Aksum

From the highlands of what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Kingdom of Aksum controlled one of the busiest trade routes of the ancient world. Through its Red Sea port of Adulis, ivory, gold and incense went out, and goods from Rome, Arabia and India came in.

Aksum was wealthy and confident enough to mint its own coins in gold, silver and bronze from around the late 3rd century CE, something very few states of the time did. A 3rd-century Persian writer listed Aksum among the four great kingdoms of the world, alongside Rome, Persia and China.

In the 4th century King Ezana adopted Christianity, making Aksum one of the first states in the world to do so, and the cross began to appear on its coins. The kingdom's tall granite stelae still stand in the city of Aksum. One of them was taken to Rome in 1937 and only returned to Ethiopia in 2005.

Aksum's written language, Ge'ez, is still used today in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The kingdom declined from the 7th century as Red Sea trade changed, but its legacy runs straight through Ethiopian history.