5/3/2023 0 Comments Age of conquest iv legacyPerhaps their most important commercial partners were the Byzantine Romans. Their trading partners included most of the major states in the known world: Egypt, South Arabia, the Middle East, India, and China. In exchange, they imported textiles, iron, steel, weapons, glassware, jewelry, spices, olive oil, and wine. Gold and ivory were perhaps their most valuable export commodities, but they also trafficked in tortoise shells, rhinoceros horns, frankincense, myrrh, emeralds, salt, live animals, and enslaved people. ![]() The Aksumites took full advantage of these commercial opportunities. Most importantly, the city was strategically positioned at the crossroads of trade routes running in every direction, from the East African coast to the continent's interior. Its climate, rainfall patterns, and fertile soil made the area suitable for herding livestock and agriculture. The city is located some 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) above sea level, on a plateau. The local geography contributed to the rise of Aksum. or thereabouts, Aksum had emerged as a state to unify the area. Nevertheless, it is clear that by the first century C.E. Scientists and historians are still trying to understand the process of cultural and economic development that led to the growth of a wide polity in this region. Another city-state seems to have existed right next to Aksum on the Bieta Giyorgis Hill. This culture was apparently based in the village of Yeha, in the Tigray highlands about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Aksum. ![]() In this region, archaeologists have found evidence of a complex society called Di’amat, or D’MT, that preceded the rise of Aksum by several centuries. People from the kingdom of Saba, across the Red Sea on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, may have migrated into the area in the first millennium B.C.E. ![]() But the origins of the kingdom of Aksum are mysterious. Humans had inhabited the region and the valleys below since the Stone Age, and agrarian communities had been there for at least a millennium. Aksum was situated in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, in a region called Tigray, near present-day Eritrea. Aksum was also noteworthy for its elaborate monuments and written script, as well as for introducing the Christian religion to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Aksum, the capital city, was a metropolis with a peak population as high as 20,000. This wealthy African civilization thrived for centuries, controlling a large territorial state and access to vast trade routes linking the Roman Empire to the Middle East and India. A major empire of the ancient world, the kingdom of Aksum arose in Ethiopia during the first century C.E.
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