Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

bust, the robes are shown in different ways; most often with a central panel of horizontal 
lines on the chest flanked by vertical lines over the shoulders, or in two or three panels 
containing the king's arm, a hand-cross held in front of the chest, or the lines of the 
drapery.  
A Byzantine ambassador's report (see below) mentions that the ruler of Aksum wore 
much gold jewellery, and this is confirmed by the coins. The king appears lavishly 
bejewelled, almost always wearing earrings, bracelets and armlets on which the jewels 
are depicted by dots, sometimes necklaces, and very probably finger-rings (too small to 
appear on the coinage designs).  
There is only one eye-witness description of an Aksumite king, that of Kaleb Ella 
Atsbeha as related by one of Justinian's ambassadors, whose words are preserved by the 
historian John Malalas (ed. Migne 1860: 670). The report — for what it is worth; some 
commentators see it as a more or less imaginary description (Schneider 1984: 162) — 
shows the kind of pomp with which these ancient rulers supported their position, and 
details a barbaric magnificence and ostentation. Kaleb appeared in a high car, decorated 
with golden wreaths, supported on a wheeled platform drawn by four elephants. These 
were doubtless the smaller African elephant, and just such an elephant quadriga is shown 
on gold staters of king Ptolemy I of Egypt long before; they are also mentioned in 
accounts describing some of the elaborate religious processions in Ptolemaic Alexandria, 
and were employed in Roman symbolism as well, appearing for example on coins 
commemorating the deified emperor Claudius, and on joint consular gold medals of the 
Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximian (Williams 1985: pl. 3). Kaleb was dressed in 
a linen garment, embellished with goldwork, apparently a kind of kilt, and his body was 
decorated with straps sewn with pearls, and much jewellery; more than five armlets, 
golden rings on his fingers, and a golden collar or necklace. His head was bound around 
with a `phakhiolin' or little bandage, and this headgear was also decorated with gold; four 
streamers or pendants hung down from it on each side. He held gilded spears and a 
shield, and moved amongst armed nobles to the sound of flutes and chanting. This 
description has features in common with the `portraits' (actually fossilised representations 
which do not alter much from the time of the first issues) on the reverse of the gold coins.  
The picture at Qusayr Amra (Almagro et al 1975), painted some 200 years later in the 
hunting- lodge of an Umayyad caliph, shows an Ethiopian najashi dating probably from 
the period after the abandonment of Aksum as the capital. He is part of a group including 
the most prominent of the rulers of the known world, often called the `Enemies of Islam' 
fresco. The figure seems (the wall-painting is badly damaged) to be in the stiff, hieratic 
pose of a Byzantine emperor, and to be dressed in Byzantine-style jewelled robes. It is 
probably just the conventionalised idea of the najashi by an artist who had never seen 
him, but the figure does appear to wear the typical Aksumite headcloth, just as the 
neighbouring picture of the Persian king depicts him wearing the characteristic Persian 
tiara.  
The throne is only shown on the coins of the late Aksumite king Armah. It appears to 
have been a tall-backed chair, with probably carved legs and rail supporting a seat. The 

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back is sometimes shown doubled, with a design of dots perhaps showing a cushion; and 
often the whole chair is indicated by dots, giving a rather Jacobean turned-wood 
impression.  
 
Illustration 42. Drawing of two bronze coins (d. c. 2cm) of king  Armah of Aksum, 
showing, on the obverse, the king seated on his throne.  
There is no record of the sort of ceremonial with which the Aksumite kings surrounded 
themselves, apart from the sixth-century description quoted above from Malalas, and 
some later descriptions of a royal audience from Arab accounts of the court of the najashi 
Ashama ibn Abjar (Guillaume 1955). The Byzantine ambassador knelt before Kaleb 
when he presented the sacra or rescript from Justinian, and the king kissed the seal before 
having the document read by the translator. Possibly the status of the rulers, already 
enhanced by the regalia and the impressive setting supplied by the palaces, was further 
emphasised by the requirement of the prostration from Aksumite subjects, as had become 
the custom in the newly recast Roman monarchy of Diocletian and Maximian (Williams 
1985: 111) and had long prevailed in Persia.  
It may be expected that already in Aksumite times some of the familiar trappings of 
African kingship (and indeed of kingship in other places) may have been in use in Aksum 
as they were in later times in Ethiopia. The umbrella is actually mentioned quite early, in 
the time of the Zagwé king Lalibela, though not as an attribute of the king but of the 
metropolitan bishop. Michael of Fuwa, newly arrived in Ethiopia, entered the royal city 
under an umbrella of cloth-of- gold with a jewelled top; five years later a brother of the 
Ethiopian queen usurped this privilege and began to go about under the umbrella of state 
(Atiya et al. 1950: 184ff). It may be valid to assume that this privilege was originally a 
royal one, perhaps dating even from Aksumite times. Another feature of later Ethiopian 
kingship was the use of drums; local rulers had the right to have drums beaten before 

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them when travelling, and the royal drum `Hyena and Lion' was beaten at the coronation 
(
Ch. 7: 6
). Again, we may imagine that this custom had earlier origins, and may have 
originated in Aksumite royal ceremonial.  
3. Dual Kingship 
 
The suggestion that some Aksumite kings took colleagues on the throne has already been 
mentioned. The examples of this practise, frequent in the Roman and South Arabian 
ruling dynasties, might have encouraged the kings to hope that such a system could help 
overcome succession crises and make the king's day to day tasks in ruling an ever-
expanding empire somewhat easier.  
However, the evidence for this theory is very tenuous indeed. In some ways, the idea of 
dual kingship seems alien to the spirit of Aksumite monarchy as far as we know anything 
about it. Were both monarchs regarded as `sons of Mahrem', for example, or was the 
duality, if it existed, really only the recognition of a successor during a senior ruler's 
lifetime, and purely an arrangement for the legitimate transmission of power? In this 
case, would only the senior partner be represented on the coins and use the titulature?  
The first occasion when dual monarchy can be suggested is in the third century in the 
inscription mentioning Datawnas and Zaqarnas from al-Mis`al (Robin 1981). The idea is 
based on the use of the dual term, `the two kings of Aksum'. The inscription remains 
unpublished and is therefore not yet available for study; and so the question must rest as 
to whether these kings actually ruled contemporaneously or in succession.  
The second possibility for dual kingship is that raised by the bi-regnal issue of a silver 
coin of Wazeba and Ousanas (Anzani 1941: Munro-Hay 1978 and 1984ii; Hahn 1983). 
The production of such an issue could have been an accident, but this seems unlikely 
since the three known specimens are all from different dies, and such accidents are 
otherwise unknown. It could have been a deliberate issue of two jointly reigning kings, 
Wazeba presumably the senior, since the obverse die is his. Or it could have been 
produced by confusion in the mint where the dies of two jointly-reigning kings were 
being used simultaneously. There may be some political problem concealed in this issue; 
Wazeba presumably did not last for long, since he is otherwise known from only a single 
gold coin and a not-very-common silver issue, whereas all the other kings of the period 
are much better represented by the types of coins they issued and the numbers so far 
recorded.  
An interesting conundrum, also touched on above, is posed by the status of Sazana, 
Ezana's brother. The numismatist Wolfgang Hahn, the chief proponent of the dual-
kingship theory, has suggested (1983) that Sazana was a co-ruler of Ezana, and identifies 
some of the coins bearing the name Ousana as his. However, the sole documents which 
might justify this are the address of the Roman emperor Constantius II's letter to the two 
princes of Aksum (Szymusiak 1958), and the much later tradition whereby two brothers, 

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