Aksum and Nubia

Aksum and Nubia assembles and analyzes the textual and archaeological

evidence of interaction between Nubia and the Ethiopian

kingdom of Aksum, focusing primarily on the fourth century

CE. Although ancient Nubia and Ethiopia have been the subject

of a growing number of studies in recent years, little attention has

been given to contact between these two regions. Hatke argues

that ancient Northeast Africa cannot be treated as a unified area

politically, economically, or culturally. Rather, Nubia and Ethiopia

developed within very different regional spheres of interaction, as

a result of which the Nubian kingdom of Kush came to focus its

energies on the Nile Valley, relying on this as its main route of

contact with the outside world, while Aksum was oriented towards

the Red Sea and Arabia. In this way Aksum and Kush coexisted

in peace for most of their history, and such contact as they maintained

with each other was limited to small-scale commerce. Only

in the fourth century CE did Aksum take up arms against Kush,

and even then the conflict seems to have been related mainly to

security issues on Aksum’s western frontier.













Although Aksum never managed to hold onto Kush for long, much

less dealt the final death-blow to the Nubian kingdom, as is often

believed, claims to Kush continued to play a role in Aksumite royal

ideology as late as the sixth century. Aksum and Nubia critically

examines the extent to which relations between two ancient African

states were influenced by warfare, commerce, and political

fictions.



Online edition available as part of the NYU Library's Ancient World Digital Library and in partnership with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW).