broader Indian cloth 
called monakhe, cloth called sagmatogenai, belts, garments called gaunakai, mallow-
cloth, a little muslin, coloured lac. The exports from these places are: ivory, tortoiseshell, 
rhinoceros horn. The greater part is brought from Egypt to the mart between the month 
of January and the month of September, that is, from Tubi to Thoth. The best time for the 
trade from Egypt is about the month of September".  
The exports of Aksum came from all over its area of hegemony. Along the route Adulis-
Koloe-Aksum-Kueneion, starting from the latter (suggested to be the Sinaar region of the 
modern Sudan, Schoff 1912: 61, but possibly meaning the somewhat closer regions over 
the Takaze/Atbara river), came, according to the Periplus (Huntingford 1980), ivory from 
the country beyond the Nile. A tusk was found at Adulis (Sergew Hable Sellassie 1972: 
74/5), eloquent witness to this part of Aksum's trade network. From the Blemmyes 
(Beja), says Kosmas, came emeralds (beryls), taken into India by Ethiopian merchants 
(Wolska-Conus 1973: 352-3); Olympiodorus (Kirwan 1966: 123) notes that the 
Beja/Blemmyes controlled the emerald supply by the early fifth century, when he was 
permitted to visit them, and Epiphanius (ed. Blake, de Vis 1934), writing at the end of the 
century, confirmed that the Ethiopians obtained emeralds from the Blemmye country. 
From islands in the Red Sea came tortoise-shell, and obsidian from near the shore (see 
above), and from Sasu (perhaps the gold-bearing Fazugli region some 200 km. south-
south-west of Lake Tsana, in modern Sudan) came gold, which was exchanged for salt, 
iron and meat (Wolska-Conus 1968: 360). Products from the animal life of the Ethiopian 
region figure high, as in Pliny's account, and include monkeys and other live animals, 
ivory and rhinoceros horn and hippopotamus hides. Aromatics, spices and other 
vegetable products either local or transhipped, such as incense resins, cassia, and sugar-
cane (Kosmas, ed. Wolska-Conus 1968: 358), also formed part of the Aksumite trade in 
the exotic. Frankincense trees even now grow in the region to the south-east of Aksum, 
and Strabo, in the first century BC already notes that the Sabaeans engaged in the traffic 

---