The Ezana Stone is an ancient
stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
still standing in modern day
Axum
Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015).
It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...
in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, the centre of the ancient
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 ...
. This
stone monument, that probably dates from the 4th century of the Christian era, documents the conversion of
King Ezana
Ezana ( gez, ዔዛና ''‘Ezana'', unvocalized ዐዘነ ''‘zn''; also spelled Aezana or Aizan) was ruler of the Kingdom of Axum, an ancient kingdom located in what is now Eritrea and Ethiopia. (320s – c. 360 AD). He himself employed the ...
to Christianity and his conquest of various neighbouring areas, including
Meroë
Meroë (; also spelled ''Meroe''; Meroitic: or ; ar, مرواه, translit=Meruwah and ar, مروي, translit=Meruwi, label=none; grc, Μερόη, translit=Meróē) was an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east ...
.
From AD 330 to 356, King Ezana ruled the ancient Kingdom of Aksum centred 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), ...
. He fought against the
Nubians
Nubians () (Nobiin: ''Nobī,'' ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of c ...
, and commemorated his victories on stone tablets in praise of
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
. These liturgical epigraphs were written in various ancient languages, including the Ethiopian Semitic
Ge'ez, the South Arabian
Sabaean, and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. The king's
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...
s in stone provided a trilingual monument in different languages, similar to the
Rosetta stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...
.
The
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
had its beginnings during this period.
Rufinus's ''Ecclesiastical History'' narrates that
Saint Frumentius
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Ortho ...
, a freed slave and tutor for the very young King, converted him to Christianity. Towards the end of his reign, King Ezana launched a campaign against the
Kushites around 350 which brought down the
Kingdom of Kush
The Kingdom of Kush (; Egyptian language, Egyptian: 𓎡𓄿𓈙𓈉 ''kꜣš'', Akkadian language, Assyrian: ''Kûsi'', in LXX grc, Κυς and Κυσι ; cop, ''Ecōš''; he, כּוּשׁ ''Kūš'') was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, ce ...
. Various stone inscriptions written in Ge'ez (using the
Ge'ez script) have been found at Meroë, the central city of the Kushites.
Text
Greek translation
Ge'ez translation
Sabaean translation
See also
*
Hawulti (monument)
Hawulti () is a pre-Aksumite obelisk located in Matara, Eritrea. The monument bears the oldest known example of the ancient Ge'ez script.
Description
The Hawulti monument is high, with a disk and crescent at the top; Ullendorff believes ...
*
King Ezana's Stele
King Ezana's Stele is a 4th century obelisk in the ancient city of Axum, in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The monument stands in the middle of the Northern Stelae Park, which contains hundreds of smaller and less decorated stelae. This stele is ...
*
Obelisk of Axum
The Obelisk of Axum ( ti, ሓወልቲ ኣኽሱም, ḥawelti Akhsum; ) is a 4th-century CE, tall phonolite stele, weighing , in the city of Axum in Ethiopia. It is ornamented with two false doors at the base and features decorations resembli ...
*
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...
References
Notes
External links
National Geographic articleChapter II, "Brief Historical Sketch of the Country and Church", contains a discussion of this inscription
4th-century artefacts
4th-century inscriptions
Texts in Ge'ez
Greek inscriptions
Multilingual texts
Axumite steles
Axum (city)
Archaeology of Eastern Africa
{{Africa-archaeology-stub