The Kingdom of Aksum
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How is the unique narrative of the Ark of the Covenant deeply rooted in Ethiopian culture and tradition?
Embark on a journey to the Kingdom of Aksum with host Tristan Hughes and archeologist Dil Singh Basanti, located in present-day northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. They discuss how fourth-century African merchants from Axum sailed from Eritrea to India, trading goods like ivory and gold for steel and spices. They uncover the secrets of Aksum's burial practices, including the monumental stele and the rituals that honoured the dead, and learn how the cosmopolitan port city of Adulis boomed with diverse religious influences, from Christianity to possible traces of Buddhism. This episode offers a captivating glimpse into daily life and the vast trade networks that made Aksum a powerful ancient empire.
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Tim Arstall, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Ancient's on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and in today's podcast. |
| 0:07.8 | I'm delighted to say that it is about a kingdom in northeast Africa, |
| 0:12.9 | situation in modern day northern Ethiopia, the harshest civilization, |
| 0:17.3 | it was called the Kingdom of Axum. At its height, this kingdom was considered one of the |
| 0:22.6 | four great kingdoms of the ancient world. |
| 0:26.6 | Its trade connections were extensive, its importance in the spread of certain religions, |
| 0:31.4 | particularly Christianity, and Islam is absolutely astonishing the stories behind that. |
| 0:37.1 | Military conquests that stretched across the Red Sea into Arabia and further west too |
| 0:43.7 | into the Kingdom of Kush, as also absolutely extraordinary and so much more. |
| 0:49.8 | To talk about the Kingdom of Axum, I was delighted to get on the show Dr. Jackie Phillips. |
| 0:54.1 | Jackie is a leading expert on the history of Axum. She has conducted archaeological excavations |
| 1:00.2 | at sites of ancient Axum in Ethiopia over the past decades. She is a legend. She is an expert |
| 1:08.4 | and it was delightful to get her on the show to talk all things Axum. Here's Jackie. |
| 1:18.4 | Jackie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. |
| 1:21.2 | Oh, you're welcome. Always you to publicize Axum because so few people have heard about it. |
| 1:26.5 | Well, you mentioned it right there. The Kingdom of Axum and this sounds like another one of these |
| 1:30.7 | astonishing ancient African kingdoms that has left such a huge legacy to this day. |
| 1:36.9 | It has indeed, yeah. So first of all with the Kingdom of Axum, no such thing as a city question, |
| 1:42.6 | whereabouts was the Kingdom of Axum? It was mostly in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, |
| 1:50.6 | and for a few centuries, it was also as part of the Greater Kingdom, the conquered area around |
| 1:56.2 | what is now the Yemen and probably a bit of southern Arabia as well. We don't know the border |
| 2:02.1 | and it probably fluctuated anyway. There are several texts, well, inscriptions where the |
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