People from the kingdom of Saba, across the Red Sea on the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, may have migrated into the area in the first millennium B.C.E. But the origins of the kingdom of Aksum are mysterious. Humans had inhabited the region and the valleys below since the Stone Age, and agrarian communities had been there for at least a millennium. Aksum was situated in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, in a region called Tigray, near present-day Eritrea. Aksum was also noteworthy for its elaborate monuments and written script, as well as for introducing the Christian religion to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
Aksum, the capital city, was a metropolis with a peak population as high as 20,000. This wealthy African civilization thrived for centuries, controlling a large territorial state and access to vast trade routes linking the Roman Empire to the Middle East and India.
A major empire of the ancient world, the kingdom of Aksum arose in Ethiopia during the first century C.E.
