Kingdom of Aksum

The Kingdom of Aksum (, Sabaic:, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum, the City-State of Axum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based in what is now Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present day Djibouti and Sudan, it extended at its height into much of Southern Arabia during the reign of Kaleb, King of Aksum. Axum served as the kingdom's capital for many centuries but relocated to Jarma in the 9th century due to declining trade connections and recurring external invasions. Emerging from the earlier Dʿmt civilization, the kingdom was founded in 150BC.It is not known whether a war of succession took place between competing states for control of the region after the fall of D'mt evolved to the Kingdom of Axum. As the kingdom became a major power on the trade route between Rome and India and gained a monopoly of Indian Ocean trade, it entered the Greco-Roman cultural sphere. Greek was the language of administration in Axum and was widely known by the third century AD. It was used in inscriptions, coinage, and trade. The Geʽez script came into use by the 4th century; by the 6th century translations into Ge'ez were common. Due to its ties with the Greco-Roman world, the Kingdom of Aksum adopted Christianity as the state religion in the mid-4th century, under Ezana of Axum. Following their Christianization, the Aksumites ceased construction of stelae. The Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the four great powers of the 3rd century by the Persian prophet Mani, alongside Persia, Rome, and China. During the reign of Endubis, Aksum began minting coins that have been excavated as far away as Caesarea and southern India. Axum continued to expand under the reign of Gedara, who was the first Axumite king to involve In South Arabian affairs at sometime around the early 3rd century, conquering Najran, the Tihama tribes and occupying the Himyarite capital, Zafar, until a joint Himyarite-Sabean alliance pushed them out. Yemeni-Ethiopian conflicts however will continue throughout the 3rd century.