The Christianisation of Adulis in Light of the Material Evidence

Home , Adulis, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Ptolemy III Euergetes

chapter 17 The Christianisation of Adulis in Light of the Material Evidence

Serena Massa and Caterina Giostra

1 The Archaeological Research in the Ancient Town of Adulis

The site of Adulis is located on the south-western coast of the Red Sea, in the well-protected bay of Zula, about 40 km south of Massawa, Eritrea.1 In the ancient world it was one of the most important ports connecting East Africa and the Mediterranean along the spice trade route from India. The Adulis commercial vocation was probably already active in the Pharaonic era, in the context of the traffic in precious materials not found in Egypt and sought in the Land of Punt.2 From the size of village3 and oppidum4 reported by the sources in the second half of the first century CE, an increasing development and importance of the site until the Byzantine period is concomitant with the rise of the Aksumite kingdom, of which Adulis represented the gate to the sea.5

1 An independent state since 1993, in antiquity the area was part of the same context of the highland territories that are currently included within the borders of Ethiopia. 2 The location of Adulis can be included in the area of the Land of Punt, identified in the regions bordering the southern Red Sea and perhaps coinciding with the locality of WDDT recorded in the geographical list of the 18th Dynasty. Archaeological levels dating to the lat- ter half of the second millennium–early first millennium BCE were documented by archaeological excavations: Adulis in this period is considered part of the Afro-Arabian cultural complex, which extends from southern Arabian regions to the Eritrean plateau: R. Fattovich and S. Munro-Hay, “Adulis”, in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, I (A–C), ed. S. Uhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003), p. 104; K.A. Bard and R. Fattovich, “Spatial Use of the Twelfth Dynasty Harbor at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis for the Seafaring Expeditions to Punt”, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 2 (2010): 1–13. 3 Periplus Maris Erythraei, 4, 2.6 – L. Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 52. 4 Pliny, Naturalis Historia, VI, 34 – J. Henderson (ed.), Loeb Classical Library 352, vol. II, Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusets, London, England, 1942, pp. 466–467. 5 The importance of Adulis as an international trading centre is also mentioned by Ptolemy; in sources dating to late ancient times there emerges, in addition to the commercial charac- ter, a political and military role of the town. For this period, the sources are numerous. The Topographia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited Adulis in the first quarter of the sixth century CE, gives us two Greek texts inscribed on a stone stele and on a marble throne that were at the entrance of the city.

The destruction and abandonment of Adulis between the seventh and eighth centuries CE, probably due to natural catastrophic events more or less concurrent with the Arabic conquest,6 led to the kingdom’s becoming isolated

Despite the divergencies present in the critical literature since the 17th century about these documents of extraordinary importance for our knowledge of the kingdom of Axum, starting from the erroneous believe of Cosmas that the inscription on the throne was the continuation of the inscription on the stele, divergences mainly due to lacunae in both texts besides the uncertain identification of many of the names for places and peoples listed in the inscriptions, there is no doubt neither about the titulature nor on the chronology of the first. The earlier text, inscribed on the stele, listed the conquests of Ptolemy III Euergetes (247– 222 BCE). Ptolemy’s titulature at the beginning of the text that lacks the epithet “Euergetes”, which he received no later than September of 243, and references to his return in Egypt after the Syriac war, places the text between late 246 and 244 BCE. The second inscription, known as Monumentum Adulitanum II, reported the undertak- ings of an anonymous king, whose name is lost perhaps due to an omission of the copy- ist. Nevertheless, the many and eminent scholars who studied the inscription agree that it was an Aksumite sovereign. More debatable is the chronology, but significant clues indicate presumably the third century CE. E. Bernand, “Les Inscriptions Grecques”, in Recueil des inscriptions de l’Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, ed. É. Bernand, A.J. Drewes and R. Schneider (Paris: De Boccard, 2000), III, pp. 26–45; G.W. Bowersock, The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wares on the Eve of Islam (Emblems of Antiquity) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), in part. pp. 34–39, 44–62. What is relevant to the theme of Christianisation addressed here is that Cosmas copied the inscriptions on behalf of King Kaleb of Aksum, who was on the verge of waging war against the South Arabian kingdom of Himyar with the allied Byzantine fleet gathered in the port of Adulis in the first quarter of the sixth century. At that time there was also the presence of a high level of evergetism, as seen in the dona- tion of the exceptional marble furnishings of the northern urban church. The donor presumably aimed at enhancing the close ties between Byzantium and Aksum and the strategic and political role of the port town of Adulis. This event of international relevance is also narrated by Procopius of Caesarea and the Martyrium Sancti Arethae. E. Carpentier, “Martyrium Sancti Arethae et Sociorum in Civitate Negran”, in Acta Sanctorum, Octobris. Tomus X quo dies vigesimus tertius et quartus conti- nentur (Bruxellis, 1861), pp. 721–762. Rufinus of Aquileia is the principal western source about the Christianisation of the Aksumite kingdom, while other news is reported by Stephanus of Byzantium, Malala and Nonnosus: P. Marassini (ed.), Storia e leggenda dell’Etiopia tardo anti- ca: Le iscrizioni reali aksumitecon un’appendice di Rodolfo Fattovich, La civiltà aksumita: aspetti archeologici e una nota editoriale di A. Bausi, Testi del Vicino Oriente antico: Letteratura eti- opica (Brescia: Paideia, 2014); Bowersock 2013; F. De Romanis, Cassia, Cinnamomo, Ossidiana, uomini e merci tra Oceano Indiano e Mediterraneo (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2006). 6 The ongoing excavations document significant flood levels above the last phase of life of the town, dated between the late sixth and early seventh centuries; an Arab naval expedition is reported in 640; in 702 the Arab conquest of the Dahlak Islands, T. Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 51. More scarce appear instead at the moment the fire traces documented by the excavations of Francis Anfray. F. Anfray, “Deux villes axoumites: Adoulis et Matara”, in Atti del IV Congresso Internazionale di Studi Etiopici (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1974): 754–765, in part. p. 753; R. Sundström, “Archaeological Work at the Ruins of Adulis and Gabaza”, Preliminary Report of the Princeton University Expedition to Abyssinia, ed. E. Littmann,