The earliest documentary reference to Axum was composed during the first century C.E. in an anonymous text known as The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. Likely written by a sea captain from Roman-controlled Egypt, the Periplus offers a guide to the places and conditions that merchants might encounter as they traversed the Red Sea and the East African coast while on their way to India.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea

First Century C.E.

Below Ptolemais of the Hunts [near modern Port Sudan on the Red Sea] … there is Adulis, a port established by law…. Before the harbor lies the so-called Mountain Island, about two hundred stadia sea-ward [1 stadium = ¹⁄8 mile] from the very head of the bay, with the shores of the mainland close to it on both sides. Ships bound for this port now anchor here because of attacks from the land…. Opposite Mountain Island, on the mainland twenty stadia from shore, lies Adulis, a fair-sized village, from which there is a three-days’ journey to Coloe, an inland town and the first market for ivory. From that place to the city of the people called Axumites there is a five days’ journey more; to that place all the ivory is brought from the country beyond the Nile … and thence to Adulis. Practically the whole number of elephants and rhinoceros that are killed live in the places inland, although at rare intervals they are hunted on the seacoast even near Adulis. Before the harbor of that market-town, out at sea on the right hand, there lie a great many little sandy islands called Alalaei, yielding tortoise-shell, which is brought to market there by the Fish-Eaters.

And about eight hundred stadia beyond there is another very deep bay, with a great mound of sand piled up at the right of the entrance; at the bottom of which the opsian [obsidian] stone is found, and this is the only place where it is produced. These places … are governed by Zoscales [an Axumite ruler], who is miserly in his ways and always striving for more, but otherwise upright, and acquainted with Greek literature.

There are imported into these places undressed cloth made in Egypt for the Berbers; robes from Arsinoe [an Egyptian port]; cloaks of poor quality dyed in colors; double-fringed linen mantles; many articles of flint glass, and others of murrhine [used for making Roman vases] made in Diospolis [Thebes in Egypt]; and brass, which is used for ornament and in cut pieces instead of coin; sheets of soft copper, used for cooking utensils and cut up for bracelets and anklets for the women; iron, which is made into spears used against the elephants and other wild beasts, and in their wars. Besides these, small axes are imported, and adzes and swords; copper drinking-cups, round and large; a little coin [Roman money] for those coming to the market [probably foreign merchants living in Adulis]; wine of Laodicea and Italy, not much; olive oil, not much; for the king, gold and silver plate made after the fashion of the country, and for clothing, military cloaks, and thin coats of skin, of no great value. Likewise from the district of Ariaca [in western India] across this sea, there are imported Indian iron, and steel, and Indian cotton cloth; … and girdles, and coats of skin and mallow-colored cloth, and a few muslins, and colored lac [a resinous secretion of an insect, used in the form of shellac]. There are exported from these places ivory, and tortoise-shell and rhinoceros-horn. The most from Egypt is brought to this market from the month of January.

Source: Wilfred H. Schoff, trans. and ed., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (New York: Longman, Green, 1912), secs. 4–6.