The Aksum Empire: Christianity In Sub-Saharan Africa

Aksum Paper

The Aksum empire generated a great impact in many aspects throughout the Horn of Africa. Throughout its prospering years, the empire spread and started Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, built great monuments that struck the minds of engineers, while also consistently trading with the Byzantine empire and India. After the fall of the Roman empire, Axum became the middleman of trade between the Byzantine Empire and India. Even through constant expansion and colonization, the Aksum empire was able to maintain a tolerant culture and become the protector of Christianity in the Horn of Africa and Southern Arabia. To signify their rulers’ greatness and the achievements of the empire, the Aksumites made multiple magnificent monuments

The most famous monoliths were located in the civilized cities, such as Aksum. These megaliths, called Stelaes, were very unique because they were partially influenced by the Egyptian obelisks and the Semitic bethyls. Rodolfo stated that the stelaes were “originally regarded as being religious monuments”(qtd. in Fattovich, 1987). But, archaeologists were able to discover that they acted more than religious markings after they found out that the monoliths erected in the pre-Christian Period using a geoarchaeological method. In fact, they were recorded to later contain a funerary function and were used as a part of the catacombs burial system of the empire(Fattovich, 1987). Even though the stelaes changed their functions almost every generation, they later were used and kept as inscribed monuments a few years earlier than Ezana’s rule. One of the most famous stelae in the Aksum kingdom is the Gudit stelae which recorded the life of the not so admired ruler of Aksum between the third and fourth century. Even though the Aksumite stelae seems like a plain monument with no specialty, it was the first monument in Sub-Saharan Africa to act as a religious marking, be part of a funeral system, and, most importantly, contain historical

When Aksum was starting to become an empire, it had over fifty sites that were populous and ongrowing. The most populous and important of the cities came to be the capital city of Aksum and the port Adulis. Aksum became known as a cultural city because it was a very populated city and was the mainland of Christianity in the Aksumite Empire. Meanwhile, “the city of Adulis was situated on one of the few natural harbors on the Horn of Africa along the Red Sea, just a short distance from the Arabian Peninsula. This location on a travel route between Europe and the Middle East made it a natural site for trade”(Stock, 2014). Because of the strategically placed port that allowed for trade, Aksum was able to exchange goods with the Roman empire, the Middle East, and India. The empire of Aksum was able to export a variety of things such as,”ivory, emeralds, gold, obsidian, animals such as monkeys, aromatics, spices, and human slaves”(qtd. in Stock, 2014). In exchange, “Aksum imported extensively from the Roman Empire and India, including iron as raw material but also in the form of weapons and tools. Articles made from precious metals were imported, as were glass vessels such as goblets and beakers, many different fabrics, oils, wines, and spices, and even Roman and Indian coins”(qtd. in Stock, 2014). Recent archaeological discovery has demonstrated that the Aksum