In the words of German historian Eduard Meyer, trade and money were as fundamentally important to the economic life of the ancients [4] as war was. [5] Although we do not know too much about the Aksumite military—apart from their expansionist conquests of neighboring territories—it was their facility at trade and commerce that set them apart in ancient history. Those that were not farmers, laborers, or soldiers were merchants. Evidence from Tigray strongly supports the theory that the Aksumite civilization was defined by its complex market economy; commodities like labor, slaves, ivory, and incense, among many other goods, were either bartered or exchanged using legal tender. Commercial activities in Aksum have been linked to kingdoms and empires as far away as China, Persia, and Rome (and, later, Byzantium). British archaeologist Sheila Boardman noted, in the introduction of her chapter in The Exploitation of Plant Resources in Ancient Africa , that the commercial activities in Aksum might have been responsible for the increase in crop variety and the growth of the market economy across the entire East Africa region. She argued that before the mid‐ to late Aksumite period, the range of crops planted was limited to flax, barley, and tef. But under the Aksumite rule, the production extended to some twelve other species, most of which were cash crops like oil and fiber plants, all of which points to both a robust interest in both agriculture and market exchange. [6] But domestic agriculture was only one of the economic strengths of Aksum.

Like in both ancient Egypt and in the Kushite metropolises, the close proximity of these kingdoms to the Nile River was an enormous commercial advantage. The river gave them an avenue to engage in trade with people from farflung territories. African merchants were key to this trading system. They used the Nile to easily transport commodities into Arabia, Himyar (modern‐​day Yemen), and through the Gulf of Aden, especially from the 6th to 9th century CE. Aksumite merchants also traveled across India and Arabia trading in luxury commodities that were the most sought after in the ancient world including emeralds, ivory, incense, exotic animals, gold, silk, salt, obsidian, and spices. They then sold these commodities to kingdoms in inner Africa and to their immediate neighbors in Nubia and Egypt.

The elaborate nature of trading activities in Aksum is perhaps best expressed in Periplus Maris Erythraei (“Navigation of the Erythraean Sea”). Although we do not know the author of this work, which chronicled navigation between major trade ports in the ancient world, most historians do agree that the author was most likely a Greek merchant living in Egypt sometime around the mid or late 1st century CE. What makes this manuscript significant is the author’s description of a remarkable port city in Aksum called Adulis. According to the author, Adulis was an open harbor that accommodated communities of African and Greco‐​Roman traders. Some even believe that Adulis used to serve as a commercial location for the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom [7] and the Phoenicians. In the manuscript, the author recounted: