Aksum: A Forgotten Empire

in the long annals of human history many empires have left an indelible mark both in the popular memory of the historical record empires like the Roman Empire the Mongol Empire the Chinese dynasties of the Persian Empire but for every Empire whose name you recognized many other great empires rose and fell and largely faded from popular memory and yet in their relative obscurity are still important links in the history of humankind and when such Empire was the kingdom of Aksum otherwise known as the Empire of Ethiopia which flourished at the same time as Rome and Byzantium and became an important center of trade between those empires and empires in India Sri Lanka and the Far East and also played an interesting role in the three major monotheistic religions of the Middle East the kingdom of Aksum deserves to be remembered the kingdom of Aksum flourished in the 1st century AD to about the seventh century its center was the city of Aksum located in the highlands of northern ethiopia the kingdom had its roots in the so called proto Aksumite period beginning about the 4th century BC became a force to be reckoned with by the 1st century AD by that time it was widely known this next market for ivory tortoise shells and rhino horns is recorded in the greco-roman purpose of the erythraean sea a kind of travelers handbook that covered trading opportunities in the Red Sea and beyond as far as southwestern India the kingdom's earliest years are the subject of some scholarly debate but it is known the kingdoms written language Dez is a member of the Semitic family of languages mostly centered in the Middle East other Semitic languages include Hebrew Aramaic Arabic and Akkadian des is no longer a spoken language but it is used widely as the liturgical or holy language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as well as other Ethiopian and Eritrean churches the language may have been brought over by southern Arabic people in the 8th century but some linguistic evidence suggests Semitic languages were spoken in the Horn of Africa for millennia the value of this early script is significant the Biblical Book of Enoch survives as a complete text only in guess and Ethiopian translations of the Bible are among the us surviving in the world in its early years the growing wealth from trade at its port city of a doulas allowed the kingdom to expand its influence over a large part of modern ethiopia eritrea Sudan Somalia and Yemen the kingdom owes its growth to a shift in global trade patterns overland routes to India and other routes became less popular when traders learned that they could take advantage of monsoon winds to cross the Arabian Sea to India the volume of trade that came through the red sea ballooned and brought enormous wealth and prosperity to traders along the route Aksum would become the principal supplier of african goods to roam the kingdom subjugated a number of tribes in modern-day Somalia and extended some kind of dominance across the Red Sea over him yar in modern-day Yemen conquered tribes are allowed some autonomy but were required to pay tribute to action often in the form of heads of cattle according to Aksumite inscriptions as the kingdom became an empire the aksumite kings took on the title of Nagisa and aghast or King of Kings whether this reflected the system of sub Kings is not yet clear by the mid 4th century Aksum was at its height was in that century that the kingdom began using the name Ethiopia according to inscriptions it was also in that century that action played a role in the decline of the once powerful kingdom of cush cush was a nubian kingdom that had for a time installed Pharaohs that ruled over combined Egyptian koushik Kingdom by the 4th century cush was a shadow of its former self and dispute led the Aksumite King Azana to attack and possibly sack the capital of Moreau the kingdom of Aksum is possibly most famous for its enormous steely large decorated obelisk like columns that had been built in the region for centuries hundreds of the monuments around the city of Aksum today and steely fields many of them marking the sites of underground burial chambers the three largest of these called the Royal Steel II or the 79 foot tall Azana steely the Fallen hundred eight foot tall great steely and the so called obelisk of Aksum the axe mites left a monument at Mururoa and built another at Aksum to document is on his victories including that over the cou sites the stone had riding on it and guess Sabean and greek thus representing a rosetta stone for these King is not a ruled from the three 20s to 356 Azana was the first Aksumite King to embrace Christianity being converted sometime between 325 and 328 he advocated for Christianity in his own Kingdom less than two decades after the Roman Emperor Constantine the great converted the conversion of Ethiopia was according to tradition the responsibility of a single man from inches of tyre according to the Roman historian Terentius ruh Phineas as children from inches and his brother went with their uncle on a ship to the Red Sea where the crew was attacked and killed by pirates because don't all good stories involve parrots and the boys taken captive they were given to the king of Aksum was on his father as slaves but gained favor with the king before his death and were freed is on his mother begged them that they stay as Susana was too young to rule and she needed help teaching him and managing the kingdom when his Anna took the throne through mensches was an important advisor to the kingdom from ajiz travelled to Alexandria to talk to the bishop there who consecrated him bishop and promised to a system in axioms conversion on his return he baptized the king and shortly after founded the original Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum a rebuilt version which still stands today this became the site where Ethiopian emperors and later emperors of Abyssinia were crowned the Ethiopian Church enjoyed significant autonomy but did follow the church in Alexandria to split from the Roman Church following disagreements after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 the kingdom began minting its own currency during the reign of the king in dubis at the end of the 3rd century and continued minting coins for 400 years there were one of the only ancient states in sub-saharan Africa to mint their own currency and one of only four in the world who were minting gold coins at the time Zana began minting coins bearing the Christian cross one of the earliest examples of the symbol on coins the relative abundance of Aksumite coins indicates that the kingdom had access to large supplies of gold although it isn't certain with the kingdom's sources were Aksumite coins are also notably pure and the supply of metals was close to control by the Aksumite state the kingdom's traded influence was great actually my coins have been found as far afield as India and Sri Lanka the next major expansion was under caleb in the 6th century caleb was recognized as a Christian by the Byzantine Emperor Justin the first who sought Caleb's assistance in denting atrocities committed by the hemorrhoid King against Christians in modern-day Yemen caleb defeated and killed the hemorrhoid king in the kingdom remained a tributary under the Aksumite general Abraha and his son Mezrich mez rooks brother revolted with the help of the Sassanid Persia Empire leading to a series of wars that were eventually won by the Persians Monroe hay a modern historian cites these wars is one of the factors in the kingdom's collapse thanks to the worst cost and loss of prestige the kingdom's decline was caused by many factors in addition to strength loss fighting the Persians that Kingdom may also have been affected by the plague of Justinian probably the first appearance of bubonic plague which killed millions in other parts of the world in the early 7th century the growing dominance of the Islamic empire in the region isolated the country from other Christian states and largely into their trading empire but unlike Christian Europe Aksum was not on bad terms with its Islamic neighbors Muhammed began preaching publicly in 610 but the ruling tribe of Mecca persecuted his followers in the middle 610 Muhammed advised his adherents including his daughter to seek refuge in action in an episode known as the first he draw the king of Aksum is said to have refused a mekin delegation which sought the return there are different accounts of the effects of the exile with some Islamic accounts suggesting that local Aksumite embraced Islam while some Ethiopian accounts instead suggest that some of the Exile is converted to Christianity other ancient Christian kingdoms such as no baisha Furion alodia to the northeast would eventually become Islamic but axiom and its successors remain Christian despite their relationship with Islam as early as 640 attacks were made at the port of a duelist and the kingdom was forced to abandon the city of Aksum and retreat inland this marked the end of the kingdom's trading empire however the kingdom remained formidable and continue to expand south for several centuries according to Ethiopian tradition the kingdom was conquered by a Jewish queen named Judith in the 10th century but contemporary scholars doubt whether she was really Jewish still there is evidence of burned churches and ruled by a female usurper and contemporary documents another factor in the kingdom's decline by the climatological with a collapse of the trading empire there was over farming on the terraced hillsides which led to an erosion crisis that cascaded into a food shortage and the favourable rainy season seems to become less reliable in the 9th and 10th centuries the kingdom collapsed completely by 960 replaced by the kingdom ruled by the local Ogawa people called the zag Wei dynasty which lasted until 1270 it was overthrown by a coup no a bloc who claimed to be descended from a survivor of Judas purge additionally during this new Ethiopian Empire the Kebra Nagast or glory of Kings was compiled and written and considered to be a reliable historical work by the Ethiopian Church the work is a national epic describing the fandom of action containing the genealogy of the kings of Aksum and the story of how the Ethiopians stopped worshipping the Sun and Moon to worship the Lord God of Israel the bulk of the work tells the story of the biblical queen of sheba whom it identifies as mckenna of ethiopia as told in the bible she visits king solomon in israel and is impressed by the wealth and knowledge there but it then breaks from the biblical narrative by stating that she and solomon conceived a child the son metalic visited his father as an adult but refused to remain in Israel so solomon sent the firstborn children of the nation's elders with him to Ethiopia upset with their lot these stuns stole the Ark of the Covenant and thanks to divine intervention escaped solomon's agents it weaves together a narrative that the kings of Aksum and later Ethiopia were a single line descended from solomon as far back as 900 BC and the Ethiopian church still claims the ark is in their possession at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion while the scholarship on the work is lacking but there is a possibly ancient Jewish population and Ethiopia known as the beta Israel their origin remains uncertain and even oral traditions suggest several possibilities many of them have in the modern era emigrated to Israel in the 1930s the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to Italian soldiers taking one of the three Royal Steel II the one called the obelisk of Aksum in five pieces to Rome as a trophy where it was erected under the orders of Benito Mussolini it was kept there until its repatriation finally began in 2003 the pieces were so large that only the enna table for and plane could carry it among other difficulties it has been reconstructed and now stands in its original home at Aksum the Solomonic dynasty was removed from power in 1974 and today the once great kingdom of Aksum and its ruins are spread throughout several modern states its name is barely remembered its modern influences obscure but in its time it was mighty the present lost for money the founder of mehmet chi ism described as one of four great powers of his time with the others being Rome Persia and China of course of that list the kingdom of Aksum was the one that is far least remembered today but it the important role that they played in the development of some of the world's great religions and its once powerful trading empire give it a unique role in history that deserves to be remembered but there's still so much we don't know many questions still unanswered and the forgotten history of the kingdom of Aksum reminds us of the enduring complexity world politics how much history there still is out there yet to be uncovered I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button to have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 365,636

Rating: 4.9541807 out of 5

Keywords: history, the history guy, ancient history, africa, kingdom of aksum, history guy, axum

Id: TKAd9IaMDIg

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 30 2019