Adulis and Aksum in the Periplus

The Periplus calls Adulis “a port established by law” at the inner end of a bay, a fair-sized village from which it was three days to Coloe, the first market for ivory, and five more to the city of the Axumites, where all the ivory from beyond the Nile was brought. Adulis exported ivory, tortoiseshell and rhinoceros horn and imported cloth, brass, copper, iron tools and glassware, “not much” wine and olive oil, and, from the district of Ariaca across the sea, Indian iron, steel and cotton cloth.

The coast from the Moschophagi (“Calf-Eaters”) to “the other Berber country” was ruled by Zoskales, whom the author calls miserly and always striving for more, but otherwise upright and acquainted with Greek literature. Whether he was king of Aksum or a local ruler of Adulis is debated; the old identification with Za Haqala of the Ethiopian king lists is doubtful, since the lists were compiled well over a thousand years later.