Endubis or Endybis was a late-3rd-century sovereign of the
Kingdom of Aksum 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 histori ...
(modern-day
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 Er ...
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
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
and
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
denominations and bore inscriptions in
Koine Greek
Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...
.
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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