Endubis or Endybis was a late-3rd-century sovereign 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
Ethiopia and
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
). He was among the earliest rulers in the
Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...
to mint his own coins; the
Aksumite currency of his reign was issued in
gold and
silver denominations and bore inscriptions in
Koine Greek.
The coins of Endubis are dated to c. 295 to c. 310 and are "undoubtedly
..the oldest Aksumite coins".
On the coins of Endubis so far recovered, either of two mottos were engraved. On some coins he described himself as "ΑΞΩΜΙΤΩ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΥϹ", "king of Axum". On others appeared the motto "ΒΙϹΙ ΔΑΧΥ", "bisi Dakhu"; this is the first appearance of the title "bisi", which S. C. Munro-Hay believes is related to the
Ge'ez word "be'esya", "man of".
[S. C. Munro-Hay, ''Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity'' (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 75.]
References
External links
Page with coin struck under Endubis
Kings of Axum
3rd-century monarchs in Africa
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