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Aphilas bisi Dimele (early 4th century) was a Negus of the
Kingdom of Aksum
The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in wh ...
in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa:
Due to the historical ...
modern day northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. He is known only from the coins he minted, which are characterized by a number of experiments in imagery on the obverse, and being issued in fractions of weight that none of his successors copied.
G.W.B. Huntingford
George Wynn Brereton Huntingford (19 November 1901 – 19 February 1978) was an English linguist, anthropologist and historian. He lectured in East African languages and cultures at SOAS, University of London from 1950 until 1966.Adulis known as the Monumentum Adulitanum which celebrates military victories and claims to be erected in the 27th year of the ruler's reign. While David W. Phillipson seems to suggest otherwise, "coins of Aphilas – notwithstanding their diversity – are comparatively rare, and his reign may have been brief."
The larger gold coins of Aphilas are earliest known Aksumite coins to have reached 
Coins
Aphilas produced at least four series of gold coins (16mm, 12mm, 10mm, 7mm), two silver (17mm, 12mm), and two bronze (18mm, 15mm). Both of the larger gold coins feature the Aksumite tiara resting on his head cloth, which became the norm in future Aksumite coins. It is postulated that the Aksumite tiara was made for Aphilas. All coins feature the disc and crescent symbol of the Aksumite pagan period. All coins are inscribed inAncient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
. None in Ge'ez like his successors. The gold coins were weighted to the standard of the Roman aureus, the smallest gold coin of Aphilas being 1/16th aureus. The lowest gold content recorded for Aphilas is 90%. While high purity, this was lower than Roman coins.
The larger gold coins of Aphilas are earliest known Aksumite coins to have reached India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
The obverse of the smaller silver coin shows a distinguishing feature of Axumite coinage; gilding. The interior portrait is overlaid with gold. These were half value of the larger silver coin, but less than half the weight. They were probably deliberately underweight to counteract the cost of the gold gilding on the smaller coin.
At least two bronze coins feature Aphilas from a frontal position, as well as his 12mm gold coin. The style was abandoned afterwards until the 6th century. The typology and use of a frontal bust on Aphilas' coins appear to have taken inspiration from "special presentation pieces of the Roman emperor Licinius
Valerius Licinianus Licinius (c. 265 – 325) was Roman emperor from 308 to 324. For most of his reign he was the colleague and rival of Constantine I, with whom he co-authored the Edict of Milan, AD 313, that granted official toleration to C ...
". On one of his bronze issues the obverse features an ear of wheat alone in the center. Ezana copied this design in a pre-Christian issue.S. C. Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'' (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 189.
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