possibly among the imported
garments mentioned by the Periplus (Huntingford 1980), as
was also perhaps the gold-worked linen kilt worn by Kaleb in Malalas' description (ed.
Migne 1860; see
Ch. 7: 2
above). Cotton may have come from Meroë (see p. 228), or
perhaps from other areas within Aksumite control.
The many stone implements found at Aksum were probably made for leather-working or
for ivory and bone carving; ivory, bone, or wood handles have been found in certain
tombs (Munro-Hay 1989). An interesting ethnographic parallel for the use of obsidian
tools, apparently limited to the scraping of animal hides among the Gurage, Sidamo, and
Arussi peoples of present-day Southern Ethiopia, is supplied by Gallagher (1974).
There must also have been local workshops for metal objects, many examples of which
have been found during excavations in Ethiopia. Some objects might have been imported.
But such items as the statues of gold, silver, and bronze which
inscriptions mention as
raised to the gods in celebration of victories (
Ch. 11: 5
;
DAE 4, 6 & 7
,
Geza `Agmai
)
would very likely have been of Aksumite manufacture and style. A bronze belt buckle,
with inlaid glass and silver decoration including crosses of typical Aksumite style as seen
on the coins, may also have been a local product (Chittick 1974); if so, this confirms that
there was probably a local glass industry as well. Helen Morrison, who catalogued and
studied the glass from Aksum (Morrison in Munro-Hay 1989), found that a considerable
number of unusual colours of glass came from the Aksum excavations, and that some
painted
designs on glass were, so far, unattested elsewhere; features which may go
towards confirming that the Aksumites set up their own glass workshops. A glass-kiln
has in fact been reported from Aksum, but the find has not yet been confirmed or
published.
Illustration 45. A bronze belt buckle decorated with silver crosses and inlay of dark-blue
glass, from the Tomb of the Brick Arches at Aksum. Photo BIEA.
If local workers succeeded to imported mint- masters in the making of dies for the
coinage, as seems probable, this may account for the gradual decline of standards of die-
cutting; but the Aksumites compensated to some extent for
the less skilled work by the
inlaying of gold on the bronze and silver using mercury-gilding.
Stone-working was very highly developed, as the stelae and other carved objects show,
and the mason's yards must have been continually busy shaping the blocks needed for
corners, doorways, paving and so on. Carved stone capitals, bases and water-spouts were
among the more common categories of decorated stonework found during excavations
(see
Ch. 13: 3
). Bricks, too, used in tombs and certain special installations, were surely
made and fired nearby.
6. Food
The Aksumites would doubtless have served their food in
some of their large range of
pottery vessels, after preparing it in the coarse-ware cooking vessels on open fires, in
ovens or on charcoal- fed stoves. Much of their diet would have consisted of products of
the local environment. Beef or mutton, bread, beer (
sewa), honey wine or mead (
tej), with
various sorts of vegetables and fruits are to be expected locally, while imported wines of
Laodicea and Italy, spices, and olive oil added to the luxury of the tables of the richer
citizens. Archaeological evidence for the importation of wines and oils is supplied by the
amphorae used to transport them; Paribeni even suggested that
tar found in one amphora
may have been used as a preservative, as in Greek resinated wines. It is unknown whether
the Aksumites themselves cultivated the vine. Honey may have been used as a sweetener
as well as a drink. Many of these foodstuffs are mentioned by the Safra inscription
(Drewes 1962: 41, 48-9) or by the
Periplus (Huntingford 1980: 22).
From the numerous medium-sized bowls found, it may be deduced that a part of the diet
consisted of something like a cereal porridge or gruel. Wheat or barley-cakes and bread
were also probably made, and the importance of the grain is illustrated
by its depiction in
a prominent position as a frame for the king's head on many Aksumite coins. Large
numbers of grindstones testify to the preparation of flour for bread at, for example,
Matara and Adulis. Anfray (1974: 752) noted that they are of the round, turning, type at
Adulis, but oblong on the plateau sites. Anfray (1963: pl. CXLVI and 1965: pl. LXXIII,
4) also mentions small mortars from the pre-Aksumite period, perhaps for use in the
preparation of cosmetics rather than food. Dairy products would certainly have been part
of the diet, and doubtless eggs were eaten. For meat,
there was beef or mutton, and also
any wild animals which might have been considered edible. By one hearth in Adulis, the
French excavator Francis Anfray found a cooking-pot still containing the mutton bones of
a meal never cleared away (Anfray 1974: 753). Pork was not eaten in later times and
possibly this abstention, observed by the Jews and Muslims as well as the Orthodox
Ethiopians for practical health reasons, was of early origin as domestic pigs are not
attested. Dietary prohibitions are later reiterated in the
Kebra Nagast (Budge 1922: 159).
Fishing may have been practised. The turtles which produced the `tortoise-shell' may also
have added to the coastal Aksumites' diet, though creatures
without fins and scales are
among those included in the later list of prohibited foods. Those who brought the
tortoise-shell to the market are referred to by the author of the
Periplus as Ikhthuophagoi,
or fish-eaters. The excavations at Adulis produced both fish-bones and bronze fish-hooks
(Paribeni 1907: 483, 540). Shell- fish were also later prohibited, again possibly an old
custom. No early visitor has said whether the Aksumites liked raw beef, cut from the
living animal, as Bruce (1790) reported (to the horrified disbelief of his eighteenth
century English readers) about the Ethiopians of his day.
Almost certainly some foodstuffs would have been eaten
from wooden or basketwork
vessels (the typical Ethiopian `table' today, the
mesob, is of basketwork). Wooden
cooking or eating utensils, and basketwork storage bins can also be presumed with some
likelihood. In the lowest building level at the Maryam Tseyon site in Aksum, an
exceptional find was a row of large
pithoi or storage pots, probably for bulk storage of
some sort of dry grain (de Contenson 1963i: pl. XII).