ABSTRACT
The importance to successive Ethiopian governments of the country's access to the sea, on which it depended for trade-links with the rest ofthe world, has been noted by anumber of writers (Pankhurst 1961;1974; Dombrowski 1985; Munro-Hay 1982), but generally the emphasis has been on medieval and later periods up to the present day. However, the possession of what later became Eritrea has been of continual interest to highland Ethiopians even from the Aksumite period (ca. first-early seventh century AD), and expansion into this coastal region permitted the kingdom ofAksum to develop extensive overseas interests. Aksumite prosperity partly depended on maintaining the political and commercial connections abroad which had assisted in the development oftheir important position in the contemporary world, and possession of a coastal station was thus a vital key to the kingdom's continued affluence. To some extent the overseas interests of the Aksumite state actually shaped certain of its institutions; South Arabian influences are apparent in some Aksumite inscriptions, as well as in many aspects of the pre-Aksumite culture of Ethiopia, while such features as the use of Greek on inscriptions and coins, the very issue of a coinage itself, and the development of a church based on the patriarchate of Alexandria, reflect the kingdom's tendency to look towards the contemporary culture of the graecised Orient. It should be added that Ethiopian civilization as it developed in Aksumite times was not totally dependent on these connections. When the Red Sea trade, and indeed the whole system which depended on the Roman Empire's possession of the northern end of this route, declined, and with it almost all infonnation about Ethiopia ceased in western sources, a powerful Ethiopian kingdom continued to be reported by Arab writers for many centuries. This kingdom, with its capital at the sofar unidentified Ku 'bar, still exercised suzerainty over the coastal regions, and the capital was a recognized trading-place for the Arabs. In many regards, particularly in architecture and aspects associated with the Christian religion, it maintained and even developed the traditions established in Aksumite times.
