4.7 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2020
⏱️ 52 minutes
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At its height the Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the four great powers of the Ancient World. Situated primarily in what is now northern Ethiopia, Aksum’s legacy is astonishing and far reaching and so it is extraordinary to think that so few people have heard about this kingdom today. To explain why this is the case, and so much more, I was delighted to be joined by Dr Jacke Phillips, an archaeologist and leading expert on the Kingdom of Aksum. In this podcast Jacke explained to me what we know about this ancient African kingdom and how we are continuing to learn more thanks to new, ground-breaking archaeological discoveries. From Aksum's relations with neighbouring kingdoms to its important role in the history of both Christianity and Islam, Jacke explains all in this brilliant chat.
Apologies for the couple of places where the audio is a little dodgy!
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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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