Aksum begins to mint coins

Aksum, in the highlands of northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, had grown rich on the trade of the Red Sea through its port of Adulis, and in the 3rd century its kings also sent armies across the sea into south-western Arabia. Endybis, whose reign is traditionally dated to about 270–300, is the first Aksumite king known to have struck coins. His gold pieces matched the weight of the Roman half-aureus of the later 3rd century; their Greek legends call him “King Endybis” and bisi Dakhu — the first appearance of the title bisi, “man of”, in the royal style — and show his bust between stalks of barley, with the disc and crescent above. The Greek language and the Roman weight standard suggest that the coins were meant above all for foreign trade. Aksum went on minting until the first half of the 7th century; in the 4th century King Ezana replaced the disc and crescent with the cross.

The date is disputed. The traditional date of about 270 rests on the reconstructed reign of Endybis, but Wolfgang Hahn and Vincent West, publishing the Aksumite coins of the Ashmolean Museum (2016), argue that his coins — the oldest Aksumite issues — were not struck before about 295, after Diocletian’s currency reforms; so Aksum began to mint either about 270 or not before about 295. Aksum’s standing in this period is reflected in the Manichaean Kephalaia, a Coptic collection of sayings attributed to Mani, which lists four great kingdoms of the world: that of Babylon and Persia, that of the Romans, “the kingdom of the Axumites”, and that of “Silis” (China).