The Aksum Kingdom of the Aksum Empire, also known as the Axum Empire and usually called Aksum, Ethiopia, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. Ancient ruins of Aksum, an ancient city in Ethiopia, may be found near the country’s northern border. They show where the heart of ancient Ethiopia was.
Kingdom of Aksum
The Kingdom of Aksum was the most powerful state between the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. The huge ruins were built between the 1st and 13th centuries AD. It has huge obelisks, huge stelae, royal tombs, and the ruins of old castles. Even after Ethiopia lost its power in the 10th century, rulers were still crowned at Aksum.
The old Aksumite empire is now run by the governments of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Somaliland. Through farming, raising cattle, and controlling trade routes, gold and ivory could be traded for luxury goods from other countries, and the country did well.
The kingdom and its capital, Axum, built stone structures that will last for a long time and set a number of records. It was the first state in Sub-Saharan Africa to make its own currency and the first to officially convert to Christianity in 350 CE. Ge’ez, Axum’s own script, is still used in Ethiopia today.
In the 7th century CE, the kingdom started to fall apart because Muslim Arab traders and rival native peoples like the Bedja were getting stronger. In the 13th century CE, the remnants of the once-powerful kingdom of Axum rose up again and founded the huge kingdom of Abyssinia. Axum itself still exists as a much smaller area to the south.
Aksum Definition
The name Axum, or Akshum, as it is often known, may be derived from a mixture of two terms from the local languages: Agew for water and Ge’ez for official, shum. The mention of water is most likely due to the presence of massive ancient rock cisterns in the vicinity of Axum’s capital.
The Ethiopian empire of Axum now uses the term “Negusa Negast,” or “King of Kings,” to describe itself. Since the Stone Age, the region has been occupied by agrarian populations with a civilization comparable to that of southern Arabia.
Aksumite Empire
Gradually, in the first century CE, the old kingdom of Axum started to grow and change. It happened because of its fertile farmland, steady summer monsoon rains, and control over trade in the area. This trade network had links to Egypt in the north, the East African coast in the east, and southern Arabia in the south. Wheat, barley, millet, and teff, a high-yield grain, have all been grown successfully in the area since at least the first millennium BCE.
Cattle herding has been going on since the second millennium BCE, and the vast Savannah grasslands of the Ethiopian plateau have helped with this. Shepherds also took care of farm animals and lambs, and the fact that tropical parasitic diseases that had been a problem in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa were not there was a plus for everyone.
So, in the late 1st century CE, a single king took over from a group of chiefdoms and made a unified kingdom that would rule the Ethiopian highlands for the next 600 years. Axum was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world at the time.
Why was Aksum able to control International trade?
Do you know about Persia? Of course you do! Rome? Of course, Aksum? The Kingdom of Aksum was a prominent African empire that flourished between 100 and 940 CE. The kingdom of Aksum was one of the most powerful you’ve never heard of.
The Aksum Empire was near where Ethiopia and Eritrea are now, near the Red Sea. Aksum was a very important trade center. This means that almost all of its economy comes from exports and trade with other countries. In the ancient world, Aksum was a major center for trade.
Aksum Ethiopia
Aksum, Ethiopia, was in charge of transporting goods from as far away as Rome and India between the eastern and western worlds. To give you an idea of how important this place was as a trading hub, think about this: the capital city of Aksum is thought to be one of the possible places where the Ark of the Covenant stayed. That’s a really big deal.
Around the year 100 CE, people learned a new way to sail that took advantage of seasonal winds to quickly cross the Red and Arabian Seas. It has made it possible for more trade to go through that area. Due to its location on the Red Sea, Aksum was able to control the international trade market.
