AKSUM

A third-century source named Aksum beside Rome, Persia and China among the great kingdoms of the world, and then it slipped out of most histories. From a highland capital in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea, Aksum minted gold coins, raised some of the tallest single-stone monuments of the ancient world, wrote in Ge’ez, Greek and South Arabian, and took a leading part in the Red Sea trade between Africa, Arabia and India.

This illustrated history follows the evidence from the first highland farmers to the long decline of the kingdom: kings and queens, the conversion of Ezana, homes and food, language and belief, stone and iron, ships and armies, and the return of the Stele of Rome. It treats legend and religious tradition respectfully and keeps them separate from what archaeology, inscriptions and coins can prove.

Each of its seventy chapters ends with The Historian’s Verdict, which grades what is well established, probable, disputed or unknown. Appendices give a timeline, the people in the book, a reader’s guide to the evidence, a list of terms, Ge’ez, Greek and Sabaean words in writing, and places to visit.

The evidence is laid out. The reader decides.