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<p>Aksum and Nubia assembles and analyzes the textual and archaeological<br>evidence of interaction between Nubia and the Ethiopian<br>kingdom of Aksum, focusing primarily on the fourth century<br>CE. Although ancient Nubia and Ethiopia have been the subject<br>of a growing number of studies in recent years, little attention has<br>been given to contact between these two regions. Hatke argues<br>that ancient Northeast Africa cannot be treated as a unified area<br>politically, economically, or culturally. Rather, Nubia and Ethiopia<br>developed within very different regional spheres of interaction, as<br>a result of which the Nubian kingdom of Kush came to focus its<br>energies on the Nile Valley, relying on this as its main route of<br>contact with the outside world, while Aksum was oriented towards<br>the Red Sea and Arabia. In this way Aksum and Kush coexisted<br>in peace for most of their history, and such contact as they maintained<br>with each other was limited to small-scale commerce. Only<br>in the fourth century CE did Aksum take up arms against Kush,<br>and even then the conflict seems to have been related mainly to<br>security issues on Aksum’s western frontier.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Although Aksum never managed to hold onto Kush for long, much<br>less dealt the final death-blow to the Nubian kingdom, as is often<br>believed, claims to Kush continued to play a role in Aksumite royal<br>ideology as late as the sixth century. Aksum and Nubia critically<br>examines the extent to which relations between two ancient African<br>states were influenced by warfare, commerce, and political<br>fictions.<br><br>Online edition available as part of the NYU Library's Ancient World Digital Library and in partnership with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW).</p>