The Ancients - The Kingdom of Aksum

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

At its height the Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the four great powers of the Ancient World. Situated primarily in what is now northern Ethiopia, Aksum’s legacy is astonishing and far reaching and so it is extraordinary to think that so few people have heard about this kingdom today. To explain why this is the case, and so much more, I was delighted to be joined by Dr Jacke Phillips, an archaeologist and leading expert on the Kingdom of Aksum. In this podcast Jacke explained to me what we know about this ancient African kingdom and how we are continuing to learn more thanks to new, ground-breaking archaeological discoveries. From Aksum's relations with neighbouring kingdoms to its important role in the history of both Christianity and Islam, Jacke explains all in this brilliant chat.Apologies for the couple of places where the audio is a little dodgy!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, I'm delighted to say that it is about a kingdom in northeast Africa,

situated in modern-day northern Ethiopia, the heart of this civilization. It was called the Kingdom of Aksum. At its height, this kingdom was considered one of the four great kingdoms of the ancient world. Its trade connections were extensive. Its importance in the spread of certain religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, is absolutely astonishing, the stories behind that. Military conquest that stretched across the Red Sea into Arabia and further west too into the Kingdom of Kush. That's also absolutely extraordinary and so much more. To talk about the Kingdom of Aksum, I was delighted to get on the show Dr Jackie Phillips. Jackie is a leading expert

on the history of Aksum. She has conducted archaeological excavations at sites of ancient Aksum in Ethiopia over the past decades. She is a legend. She is an expert. And it was delightful to get her on the show to talk all things Aksum. Here's Jackie. Jackie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Oh, you're welcome. Always good to publicise Aksum because so few people have heard about it. Well, you mentioned it right there, the Kingdom of Aksum. And this sounds like another one of

these astonishing ancient African kingdoms that has left such a huge legacy to this day. It has indeed, yeah. So first of all, with the Kingdom of Aksum, no such thing as a city question. Whereabouts was the Kingdom of Aksum? It was mostly in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. And for a few centuries, it was also, as part of the greater kingdom, the conquered area around what is now the Yemen and probably a bit of southern Arabia as well. We don't know the border, and it probably

fluctuated anyway. There are several texts, well, inscriptions where the king says, I conquered here and there. But I mean, a lot of the names, we don't know where they are. Some of them we do, others we don't. So we can't really put a border. If you take a look at any map of Axum, you will see it's always sort of fading out. We don't know. But the core is Tigray, which is the northernmost province of Ethiopia, plus at least central and eastern Eritrea. We don't know how far inland it went either. And what do we know about the kingdom's emergence in antiquity? When are we roughly talking and why do we think this kingdom emerges? Well, it's a fairly long thousand-year story. We don't know very much about anything before about 900 BC or so. And at that point,

possibly rather quickly, we have what's quite clearly an influx of people from Saba, which is southeastern Yemen. Think of the Queen of Sheba, who, by the way, is Ethiopian, and her name is Makeda. She's not from the other side. And we suddenly get a very strong Sabaean influence, which was originally thought to be invasion or conquering of some description. When suddenly we get Sabaean inscriptions in stone, the first time we've got text. And we also get large scale sculpture in stone. And we also get very, very large ashlar buildings, ashlar meaning it's been cut, rather than just stone upon stone. And they suddenly all appear at about this time, 900, 800, 700 or so BC. And we now know that this culture, which we call

pre-Aximite, we now know that it wasn't an invasion. It seems to be an introduction and then adaptation or adoption by the local peoples. There's enough local ingredients in this that it's quite clear. Although we do know Sabaeans came over because we have some inscriptions that say I so-and-so, which is a Sabaean name, not an Ethiopian one. But at any rate, this became a large kingdom or kingdoms, we don't know, polities at any rate, that may have been only one, may have been more than one. We simply don't know. We don't have enough information. But the major one, if not the only one, was based at a place called Yeha, which is just north of present-day Aksum. And it's still there. It's the oldest name and the longest

lived name that we know in Ethiopia. Yeha has been there since at least 800, 850 or so BC as a name. We have inscriptions giving the name. They build up quite a monumental polity there, which may or may not have been called damat it may have been the entire country damat may have been somewhere else but anyway and which seems to have transferred itself to the area around axum perhaps about 400 bc or so and the excavations that we have are in an area to the north of present-day Axum. And then it seems to have gone up the mountain, flat-top mountain in Amba, Mesa, if you're talking American and Spanish. And there's a very large-scale excavation there at this place, which is called Beta Iorgos, the hill,

which seems to have been something, well, the Italians who excavated called proto-Axum-like, which doesn't have been something, well, they, the Italians who excavated, called proto-Axim like, which doesn't seem to be anywhere else other than a few outliers around the Axum area, not in the east at all. And from there, they seem to have moved down into the plain below at what is now Axum. Because Axum Beta Iorgus is the most excavated and recorded and best published areas, we know more about them than anybody else, although we do have other major sites, Matara being one, Adullis, the port being another one. And it grew from there, and it seems to have sort of expanded considerably, and then

eventually was in control of the coast at Adullis, near present-day Massawa, and then eventually expanded over the Red Sea into the Yemen area, Saba, the Himarite areas at that point in the early centuries AD, and then probably north, south, and west as well, but we don't have as much information about that because we just have no record. So it expanded over time, and the culture just developed over time. And we have these period names, which are basically based on pottery more than anything else. But we do have some dates for it as well. I found that really interesting what you were saying there, how, as if it were, the origins of these people may have come from across the Red Sea in the Sabaean.

They didn't come from across the sea. They were there already. There are enough differences and local influence, well, local developments, that we have the Sabaean material sort of overlying what was there before. It's not conquering, it's not invasion or cultural imposition. That's when they took over some of these influences, and really only in the area around Yehaw. Six miles away in the equivalent period in Aksum, we have virtually nothing that is Sabaean influenced at all. Yehaw seems to be the capital, and it's the elite that take it over more than anything else. In fact, at Yehav, we've got two major, major stone-built Ashlar buildings. One is called the Grat Baal Gebre, which seems to be administrative,

possibly a palace, palatial building, and then possibly later a temple of some kind. But we also have what's known as the Great Temple, which is about, well, it's the 7th century BC, and Ashlar buildings, sorry, a major Ashlar building that survived basically because it was converted into a church, which was continuously used until they built another one nearby. But it's 14 meters high. 14 meters. The stone is still there. The Germans, together with the Ethiopians, have been excavating there and they stabilized and restored to the point where it was stable. This building, if you want to Google, just put Yeha Temple and you'll get loads and loads

of pictures of it. It's still there. And like I said, it was converted into a church, so it survived. And we have evidence of the conversion as well a man called mike chanel has been studying the architecture there considerably and has written several articles about restoration on paper as well as what they were doing with the stabilization well i definitely want to get on to the christianity aspect in a bit but you mentioned earlier and thank you for correcting me by the way way, earlier. You're quite right on that, Jackie.

But from what you're saying, over time, the kingdom of Axum's power, it grows, it reaches the coast of the Red Sea and actually goes across the Red Sea into the kingdom of Sabah. Yes. Well, at some point, at least by the late third century, if not earlier, we don't know, we don't have enough records of the period. But certainly, they were trading with the Red Sea traders, at least by the mid-first century, simply because we've got what's known as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which lists everything that was bought and sold at a joules, a considerable amount, actually. And we do know, under Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III, at any rate, they sent expeditions to collect elephants for their battles. Think of elephants as being tanks at the time.

And they would take elephants back. And so there was this massive attempt, at least, to hunt elephants and move them back. And eventually it died, one, probably because they ran out of elephants, but also because the elephants were not terribly successful in the end. And so that died. So there was the connection there already. And if we go back even further, it's very likely this is where the land of Punt was, the ancient Egyptian land of Punt. We don't actually know, but it's one strong contender, let's put it that way. And sorry, quickly, what was the land of Punt? The land of Punt was the country where the Egyptians under Hatshepsut and before and after her, but hers is the main record of it in her temple at Deir el-Bahri, went

down there for trading. And there's an entire wall showing the expedition going to and from the land of Punt and who they met, illustrating the Puntites, differentiating them from the Nubians further inland, and listing all the goods that they took with them and brought back from Punt. But like I said, there are dozens of other references, but this is the main one. And from what you've been saying there, you mentioned the port city of Adulis, this prosperous port city. It sounds like the Red Sea trade was very, very significant for the kingdom of Axum in its rise, in its wealth and all that. Very, very likely. It certainly participated in the trade.

We know at least in the 6th century, probably also in the 4th, and therefore in between. How much earlier, we don't know. We have very few records. Aksum certainly had a navy of some description, and probably its own trading vessels. And it did participate. And because for several centuries, it controlled both sides of the Red Sea. Therefore, it controlled all trade going through the Red Sea from India, it controlled all trade going through the Red Sea from India to Rome in both directions. So it kind of had this, because of its geographical placement, a monopoly. Yeah, more or less. It's not so much a monopoly of the goods, but a monopoly of

who went through and whether they paid taxes or whatever. I mean, we don't know. All we know is they controlled both sides of the Red Sea. The traffic continued. Therefore, they had some hand in it. They must have. Well, you mentioned the R word there, Rome. What do we know about trade contacts between the Kingdom of Aksum and the Romans? Well, we know it's probably more Roman Egypt than anything else, because the periplus, at least, goes from Roman Egypt to India and back, and probably all the way down to what's

now Tanzania as well. We just can't tell because we can't associate name with place. But they traded in both buying and selling at most of the major ports, which is what the Periplus tells us. But once they reached Berenike, or what's now called Kusier, which were the two main ports on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, we do know that practically all the goods literally were funneled by the Romans up to Alexandria and then shipped to Rome. Very little of what was transported from India and all those other ports actually stayed in Egypt. When we say Romano-Egyptian trade, it was probably the Romano-Egyptians who actually did the trading, who actually did the sailing, etc. But it was the Romans who owned it, and most of the goods, as I said, went to Rome.

So the direct connections between the Kingdom of Aksum on the trading front seems to be between the Aksumites and the Egyptian Romans, or perhaps the Greeks. on the trading front seems to be between the Aksumites and the Egyptian Romans, or perhaps the Greeks. At that point, yes. But there is much more communication between Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire after Constantine, rather than the Western Roman Empire at that point. Well, yes, as the Roman Empire goes on, and you mentioned Constantine there, so it's getting later and later in the Roman Empire, do we see Aksum's status changing? Does it still continue to thrive at all?

It does for quite some time, at least until the early 6th century, probably early 7th century, although it declines over from the mid 6th to the early 7th. And then we lose most of our inscriptions, our texts, the coinage stops, and therefore we have very little record of it. But certainly in the early 6th century, we've got quite a bit of information because of the Aksumite inscriptions, as well as the Byzantine emperor sending several embassies to Aksum. And so we have descriptions from the other side as well. The 1st century, we've got not only the Periplus, but also some description by Pliny. In the 3rd century, we've got Alien. the Periplus, but also some description by Pliny.

In the third century, we've got Alien. There's a little bit of description there. We have fourth century information, mainly because of the introduction of Christianity under Isana. We just have little windows or larger windows, and then the rest of it, we have to fill in the gaps. Well, you mentioned their coinage, and just doing a bit of research for this podcast beforehand, it sounds really astonishing, the Aksumite coinage. What do we know about it? Well, it began probably very late in the 3rd century, continued until about 620, 2530 area. And it is the basis for our knowledge of the names of the kings and sort of the chronology of the kings based on developments in the coinage. But Aksumite coinage from the very beginning was in gold, silver, as well as probably bronze.

We haven't tested the coins, at least not that I know of, but it's copper based at any rate. Virtually, if not all, the gold coinage is not found in the Aksumite polity, but abroad. So they were using the gold to pay for things and transfer things abroad. But most of the coinage we have elsewhere is in silver or bronze, which was used in the polity. But we also have, and this is unique, we have gilded bronze and gilded silver. I mean, selectively gilded so that, for instance, a cross on the coin would be gilded or the crown of the king would be gilded or the background around the king's portrait would be gilded and the rest of it was left. So we actually have gilded

coinage. Do you think this gilded, intricately detailed coinage, it sounds like, does it really emphasize the power and the wealth of this kingdom? I think it would. Well, it's certainly the power because the coinage was, of course, in competition with Rome, with the Roman coinage, which was basically the coinage that everybody used. Also, India at that point was also producing coinage, at least in the time of the Periplus, when Axum wasn't. And certainly, India continued coinage, and we do have Indian Krishana coins in Axum, although much later in

date. Sorry, the context is much later in date. So there is communication going on. We've also got Roman gold coinage in the Axumite polity, but again, much later in date. So, we've got something going on that we're not really sure about. So, we've got all these, and it seems that Aksum was competing. The coinage was accepted. We've got Aksumite coinage in Egypt, in Palestine, Syria, in India, in the Yemen, and so it's being traded and used abroad instead of Roman. Well, together with Roman. So it was accepted to the same extent as Roman coinage. It's really interesting what you're saying there, because I've had a previous chat about the Kingdom of Kush and their interactions with the Romans

and how the Kushites saw themselves on an equal status to the Romans further north as their own independent kingdom. And it sounds like the Kingdom of Aksum view themselves very similarly. Yeah, of course. And further on from that, we've talked about trade with the Mediterranean and with India, but what do we know about Axumite trade with inland Africa? Well, we certainly know the Periplus tells us that into Adullus via Axum, they were bringing large quantities of ivory from beyond the Nile. Whether the Nile that they'd mentioned is the

Nile that we know is something else, again, it could be another river closer too. But it says from beyond the Nile. Most of the goods are in fact raw goods, including ivory, including hippopotamus hides, including rhino horns. So it's the luxury goods that are mentioned. That doesn't mean that nothing else was bought, but these are the things that the Periplus considered important to purchase there at Aeolus. And we certainly know, for example, that the stuff they sold at Aeolus, the traders sold at Aeolus coming in, and some of it was, it's found inland as well, especially at Aksum itself. You know, the one thing they don't mention is beads. And we do know that Roman and other beads, Indo-Pacific

beads, actually not at that point, but we have beads at Aksum which are definitively Roman or at least Romano-Egyptian. So it sounds like although you said we have a scattering of literary sources, having archaeological places like Adullis and all this archaeological evidence that you guys have found, it really can tell a story about the trading history of Axum and the extensive connections that it had. Yeah. I mean, like I said, we have windows and we have to fill in the gaps. The only really well-excavated site that we can relate chronologically to the periplus is Beta Iorgus on this Amba at Axum,

which the Italians have been digging or had been digging for about 20 years. And they've found material that is mentioned in the periplus, for example, and also glass beads that are not mentioned in the periplus. So we do know that all this stuff was coming from abroad. And do we know anything about how contemporaries in the ancient world, what they thought of Ax world, what they thought of Axum, what they thought of the kingdom of Axum, how powerful they considered it? Well, certainly it was a good point in the Periplus to stop and sell.

You know, there's a huge list of goods that the traders would sell at a jewelist. And they say there was a king there who spoke Greek. His name was Zoskales. So they have, you know, there is a polity there. Whether or not he is the king of everything, Aksumite, or whether he is a local nomarch or something, we don't know. We only have his name and nothing else. So at that point, it was certainly important. He was a major trading partner. Going a little further, if we go into the third quarter of the third century, we have the philosopher of history, Mami, Persian man, who in his memoirs written down by his followers,

he says, hang on, let me get this quite right. I can't find the page. But basically, he says that Aksum is one of the great kingdoms of the world. There is none that exceed them. And the four great kingdoms of the world in his list is Persia, of course, Rome, Axum, and a place called Sileos that we don't know where it is, but we think it's probably China. It certainly isn't India because at that point they didn't have a major civilization or major power. So, you know, that gives you an idea of where Aksum was standing in foreign eyes, at least in Mani's eyes. If we go a little further on, and this is at the end or just after the end of the power of Aksum, we have two things. One is a mural, a fresco at a place called Casa Amra in Jordan, where there are six major kings. Two of them, we don't

have the names. It's lost. They're not in great shape. But one of them is the Byzantine emperor. One is the king of Vizcothia, which is Spain. One of them is the emperor of Sassania, which is basically Persia. And the fourth one that we do know is the Nijas, the king of Aksum. So again, these are the great powers of the world. So you can see, and this is after, this is what the second quarter of the 8th century, when Aksum has already faded from power as a major player. So the memory is still there. And one of the key things of this memory, let's talk about the capital of Aksum itself. Was A Axum's capital a shining light, especially during this high period, a shining light to emphasise Axum's

power and prestige? Well, we haven't excavated very much of it. It sounds like we did, but much of it is probably under the modern town, so it's kind of difficult, although people have excavated small portions of it. But the main area that's been excavated, or the main areas, one is Beta Iorgos, of course, one is Kadani Merit, that's the name of it, pre-Aximite and late Aximite, 5th, 6th century. And also the Stela fields have been extensively excavated, plus a very large so-called palace. They call it the Palace of the Queen of Sheba. Well, we've got a 1500-year problem there, which is still very well preserved. So, of course, are the stele. And the tombs that have been excavated in the major stele field and others just show the wealth of the place.

So what are these stele fields? The stele mostly seem to be grave markers, although not all of the stele have a grave underneath when they've been excavated, or at least they haven't dug down far enough to connect them. And some of the graves don't have an associated stele. They're probably all pagan because the last and the largest of the stele, stele number one, all the stele are numbered. The last and largest is probably stood about 33 meters high and is estimated to be about 520 tons. The nearest quarry, and we've got four or five quarries, the nearest quarry is about four kilometers away for this. It's a stone called cyanite, and that's where the major extraction

quarries are, although there isn't an extraction site that's large enough for this stela. So where it was, we don't know. But it's carved on all four sides. And think about this for a second. It's carved on all four sides, but it was never successfully erected. It fell when they attempted. So the main question is, how did they carve the fourth side? If you see what I mean? I don't know. Yeah, nobody knows. But it gives you an idea of just how conversant they were with stone technology and with the ability to move stone, both from the quarry to the stela field, and then putting the stelae up. Now, to give you an idea, as Neville Chittick said about 45 years ago, this stelae one is the largest single piece of stone that anyone, anywhere has attempted to erect. Like I said, they failed, and we don't know how high they

managed to get it up, but they were able to get it up to a certain point at any way, because when it failed, it fell. The top of it splintered to nothing, which is why the estimated tonnage and the estimated height, but it's still there. That sounds like one of those astonishing wonders of ancient architecture. Absolutely. And we've excavated one of probably two tombs that are associated with Stela I. The one that's been excavated is called the Mausoleum. I mean, we all have names for these things. And the other one is called the East Tomb, which was unsafe to excavate, so it was never done. But the mausoleum has got 10 side chambers along a main corridor. It was extensively robbed, but we excavated it both in

the early 70s and the mid 90s. And, you know, it had an enormous amount of material, very, very small, of course, because what was left, but little bits of gold, you know, smatterings of glass, imported Roman pottery. It had metal, bronze material. It had some silver. You know, these are just the tiny little remnants of what was taken away. And the same thing with the better known tomb, which is called the Tomb of the Brick Arches, about 100 feet away. And the same thing with the better known tomb, which is called the Tomb of the Brick Arches, about 100 feet away. And it's very likely after Isana's conversion to Christianity, so late 4th century, it was stuffed to the gills with material goods, but it too had been robbed

four times. And the tomb was just so chock-a-block with material. And again, excavated partly in the 70s, partly in the 90s, and still incompletely excavated, both of them, because you always leave something for future archaeologists to work with. But, you know, it had tons of, well, not tons, but it had over, I don't know, 300 pieces of ivory. It had a massive iron sword. It had tons of pottery. It had some wonderful glass objects, metal objects, gold, you name it, it was in there. And, you know, it's a tiny, tiny space, four chambers at least, tiny, tiny space, but just chock-a-block, despite the four robbings. The first robbing probably was the biggest one, of course, but it got washed through with underground water repeatedly and so there's all these layers of

silt and right now it's got i don't know two three four feet of water inside now which is why tourists can't go in but it's just amazing what was in there absolutely amazing it is remarkable how is it even if it's been looted several times, you're still able to find these remains, these brilliant, beautiful remains in there, which tell us so much, opens the window even wider about the ancient kingdom of Axum. Well, I mean, the thing is the robbers are only going for the things that they want. And if they don't want it, they don't take it. So they're not interested in pottery, for example. So the pottery stays. The ivory may have been so degraded at that point, and it is not in great shape, but it's there,

large chunks of it. But they may not have thought that ivory was important because Axum was a major player in the ivory trade. Why would you steal it? And glass probably had shattered by that point. We've got pieces of glass that can be restored, but not complete vessels. So they weren't very useful. So things that were not important to the robbers didn't go. Keeping on the stele slightly, because I know there's one stele which is really significant

and seems to be more popular than all the rest, the Isana stele. Well, there is no Isana stele. Ah, okay. What you're talking about are the two slabs of stone with Isana's inscription on them. So what is the story behind this? Well, there are basically three roads going into Aksum and probably always have been, and they sort of come in three directions. And

along two of those roads, we have found two of these stelae, which basically say the same thing. There's minor differences. It's written in three different languages, the same text, three different languages, and two of them have been found, and it's presumed that there is a third one that has not yet been found on the third road, but certainly there are at least two of them. So, you know, they are incredibly important to the king. This is Isanna. And they basically give his titles and all his important details. And, you know, I conquered this, and I did that. And basically, they're political statements that anyone who was coming into Aksum, presuming they could read, would read. You had three different languages, so you had no excuse not to read them.

So why is Izana so significant in the history of Aksum? Well, two reasons. He's one of two kings, the other one being Caleb in the early 6th century, who have left a lot of inscriptions. And so because of what they say, and again, these are political statements, you know, I conquered this, I did that, whatever, we get a sense of the history at that time period that we don't get for other periods where we don't have inscriptions. I think something like 80% of all the inscriptions that we have are either Izan or Caleb. And we have to fill in the gaps where we don't have much. But Izzane is also important because

he was the first king to avow Christianity. And he made Aksum a Christian state, an officially Christian state. And this is only the fourth polity in the world to be officially Christian. So Aksum is one of the earliest kingdoms to adopt Christianity. It is. The first one was Georgia in 301. The second one was, or is it the other way around, Armenia, then Georgia, or Georgia, Armenia. One in 301, one in 319. The third one, of course, is Rome under Constantine in 325. And the fourth one is Aksum, about 350, 360 or so. And it's always been Christian since then. It's one of the oldest Christian states in the world.

And what do we know about the coming of Christianity to the kingdom of Aksum? What's the story? Well, we have the traditional story, which there's very little archaeological evidence to back it up, at least the story. We know he was converted, but we don't, you know, the story is that a boy at that point, Frumentius and his brother and his uncle were sailing to India, and they were shipwrecked, and the uncle died, but the two boys were captured and became slaves in the court. And Frumentius himself, they were Syrian, Frumentius himself became an indispensable part of the court, and he became very close to the king and converted the king to Christianity. This, of course, is Azana. And the king sent him to the patriarch of the Coptic church in Alexandria, and he was anointed the metropolitan, this is sort

of severely equivalent to the patriarch, really, for Aksum, and then came back, and Christianity began to form. Meanwhile, Izana had changed his coinage to advocate Christianity. He, instead of the old divinity symbol of the god Almuka, which is sort of like a crescent and a dot, possibly sun and moon, who knows, to a Christian cross on all his coinage. And so we know we have Isana coinage, pagan and Christian, so we know it was Isana who converted. But the traditional story is because of Fermentius. And Fermentius stayed in Axum and became the metropolitan, the supreme sacral authority, you know, as opposed to the political authority of the king, whether the king was politically over Prometheus or not, again, we have no idea. But he was the metropolitan, he was the patriarch. And the patriarch of the Ethiopian church, up until 1950,

was always a copt appointed by the patriarch. 1950 was the first time it was an Ethiopian patriarch, and it remains an Ethiopian patriarchy ever since. But the tradition continued. At the same time, and this is something that I don't quite understand, I'm not sure anybody does actually as yet, but it's becoming more and more apparent with the archaeology that although the king converted, it's quite clear he did, it wasn't imposed on the people. It was a Christian state, but it wasn't imposed on the people, because for example, only shortly afterwards, we have the tomb of the Berekarches. Like I said, chocobock with stuff. We've got at least four bodies, we have bones of at least four different people, if not more, in that tomb, and there isn't a single piece of evidence for a Christian cross.

And that tomb is later than the conversion to Christianity, because it's late 4th century. It's sometime second half. And if we go further, we have a place very recently excavated by Mike Harrower, just north of Yeha, where he's found an extremely early Christian church, which he dates, I think correctly, based on his publication, to the 4th century. So there was a church there north of Yeha in the 4th century. But what's really interesting is that he not only found a text, an inscription that talks about Christ, so it was a church, and it follows the plan of a church at the time. But he also found little bull figurines in the church, I think 49 of them. They're pagan artifacts,

and we get them all over in pagan sites. And so what he's got is pagan and Christianity in the same building, which is really interesting. And at the same time, we also know from texts that in the 4th century, there was a bishop of Aeolus, the site on the coast, named Moses. So we do have evidence for Christianity in various places. But at the same time, we have a site that I've been working on, Mariam Anza, which is in eastern Tigray, where we've excavated multiple graves, very rich graves, definitely connected to the outside world. We've got Roman imports as well as a lot of material that is definitely based on Roman products, locally made, but based on Roman types. And it goes from the 4th century to

the second half of the 5th at some point. Don't know when, but we have one particular piece of pottery that is local, but is based on a very particular kind of Roman vessel. So it can't be any earlier than the Roman, which is about 450 or so. But again, 17 graves, no hint of Christianity in all of them. In Eastern Tigray, at least Miriam Anza, I don't know about elsewhere, but at least at Miriam Anza, there's no evidence for Christianity up to 100 years after Isana. So it sounds like there's quite a lot of religious toleration, can we say, in the kingdom for many, many years. Yeah. But what's interesting also is that shortly after this, we have the tradition of what's known as the Nine Saints, monks who came to Ethiopia under the time of King Caleb, so early 6th century, late 5th area, and who founded nine monasteries in the area, some of

which are still going on. They still exist. And this is when Christianity really starts to take off. We have quite a number of churches scattered over the landscape, plus monasteries, that seem to date no earlier than the 6th century. So, you know, this is when Christianity really takes off. And if we find more graves in Mary Amanza, which are later, we may well find Christian symbolism. But at the moment, we have nothing. So, you know, this is a problem. Caleb himself, according to tradition, abdicated in favour of his son and retired to a monastery. Very Christian. And then it seems to be almost entirely Christian from that point on. I mean, the fact that they do seem to slowly

really embrace Christianity, especially among the royalty and in the whole kingdom itself, how significant is Christianity in the kingdom of Aksum to the whole history of Christianity? Well, apart from the early state religion, it's very important, partially because it was part of a Christianization over time, based on the Rome-India trade route. In the Persian Gulf area, we have Christian communities from the 5th century, or in the 5th century. In the area of Yemen, Assyria, and the western coast of India, in the area of Yemen, Assyria, and the western coast of India, at least by the 6th century, if not earlier, and Socotra, the island of Socotra, by the mid-6th century. This is the island sort of at the end of the Gulf of Aden, and in Southeast Asia and China by the 7th.

So it's all part of the trade route, you see, and Aksum was a major player in this trade route. I mean, that's absolutely astonishing. You said the importance of the trade route in the spread of Christianity. Absolutely. I mean, in India, the story is that St. Thomas came, you know, the disciple St. Thomas came and founded the Christianity in India. So, you know, this Thomas obviously would be first century AD, but we have the physical evidence, at least by the sixth. We can't know if we don't have the evidence, we can't say, but it's certainly there by the sixth. It's still very astonishing. All in the trade routes with the spread of Christianity, and especially Axiom has this prime role in the Red Sea trade route in the early centuries AD. And a bit further on this, I'd like to go on a bit more on Christianity, but let's just keep on as on a little longer, because you mentioned on this today, obviously, one of his significant achievements is the

bringing of Christianity to the kingdom of Axum, although it took a bit of time for it to be embraced fully. But you also mentioned something about conquest. Is he also a military leader? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this is what a lot of his inscriptions are talking about. You know, I conquered here, I quelled the rebellion here. And, you know, this is the main basis for our pseudo-knowledge of how far the kingdoms thread. You know, we have some names, for instance, the Kasu, presumably the Kushites, but the Kushites aren't just along the Nile Valley. We have the Nuba, which are the Nuba. So we have some names that we can relate. And so we have an idea of where they lived. And if Isana conquered them, there we have it. We have, for instance, a mention in probably

second or third century AD, although it's only written down in the sixth, that one king, we don't have his name, but we're assuming second or third century, said that he built a road between my kingdom and Aswan and Egypt. So there was a route, whether or not it was a physical road, and whether or not he built it, or whether or not he restored it, or kept it open, we don't know. We only have that one reference. But there is a connection, a land route up to Egypt at that time as well. And we certainly have some evidence for Aksumite material in Egypt. Those are huge distances in East Africa. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's also the question, this would be Azana, if anybody,

again, as a pagan. But again, we don't have the name on the relevant inscriptions, but certainly a pagan king is supposed to have sort of, it's usually put as dealt the final death blow to the Meroitic civilization. Well, this is now largely disputed. I mean, the main evidence was we have two fragments of a Greek inscription saying so, which are Aksumite and found at Meroe. But people have argued in the last 20 odd years that, well, we don't know. I mean, it's 600 miles away from Axum, but also it seems that if anybody, it was the Nuba from the eastern desert or peoples around that Isana may have controlled at that point, but there's no actual evidence for Axumites. This is still ongoing, but the latest movement, so to speak, is that no, they didn't.

The Meroitic kingdom, this is this prosperous kingdom along the Nile River. Yes, and probably into the deserts as well, but mainly along the Nile River. Something I'd also really like to bring up, going back to the religious part of the Kingdom of Axum, we've talked about Christianity, but does the Kingdom of Axum also have a role in the rise of Islam? Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, probably if the king had made the different decision, Islam may not exist today, literally, because in the very beginnings of Islam, before 622, which is the official beginning, the Muslim adherents were a very, very small group in the area around Medina. The ruling Qarashi, who were traitors, were against them. And in order to build

up their following, well, they were building up, Muhammad was building up his following, but they were having so much trouble that he sent some of his followers to the king of Aksum, to Aksum, as refugees. And the Qarashi sent emissaries to the king of Aksum, to Aksum, as refugees. And the Qurashi sent emissaries to the king of Aksum saying, well, basically their description said that they were terrorists. I mean, but the king said the Muslims, these pre-Muslims, let's call them, argued that they were not, they were refugees. And the Aksumite king, who historically could only be Armagh given the dates, basically said, well, you worship one god, so do I. Karashis, you can't have them. I mean, that's a short form. But he gave them land in his kingdom, in an area in eastern Tigray, in an area which is still called Nagash,

Nagash being king. Nagash still exists. There is a mosque there that has a huge history, and they still have the tombs of some of these very, very early Muslims in their property. And it is still a place of pilgrimage. So the fact that this king of Aksum gives refuge to these pre-Muslims, I mean, this decision, this one decision is absolutely key to the rise of one of the most popular religions today. Yeah, Muhammad himself said, you know, do not bother the Ethiopians. That's astonishing in itself. I mean, sometimes you might think of the Christian history of Aksum, but also its relationship to the history of Islam as well.

Yeah. And much, much, well, not much later, but certainly later, Islam emigrated, you know, the worship of Allah emigrated to Ethiopia and Sudan and Egypt and everywhere else. And they were mainly on the plain. So Eritrea, and then further south in Ethiopia, south and east of Aksum, where they still are. The city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia is still considered the fourth holy city of Islam. But again, this is later. But Nagash, as they said, is still a place of pilgrimage. It's a beautiful mosque. It's been recently restored by the Turks, and they've done an absolutely superb job. Kingdom of Aksum in the top four in more ways than one, it seems.

Absolutely. Something I found really astonishing and fascinating from what you've been saying over the past 40 minutes or so, and you corrected me rightly on the sabbath at the start, but it's this constant strand throughout Aksumite history of this travelling, this interconnection between the kingdom of Aksum on the southwest side of the Red Sea and Arabia across the Red Sea to the northeast. Yeah, well, northeast and east, yes. But especially with Yemen, which is more or less east. There's a huge connection. But Caleb, at one point, the kingdom of Himyar, which is at the southwest corner of what's now Yemen, was at one point Jewish. For a considerable length of time, it was a Jewish kingdom. And there were Christians there who were harassed and actually murdered by the Jewish state. there who were harassed and actually murdered by the Jewish state. And Justin I, I think, the Byzantine emperor asked the king of Ethiopia, who at that point would be Caleb, if he could intervene and protect the Christians. And this is one reason why Caleb went over the Red

Sea to conquer the Himyarite state. And he didn't plant his rule there. He left a regent on his behalf, and they ruled it for, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years or so. And then eventually the Aksumites had to retreat as the power of the kingdom declined after Caleb. participating in world history, the political situation throughout the area, including with Byzantium, which, as you can understand, I mean, this is approximately 100 years before the mural at Kassar Amra in Jordan. So this is why you've got the Negus of Axum, as well as the Byzantine emperor, the Visgothic king, the Sassanian emperor, and the other two, whoever they are. He's amongst this group of six. I'm guessing this all just goes further to reinforce the idea that the kingdom of Aksum, this kingdom that, I don't want to say is largely forgotten, but not many people know about it today. More people should know about it. It's significant, not just in Ethiopian history,

but also in world history too. So why do people not know about it is the next part of the question. Exactly. There's several reasons. One, Ethiopia has always been independent. It's the only country in Africa which was never colonized. The Italians colonized part of Eritrea, but not for very long. And we've always had the king or the emperor of Ethiopia.

The last one one of course was Haile Selassie as everybody knows but it has always been independent and it was Christian so you don't have the missionaries coming in you don't have the British or French or German or whatever administrators coming in as they colonized it so they weren't there to take stuff back to Europe and so it wasn't on display in museums and everything, so people never heard about it. It was just forgotten. I mean, Neville Chittick, who's the director of the excavations at Axum in the early 70s, basically he said, Axum is the last of the great civilizations of antiquity to be revealed to modern knowledge. And that's one reason why.

Another reason is that nobody conquered Axum. And Axum was, you know, the main part of Aksum was inland. And I don't know if you've seen photographs or illustrations of the countryside in this area. It's the highlands of Ethiopia. It is not easy to get around. Literally, it is not easy to get around there. there. And one possible result of this is that none of the sites that we have in Ethiopia, in the Aksumite sites, none of them have any defence system. None at all. Wow. So does that emphasise that they didn't really have a powerful enemy nearby? Well, if there was a powerful enemy and going from Izana and Caleb and the inscriptions, they certainly did a lot of warfare, but they didn't make it to Axum itself. Is that on one level for an archaeologist, for the real life Indiana Joneses like yourselves and your fellow archaeologists, is it quite exciting then that there must be so much more to discover, to uncover about this kingdom?

Yeah, like I said, we are still emerging, so to speak. I mean, I was talking about the chronology earlier. We don't actually have a set chronology as yet. It's all based on the pottery, the names. But there are three basic typologies, all of which are used. Well, two of them, at least. One of them is starting to fade. But they don't quite mesh. Some of them have the same names, like early Aksumite, for example, but different time

periods. And it's because of the excavations. Rudolfo Fatavich, who excavated at Beta Iorgos, has got a very lovely chronological typology and chronological dating based on carbon-14s with overlapping, obviously, overlapping periodization, whereas the work that we did at Axum produced a different one because we had different results. Fatavich has got the proto-Aximite period, which we never found. But as I said, there isn't that much beyond the immediate area of Axum, and it certainly

isn't found in the East. And in Eastern sites, we don't have a hiatus stratigraphically that should be there if we don't have proto-Aximite. So it's still being worked on. And we're starting to use dates now as opposed to periodization, simply because the periodization differs. The questions continue, questions still abound. Absolutely. I mean, and what we've learned in the last, what is it now, nearly 30 years since the Civil War ended in 1991. We started working there in 93, so did, no, Fatovich started in 92. And so much has changed in the last nearly 30 years, simply because we

are now recording it well, and we are now publishing it well, and we are publishing in larger scale as well. Whereas before the war, which started in 1974, which was Chittick's last year at Aksum, and the year that Josef Michels was doing a survey in the area as well, literally Chittick had to leave in a hurry. Because the war, well, his architect was also our architect. The first season, we pulled Doug Hobbs in as a bridge. And I remember Doug telling me at one point, because Doug drove the vehicle back down to Nairobi, which is where the British Institute is based, and he said the war was breaking out behind him as he drove, and everyone left in a hurry. One of the reasons we came back in the 1990s was to finish Jittick's work. Earlier, virtually all the publications are very,

very short. The Matara, for example, was excavated in five or six seasons. And it's a grand total of two articles, one of which was season one, and the other one was seasons two to four. And then the fifth season was a cemetery, it was something separate. And that's all we've got to work on. Anfrey also excavated at Dangour, this palace I mentioned on the outskirts of Aksum. And he published it in one article. And until 2012, when he published a more complete report, that's all we had was one article. This huge palace that was completely cleared, or almost completely cleared.

And we had a very short article about it. And that was all we could work with. very short article about it, and that was all we could work with. Now, over the last 30 years, the Ethiopians themselves are doing an awful lot of really good excavation work, some in collaboration with Germans or the British or the French, but they are doing some amazing work themselves. And they now have, well, they always have had an antiquities service, but it has now grown enormously, and they are doing incredibly good work. They now have at least two archaeology programs in two different universities as well. And they're producing some incredibly good archaeologists who are doing their own work and starting their own projects. So it would be, you know, it's got a future. Let's put it that way.

Let's put it that way. One of the really exciting new bits of information that we're getting is by a PhD student called Dil Singh, American, who is looking at the bones from the Tomb of the Brick Arches for us. Well, not for us, it's for his PhD. And he is finding incredible information, which we were unable to do and probably wouldn't have been able to do 20 years ago anyway. He's finding, for example, this tomb of the brick arches with all this incredibly wealthy goods, even an ivory throne, probably. I mean, we've got the slots, we've got the carved decoration and everything. We just haven't put it together, but it's probably an ivory throne. He's been looking at the bones of the people that were buried there. And he's finding that they are quite robust. They are, you know know they are wealthy they have good the study of the bones is showing that they are eating well and you know whatever else have you but at

the same time they're doing an awful lot of manual labor which is really interesting and I asked if I could mention this which is why I want to get this thing in um but um he's not finished his work yet and it's going to be really interesting when his phd is finished it is such good work well jackie it sounds very exciting for the future of archaeology on the kingdom of axum so that's that's amazing and last hour it's been amazing to learn more about this kingdom jackie thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh, you're welcome.