Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

already using metal pieces as money, was one of the points which made Jacqueline 
Pirenne's suggestion (1961) that the Periplus was of third-century date seem plausible. 
Now, however, the accumulation of evidence for an earlier date seems conclusive, and it 
must be accepted that the conditions preparatory for Aksum's move to production of their 
own coinage existed long before they were put into action. Eventually, however, Aksum, 
with its outlet to the Red Sea at the port of Adulis, decided to produce its own coinage 
instead of importing it; both Roman (Anfray and Annequin 1965: 68-71) and Indian 
(Mordini 1960, 1967) gold reached the country, as attested by archaeological evidence. 
The Indian material consisted of a hoard of Kushana gold coins of kings Vima Kadphises 
II, Kaniska, Huviska, and Vasudeva I found at the monastery of Dabra Damo, and dated 
to around 220AD, while the most dramatic find of Roman gold consisted of coins and 
jewellery of the time of the Antonines found at Matara. A number of Himyarite coins 
have also been found at Aksum (Munro-Hay 1978). Archaeological finds of this sort are 
rare, and the amount of foreign money circulating was probably relatively restricted.  
Prior to the introduction of the coinage, the primitive economy doubtless worked on the 
barter system, which remained the customary method of dealing with trade in certain 
areas of the Aksumite trade network, even during the existence of the coinage. It is 
almost inconceivable to imagine that money was used very much in the remoter 
countryside, or that money taxation could have been levied outside limited urban areas or 
at special toll points. The archaeological evidenc e is meagre, owing to lack of 
exploration, but coin finds have been reported from Arato to Lalibela (Munro-Hay 1978), 
and they are plentiful on all excavated town sites (see below). Much of the population 
doubtless lived in a more or less self-sufficient rural setting, where contacts with foreign 
trade were minimal, and money was scarcely needed in day to day exchange. Aksum 
continued to deal with non-monetised economies in, for example, the gold trade with 
Sasu in the Sudan (Wolska-Conus 1968: 360), and doubtless also in other African 
regions.  
In the reign of Kaleb the Sasu gold trade was conducted through the medium of salt 
blocks (later known as amole), iron, and cattle (imported on the hoof, and killed on 
arrival). Whether other products were employed as a standard for measuring relative 
values, as the amole or salt block was until comparatively recent times (Pankhurst 1961: 
260-5), is not known. The amole, though used as a currency, in later times varied in value 
as one travelled further from the centres of production in the eastern lowlands, but its 
transport to Sasu shows that even in ancient times it was an important element in the 
trade of Aksum. Other goods were directed towards the more sophisticated trade of the 
Red Sea, with its outlets to the Graeco-Roman world and the East. These valuable 
exports, whose trade routes fell under Aksumite control, helped the original development 
of the state towards the more evolved market system which eventually induced it to issue 
its own coinage.  
The Aksumite coinage-province is very little known. At the cities on the route from the 
coast to the capital, as expected, there have been archaeological finds of coins. The 
excavations at the port of Adulis, the inland town of Matara and Aksum itself have 
yielded coins, and others have come from lesser sites in Tigray and Eritrea, but in very 

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small numbers. Coins, including one of king Armah, were found at Arato in Eritrea, and a 
coin of Ouazebas came from Lalibela (but not from an archaeologically attested context). 
Other coinage finds from South Arabia (by far the richest source for the gold coins of 
Aksum so far) consist of gold coins dating only from the time of Ezana to Kaleb. This has 
been construed as indicating a certain Aksumite control in the area, and such a theory 
may indeed be valid. But it may also be that some of the coins represent hoards deposited 
at the time of Kaleb's Arabian war; to this category may belong the coins now in the 
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the extremely important al-Mudhariba hoard 
(Munro-Hay 1989ii). If this is so, the theory that the Aksumites retained some control in 
South Arabia must depend more on the mention of South Arabian kingdoms in the 
Aksumite royal titularies, the Epigraphic South Arabian inscriptions, and the hint in a 
Greek text that the Aksumite kings appointed the Himyarite rulers (
Ch. 4
), than on 
coinage evidence. Such information is only available in and before Ezana's time, and later 
in the reign of Kaleb. Taxes in sixth-century Himyar were, interestingly, computed 
according to weights of gold coins which were last used at the time of Ezana (Boissonade 
1833; Munro-Hay 1978).  
It would seem not unlikely that Aksum's armies in South Arabia would have been paid in 
coin from the military chest, and it is therefore notable that the king whose wars with 
South Arabia are best documented, Kaleb, has many more gold issues than other kings, 
perhaps reflecting an increase in production to pay his armies. The provenance of the 
majority of these issues is South Arabia. Possibly the hoards mentioned above represent 
coin gathered in Kaleb's time from all the issues still current in Aksum, and taken over 
with the armies. Alternatively they could have been collections of foreign coins 
belonging to Himyarites deposited during the advance of Kaleb's forces or in subsequent 
disturbances, or simply capital sums buried for security by Aksumites or Arabs who were 
never able to disinter them.  
Since the Aksumites claimed control over parts of South Arabia for a very long time 
(from perhaps the early 200's to the second quarter of the sixth century, whether 
intermittently or not), finds of coins there are not surprising. It is surprising, however, 
that neither the silver nor the bronze fractions are found there — save for one silver coin 
of Ebana found at the Hadhrami capital, Shabwa — and also that many of the gold issues 
have as yet no reported find spots from Ethiopia itself. Apart from the South Arabian 
gold finds, Aksumite coins are rarely met with elsewhere; only a few bronze coins have 
come to light outside Ethiopia, in Israel (Caesarea, Beth Shan and Jerusalem), Meroë and 
at Qaw and Hawara in Egypt (Barkay 1981; Meshorer 1965-6; Munro-Hay 1978: 81ff). 
So, by and large, the coinage in silver and bronze, with its unique addition of gilding, 
appears to have been designed for use within the borders of Ethiopia. The gold was 
primarily aimed, as its Greek legend specifying `king of the Aksumites' indicates, 
towards the outside world, and seems to have been used either for specialised purposes 
such as paying soldiers in Arabia, or for general trading capital in relatively large sums. 
In contrast, given its local use, much of the silver and bronze coinage mentions only the 
king's name with the word `king', and does not need to specify `of Aksum'.  
3. Internal Aspects of the Coinage 

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