Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

in a strange scene with some of his womenfolk, who had tried to help him as he lay dying 
by feeding him an Abyssinian remedy consisting of Indian wood, a little wars seed, and 
some olive oil. Muhammad then made them all swallow it as well. "After this, the 
conversation turning upon Abyssinia, Um Selame and Um Habiba, who had both been 
exiles there, spoke of the beauty of the cathedral of Maria there, and of the wonderful 
pictures on its walls. Overhearing it, Mohammad was displeased and said `These are the 
people who, when a saint among them dieth, build over his tomb a place of worship, and 
adorn it with their pictures; in the eyes of the Lord, the worst part of all creation. . . ."  
Of uncertain date is the carved lioness, over 2 m long, on the rock of Gobedra, near 
Aksum (Littmann 1913: II, 73), but carved stone lion (or bull) heads (Anfray and 
Annequin 1965: pl. LXVII, 5-6) were often used as water-spouts on Aksumite buildings, 
and were still so employed in Alvares' time (
Ch. 10: 5
). The much larger rock sculpture 
of a lion at Kombolcha in southern Wollo may be an Aksumite creation (Gerster 1970: 
25, pls. 9-10), or perhaps dates from the post-Aksumite period. Carving on shell (an ibex 
from Aksum; Munro-Hay 1989) is attested as well, but not necessarily of local 
production. If, as suggested above, parchment or papyrus books or scrolls were used in 
Aksumite times, the art of calligraphy or even the beginnings of the illumination of such 
books may also have a long history.  
Illustration 62. The figure of a lioness carved on a rock at Gobedra, near Aksum.  
We have a certain amount of evidence that the remarkable development of elaborate 
variations on the cross-motif, for which Ethiopia is even now very notable, was in full 
swing in Aksumite times. On the coins the cross is gradually expanded to a design with 
gold inlay, accompanied by additional features like crosslets on the arms, and various-
shaped frames. Many pottery vessels have stamped crosses on their bases, possibly the 
result of carved wooden stamps now vanished. There are a number of these from Aksum, 
and a more elaborated type was commonly found at Matara (Wilding in Munro-Hay 
1989; Anfray 1966). On other vessels the crosses are incised, and accompanied by 
monograms and other symbols. The long- footed Latin cross is uncommon, though it does 
appear, and the equal-armed Greek cross is the main type used.  
 
Illustration 63. Drawing of a bronze coin (d. 17mm) of king Israel of Aksum showing a 
Greek cross in a ring of dots.  

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Illustration 64. Drawing of a silver coin (d. 16mm) of king Wazena of Aksum, showing a 
Greek cross framed in an arch rather similar to the design on the silver coin of Armah, 
fig. 16.  
Illustration 65. Drawings of a silver coin (d. c. 17mm) bearing the monogramme AGD, 
showing a gold- inlaid cross under an arch, and two silver and two bronze issues of king 
Ioel (d. between c. 12 and c. 14mm respectively), depicting the cross in various forms; in 
a circle, as a hand-cross, and in the Latin and Greek styles.  
4. Music and Liturgical Chant 
 
The liturgical music used even today, preserved both by memory and a system of musical 
notation (Buxton 1970: 154ff), is attributed to the deacon Yared, who lived in the reign of 
Kaleb's son Gabra Masqal, in the sixth century. He is said to have so improved the dull 
chants of his time, that in a performance before Gabra Masqal both chanter and king were 
so absorbed that the king's spear, on which he was leaning, pierced Yared's foot without 
either noticing. There is much legendary material about Yared, but nothing yet preserved 
goes back further than the fifteenth century. The only early comment which mentions 
music is in Malalas' account of a Byzantine embassy, when he states that some of the 
Aksumites surrounding Kaleb when he appeared on his elephant-drawn car were playing 
the flute (ed. Migne 1860: 670). However, it is not unlikely that the Aksumites may have 
had some of the musical instruments which are familiar today in Ethiopia, such as the 
drum (beaten before kings and nobles, and a sign of rank, at least from mediaeval times), 
the tambourine, the sistrum (tsanatsil), the one-stringed violin (masinqo), or the begena 
and krar, the larger and smaller types of Ethiopian harp or lyre.  

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14. Society and Death 
 
1. Social Classes 
 
We have remarkably little information about the stratification of Aksumite society, but 
some suggestions can be made using indications from archaeological and other evidence. 
Mobility between classes, inheritance, marriage status or other family arrangements are 
all at present quite outside our knowledge. Polygamy can perhaps be assumed by analogy 
with later custom, but there is no actual evidence. Later Ethiopian law followed the Fetha 
Nagast, `The Law of the Kings' written in Arabic by a Copt in the mid-thirteenth century, 
and translated into Ge`ez perhaps in the middle of the fifteenth century (Tzadua 1968), 
but inscriptions like that of Safra show that there were earlier legal codes in use (Drewes 
1962).  
We do not know if there was any prestige derived from being an `Aksumite' (as in the 
case of the extra privileges bestowed on a Roman citizen), rather than a member of one of 
the other communities which made up the kingdom. A distinction between 
Ethiopia/Habashat and Aksum itself is implied when the kings are referred to by South 
Arabian inscriptions as `nagashi of Habashat (Abyssinia) and Aksum'. It has been noted 
elsewhere that the tribes such as the Agwezat, presumably part of Habashat but not 
Aksumites, retained their identity for a long while as a distinct people; but after a while 
any such Aksum/Habashat dichotomy may have blurred.  
Social class may well have been based on the ownership of land, perhaps entraining more 
or less feudal commitments down the scale, but there is little reliable evidence to affirm 
this from the Aksumite period. Copies of land- grants to individuals and institutions are 
preserved (Huntingford 1965), but no originals survive from Aksumite times. 
Huntingford notes, however, that there is a good possibility that the early charters might 
be genuine transmissions; they all include Christianised sanction clauses which resemble 
those on the Aksumite inscriptions (
Ch. 11: 5
, 
Geza `Agmai
, 
DAE 10
, 
DAE 11
, 
Kaleb 
inscr.
). If  this is true, although all the examples given are grants to Maryam Tseyon 
cathedral, we can imagine that individuals might have been similarly rewarded by the 
kings with estates and villages to support their rank, and that land-registers of some sort 
were maintained. The only actual `land-grant' we know of from Aksumite times is that of 
king Ezana to the six Beja chieftains (
Ch. 11: 5
, 
DAE 4, 6 & 7
, 
Geza `Agmai
); and this is 
exceptional being a forcible removal of a population. However, it does illustrate that the 
king possessed land to bestow, as we might expect from the Monumentum Adulitanum's 
statement about conquered peoples; "I reserved for myself half of their lands and their 
peoples. . . ."  
Slaves, perhaps largely prisoners of war or criminals, are alluded to occasionally. Kosmas 
seems to imply that the majority of those at home and in the hands of foreign merchants 

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