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Focuses on the Aksumite state of the first millennium AD in northern Ethiopia and southern Eritrea, its development, florescence and eventual transformation into the so-called medieval civilisation ofChristian Ethiopia. This book seeks to apply a common methodology, utilising archaeology, art-history, written documents and oral tradition from a wide variety of sources; the result is a far greateremphasis on continuity than previous studies have revealed. It is thus a major re-interpretation of a key development in Ethiopia's past, while raising and discussing methodological issues of the relationship between archaeology and other historical disciplines; these issues, which have theoretical significance extending far beyond Ethiopia, are discussed in full.
The last millennium BC is seen as a time when northern Ethiopia and parts of Eritrea were inhabited by farming peoples whose ancestry may be traced far back into the local 'Late Stone Age'. Colonisation from southern Arabia, towhich defining importance has been attached by earlier researchers, is now seen to have been brief in duration and small in scale, its effects largely restricted to élite sections of the community. Re-consideration of inscriptions shows the need to abandon the established belief in a single 'Pre-Aksumite' state. New evidence for the rise of Aksum during the last centuries BC is critically evaluated.
Finally, new chronological precision is provided for the decline of Aksum and the transfer of centralised political authority to more southerly regions. A new study of the ancient churches -both built and rock-hewn - which survive from this poorly-understood period emphasises once again a strong degree of continuity across periods that were previously regarded as distinct.

David W. Phillipson is Emeritus Professor of African Archaeology and former Director of the University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge. In 2014 he was made an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences.

Published in association with the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

Ethiopia: Addis Ababa University Press

Aksum (Kingdom) --- Aksum (Ethiopia) --- Ethiopia --- Aksoum (Royaume) --- Aksoum (Ethiopie) --- Ethiopie --- Civilization --- Antiquities --- History --- Civilisation --- Antiquités --- Histoire --- Āksum (Ethiopia) --- Antiquités --- Civilization. --- Antiquities. --- Barbarism --- Auxiliary sciences of history --- Culture --- World Decade for Cultural Development, 1988-1997 --- Archaeological specimens --- Artefacts (Antiquities) --- Artifacts (Antiquities) --- Specimens, Archaeological --- Material culture --- Archaeology --- Axum (Ethiopia) --- Akesum (Ethiopia) --- Axoum (Ethiopia) --- History. --- Axum (Kingdom) --- Āksum (Ethiopia) -- Antiquities. --- Āksum (Ethiopia) -- History. --- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology. --- Aksumite Civilisation. --- Art. --- British Institute in Eastern Africa. --- Christian Ethiopia. --- Churches. --- David W. Phillipson. --- Eritrea. --- Late Antiquity. --- Literate Communities. --- Northern Ethiopia.

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Antiquities. --- Prehistoric peoples --- Prehistoric peoples. --- Vor- und Frühgeschichte. --- Eastern Province (Zambia) --- Sambia (Ost). --- Sambia --- Zambia --- Zambia.

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Research in Africa is now accepted as an integral part of global archaeological studies. As well as providing archaeologists with the oldest material, Africa is also widely recognised as the birthplace of modern man and his characteristic cultural patterns. Archaeological study of later periods provides unique and valuable evidence for the development of African culture and society, while ongoing research in Africa provides insights relevant to the interpretation of the archaeological record in other parts of the world. In this fully revised and expanded 2005 edition of his seminal archaeological survey, David Phillipson presents a lucid and fully illustrated account of African archaeology from prehistory and the origins of humanity to the age of European colonisation. The work spans the entire continent from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope and demonstrates the relevance of archaeological research to the understanding of Africa today.

Prehistoric peoples --- Africa --- Antiquities. --- Social Sciences --- Archeology

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Africa