Monumentum Adulitanum

Monumentum Adulitanum
The Monumentum Adulitanum was an ancient bilingual inscription in Ge'ez and Greek depicting the military campaigns of an anonymous Axumite king. The original text was inscribed on a throne in Adulis (Ge'ez: መንበር manbar) written in Ge'ez in both the Ge'ez script and Sabean alphabet, while the Greek was written in the Greek alphabet. The monument was found in the port city state of Adulis (in modern-day Eritrea). Though the inscription and the monument have never been located by archaeologists, it is known about through the copying of the inscription by Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th-century Greek traveller-monk.
The text narrates the King's military campaigns in Agame, Simien and the Arabian Peninsula between 200 and 270 AD.
Text
The following translation is by Stuart Munro-Hay.
History
The inscription mentions many different groups of people and locations. Some can identified without difficulty like the Beja who are well known to have been in the north of the Ethiopian Highlands. "Leuke Kome" is possibly identified as Aynuna. The Atalmo and Tangaites are not known from any source apart from Monumentum Adulitanum. The western nation "Sesea/Sasou" is likely a mistranslation of Kush (Cosmas mistook the letter kappa for sigma). "Ethiopia" refers to Nubia, which the Graeco-Roman world knew as "Ethiopia." The Aksumites appropriated the name "Ethiopians" for themselves during the reign of Ezana of Axum not long after. The 3rd century AD Adulite inscription also contains what may be the first reference to the Agaw, referring to a people called "Athagaus" (perhaps from ʿAd Agäw).
The inscription mentions military conquests in 3 different directions. First described are the North conquests and then boasts of a 'road constructed going from the lands of my empire to Egypt.'
Second described is a Western conquest. The inscription also notes that in the unnamed King's expedition to the mountains past the Nile, his men were knee-deep in snow. This has been postulated as the Simien Mountains. The Simiens are remarkable as being one of the few spots in tropical Africa where snow regularly falls. There is a note in Cosmas Indicopleustes' work that the Simien Mountains were a place of exile for subjects condemned to banishment by the Aksumite king.
Third and final, the inscription mentions an Eastern conquest. The subjugation of the Sabaeans, and the Kinaidokolpitai in modern-day Yemen (and perhaps Saudi Arabia).
The inscription ends with the King's affirmation that he is the first to have subjugated all of the aforementioned peoples, and dedicates his throne to Zeus (or the god Astar, cognate to the Semitic goddess Astarte). Also to the God Beher mentioned in the monument refers to the Adulite version of the Greek god Neptune. 'Beher' means 'sea' in Ge'ez. Last, Mahrem is equated to Ares.
Seeing that the text was in Greek and followed an inscription about King Ptolemy III Euergetes's conquests in Asia, Cosmas Indicopleustes mistook the Aksumite inscription for the continuation of Ptolemy's. The Ptolemaic portion of the text is referred to as Monumentum Adulitanum II.
The identity of this king has been a point of contention for many years. The beginning of the inscription was damaged before being recorded by Cosmas. Munro-Hay claims the damaged inscription at the beginning might read, "Wāzānā, followed by an alternative (birth?) name ’Ella ‘Amīdā." If correct, the king is Ousanas.
See also
Ethiopian historiography
References
Further reading
External links
Aksum - Chapters 11-16 by Dr. Stuart Munro-Hay including full text of inscription
Online English translation of the Christian Topography
Kingdom of Aksum
Roman-era Greek inscriptions
Texts in Ge'ez
Multilingual texts
3rd-century inscriptions