Place · Red Sea port of Aksum · Eritrea
Adulis
Also known as Adulis — Aksum's port
The harbour through which the kingdom of Aksum reached the Indian Ocean, and the point at which the Ethiopian highlands joined the monsoon trade. The Periplus names it as the outlet for ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoiseshell; Cosmas Indicopleustes — Cosmas who sailed to India — passed through in the sixth century and describes Aksum's commerce and the trade in Indian goods. Aksum struck its own gold and silver coinage on a Roman standard, which is unusual for any power outside the empire.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 15.264, 39.661
Worth knowing
Cosmas's byname is the whole point: a Greek-Egyptian merchant known to history as the one who sailed to India wrote his account of the world from a monastery, and Adulis is where his route began.
Connections (2)
- Site adjacencyAksum
Adulis was Aksum's window on the Indian Ocean. The inland capital held the gold, the ivory and the stone thrones; the port eight days' journey away on the Red Sea handled the export, and the Periplus names it as the outlet for ivory, rhinoceros horn and tortoiseshell. Aksum struck gold and silver coinage on a Roman standard — unusual for any power outside the empire — and that coinage is what turns up along the trade's routes, which is how the kingdom's commercial reach is measured.
- Maritime routeMuziris / Pattanam
Aksum traded directly with the Indian west coast, and Cosmas Indicopleustes is the witness — a Greek-Egyptian merchant known to history as the one who sailed to India, who passed through Adulis in the sixth century and describes both Aksum's commerce and the Indian trade in pepper and silk. Muziris on the Malabar coast was the pepper port that end of the route. Aksumite coins have been reported from Indian west-coast finds, which if confirmed would put Aksumite money in Indian hands rather than only Aksumite ships in Indian ports.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Adulis” and “Kingdom of Aksum”. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, sections 4–6; Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography; David Phillipson, Ancient Ethiopia (1998).
Open Adulis in the repository →