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Entry 86 of 240Reform

Aksum Adopts Christianity

c. 330 CE/Africa/Kingdom of Aksum
Today Northern Ethiopia (Aksum)Span Kingdom of Aksum · c. 100–940 CE

Aksum, in the Ethiopian highlands, controlled the Red Sea trade between Rome and India, minted its own gold coinage, and raised carved stone obelisks over a hundred feet tall. Its king converted to Christianity in the 330s — within a few years of Rome doing the same, and independently of it. The church he founded still exists: Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity has run continuously for seventeen centuries, survived the Islamic expansion that surrounded it, and remains the faith of tens of millions. It is one of the oldest state religions on earth, in a country that was never colonized.

◆ Worth knowingA Persian writer of the 200s listed the four great kingdoms of the world: Rome, Persia, China, and Aksum. Three of those are household names.
◆ The mechanismIdeological movement

A belief system rises, spreads, institutionalizes, and then schisms — changing the rules people accept as legitimate.

Also: Trade-route shift · State formation & institutional founding

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