The Falashas: The Forgotten Jews of Ethiopia, by David Kessler
Today's date is: 5/12/2025
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| 56 expeditions to capture live elephants in the coastal regions.(1) Nevertheless, the evidence of this inscription was surely insufficient to have led Bruce to assert that Ptolemy III Euergetes conquered Axum and the neighbouring kingdom and 'resided some time there'. (2) Though the false stone windows in the peristyle hall of the Sabaean temple at Marib in the Yemen, dating from the fifth century BC, are strongly reminiscent of the false windows in the great 'obelisk' of Axum, ancient Abyssinian architecture also seems to owe much, as both Arkell(3) and Schoff (4) have suggested, to the mixed influence of Egypt and India. Grover Hudson has pointed out that archeaological research 'for the past ten to fifteen years has tended to emphasise the uniqueness of the Axumite culture and to minimise ancient South Arabian influences'.(5) Similarly, the great reservoir at Axum naturally recalls the ancient water tanks at Aden or the ruined dam at Marib but, as Arkell has explained, such reservoirs also exist in the 'island' of Meroe, where they may have been constructed under influences coming into the country via Axum from India, where such constructions 'have long been an important method of storing rainwater'. (6) Axum gained in strength as Meroe declined until it was ready to step into the power vacuum which had been left. Records of this period of Abyssinia's history are meagre but there is sufficient evidence to show that its people were constantly in touch with the centres of civilisation and were not isolated from the great religious ferment which was manifesting itself throughout the Roman Empire. Axum could not have attained its influential position in the world if it had not had a firm base on which to build. By the third century AD it was in control of the Red Sea area, Western Arabia and Nubia(7) and had a reputation for running a particularly impressive state. By the latter part of that century, it had become so important that 'Mani (the founder of Manichaeism) wrote that Aksum ranked third among the great powers of the world. In Byzantium the Aksumite ruler was referred to with the rarely used honorific title basileus. To many Byzantine emperors Ethiopia appeared a most desirable ally. (8) The zenith of Axumite power is generally placed in the fourth century under its (1) E. Bevan, A History ef Egypt under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, pp. 175--6. |