Ethiopia in the Ancient World

Related civilizations: Egypt, Nubia, Cush, Mesopotamia.

Also known as: Abyssinia.

Date: 8000 b.c.e.-700 c.e.

Locale: Horn of Africa

Ethiopia in the Ancient World

The anglicized name “Ethiopia” is derived from the Greek Aethiopes, or “burnt faces,” probably referring to black Africans, in the New Testament. First millennium c.e. sources related the Ethiopians to the Habashat people of ancient South Arabia, from whose name was later derived the name “Abyssinia.” Ethiopia lies in the eastern part of Africa adjacent to the Red Sea (the Erythraean Sea), which separates the African continent from the Arabian Peninsula. The country is divided into three major relief regions: western highlands, eastern highlands, and the comparatively low-lying Rift Valley as well as western lowlands. The Rift Valley region is marked by a series of lakes at an elevation of about five thousand feet (fifteen hundred meters).

Prehistory

Archaeological finds in the Omo Valley in the southwest and the Afar lowlands in eastern Eritrea provide evidence of hominids called Australopithecus afarensis about 2.5 million to 4 million years old. Another skeleton from Hadar in the Welo province of Ethiopia is estimated to be 3.6 million years old. Australopithecus africanus, the successor of afarensis, developed about 3 million years ago in the Omo Valley. Africanus was followed by Homo habilis in the next million years, and his remains have been unearthed at Melka Kontoure, a few miles south of Addis Ababa. Homo habilis evolved into the brainier Homo erectus of the Paleolithic Age about 1.5 million years ago, and their remains have been discovered in Harer and the Awash Valley in the east as well as in the Omo Valley. The more highly evolved Homo sapiens lived about 60,000 years ago in Dire Dawa in the east, the Awash Valley, and Melka Kontoure.

Languages traditionally spoken by the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea developed as the two principal branches of the Afroasiatic (Hamitic and Semitic) family: Cushitic and Omotic. The Cushitic languages are Agaw languages in the northern highlands and Oromo language. Kafa, spoken in the southwestern highlands, is the best known Omotic language. The African Semitic languages (introduced from southern Arabia during the first half of the last millennium b.c.e.) of the northern highlands are Amharic and Tigrinya. Two other members of this group are ancient Geՙez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and Tigre, spoken by a predominantly Muslim population of northern Eritrea.

Most scholars believe that the prosperous Land of the Punt mentioned in Egyptian sources dating from the third millennium b.c.e. lay on the African side of the Red Sea coast, especially parts of the Sudan and Eritrea. At some time during the third quarter of the last millennium b.c.e., strong connections were established between south Arabia and the regions of Eritrea, as is attested by writing, stone architecture, and sculpture. Those civilizational traits had developed earlier in south Arabia and were unearthed by archaeologists at Yeha, some twenty miles northeast of Adowa (Adwa). Most probably, iron also came to be used at about the same time.

History

According to the Kebre Nagast (fourteenth century c.e.; The Glory of Kings, 1995), based on a twelfth century mythopoeic legend, King Menelik I, the son of the Queen of Sheba in Yemen and King Solomon of Jerusalem, was the founder of the royal dynasty of Ethiopia (Axum). In actuality, the earliest Ethiopian civilization developed in the highlands of the province of Tigray in the northeast part of Ethiopia between 500 b.c.e. and 100 c.e., and no evidence supports the idea that the actual site of the city of Axum was occupied before this time. Axum flourished under rulers of South Arabian descent and religious beliefs into the fourth century c.e. At the height of their power, the kings of Axum ruled an empire that extended from the Upper Nile Valley in the west to Yemen in the east. They styled themselves as “kings of kings” and ruled their somewhat federally structured empire by exercising central control over regions ruled by local princes and chiefs. The anonymous sea captain from Roman Egypt who wrote the Periplus Maris Erythraei (also known as Periplus, first century c.e.; Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, 1980) mentions the prosperous port of Adulis, some fifty miles (eighty kilometers) northeast of the metropolis of Axum and two miles (slightly more than three kilometers) inland from the harbor of Massawa.

By the third century c.e., the elites of Axum had learned of Christianity from some of the traders. By the early fourth century c.e., the new faith had been established as the religion of the Eastern Roman Empire. Naturally, the faith of the Roman traders who dominated the Red Sea would influence Axum. The Axumite coins of the first third of the fourth century c.e. were embossed with a cross and by monuments carrying inscriptions prefaced by Christian incantations. According to the account of the fourth century Byzantine theologian Rufinius, the Axumite emperor Ella Amida (fl. fourth century c.e.) employed two Christian Syrian boys—Aedisius and Frumentius, victims of a shipwreck—as his court slaves. The monarch was so taken by the piety, honesty, and sagacity of the youths, particularly of Frumentius, that his will called for their manumission. The two Syrians were retained by the Empress Dowager—Aedisius as cupbearer and the wittier Frumentius as councilor—until the infant incumbent to the throne, Ezana, came of age. The latter ascended the throne circa 330 c.e., whereupon Frumentius traveled to Alexandria to request the patriarch to send a bishop to Ethiopia to aid its conversion. Saint Frumentius returned to Axum circa 335 as the bishop and converted Ezana.

The Axumite empire thrived from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade. However, beginning in the sixth century c.e., problems arose in the Middle East that affected Axum’s political-economic status. Followers of Judaism there harassed the Christians, who applied to the Ethiopian emperor for help. In 525 c.e., Emperor Kaleb defeated the Jewish leader Dhu Nuwas. However, this victory was to be the last flicker of the dying lamp of Axumite glory. With the rise of Islam in Arabia in the mid-seventh century c.e. and the subsequent Arab conquest of Egypt and the Near East, Axum’s maritime economy declined. The decline of Ethiopian shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean waters isolated the Axumite empire from the eastern Mediterranean, resulting in loss of trade. Adulis and other commercial centers were slowly marginalized. Axum lost its contact with the outside world, and Ethiopian civilization began to turn inward and southward.

Agriculture and animal husbandry

In the absence of archaeological research in prehistoric Ethiopian plant cultivation, most of the information in this area comes from botanical studies. These studies confirm an extensive cultivation of teff (ragrostis teff), wheat, finger millet (dagussa), enset (ensete edulis), coffee, and the narcotic chat (catha edulis). Archaeological data on domestic animals yield evidence of such animals as cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, dogs, camels, and chickens.

Rock art

Ethiopia and Eritrea abound in rock art sites. The extant rock art specimens include representations of people, animals, and inanimate objects or weapons. In the Harer region, fat-tailed sheep are depicted. An interesting painting at Ba’ati Facada near Adigrat shows a man guiding a plow drawn by a pair of yoked oxen.

Architecture

Monumental temples dating back to 500 b.c.e. at Yeha, Haoulti, and Mantara contain altars dedicated to Sabaean gods. At an early stage of its development, Axum adopted the practice of burying its kings in tombs and marking their graves with monumental stelae. Of more than 140 stelae in Axum, the largest—a single block of granite 69 feet (21 meters) long—stands in a park of the city.

Writing

The earliest inscriptions, dating back to the seventh century b.c.e. and discovered on the northern plateau, are boustrophedon (script that reads from left to right and right to left on alternate lines), and the text uses Sabaean terms. Ethiopian inscriptions evolved their own style, abandoning boustrophedonic style and eventually developing Geՙez.

Current views

Archaeology is the primary source for the history of Ethiopia of this period, and David W. Phillipson’s book, Ancient Ethiopia: Aksum, Its Antecedents and Successors (1998), rejects the stereotyped picture of Ethiopia and Eritrea as countries noteworthy for civil war and famine and suggests that Ethiopian civilization, though geographically part of sub-Saharan Africa and culturally linked with ancient Egypt and South Arabia, was essentially autonomous and unique.

Bibliography

Beckwith, Carol, and Angela Fisher. African Ark: People and Ancient Cultures of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990.

Burstein, Stanley M., ed. Ancient African Civilizations: Kush and Axum. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 1998.

Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Phillipson, David W. Ancient Ethiopia: Aksum, Its Antecedents and Successors. London: British Museum Press, 1998.