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Port of Adulis

Adulis or Aduli is an archeological site in the Northern Red Sea of Eritrea, situated about 30 miles south of Massawa in the Gulf of Zula. It was the port considered part of the Kingdom of Aksum, located on the coast of the Red Sea. However recent excavation uncovers artifacts that predates the Axumite civilization. These civilization is now known as Adulitarian. Adulis Bay is named after the site. It is thought that the modern town of Zula may be the Adulis of the Aksumite epoch, as Zula may reflect the local name for the Ancient Greek Adulis.

Control of Adulis allowed Axum to be the major power on the Red Sea. This port was the principal staging area for Kaleb's invasion of the Himyarite kingdom of Dhu Nuwas around 520. While the scholar Yuri Kobishchanov detailed a number of raids Aksumites made on the Arabian coast (the latest being in 702, when the port of Jeddah was occupied), and argued that Adulis was later captured by the Muslims, which brought to an end Axum's naval ability and contributed to the Aksumite Kingdom's isolation from the Byzantine Empire and other traditional allies, the last years of Adulis are a mystery. Muslim writers occasionally mention both Adulis and the nearby Dahlak Archipelago as places of exile. The evidence suggests that Axum maintained its access to the Red Sea, yet experienced a clear decline in its fortunes from the seventh century onwards. In any case, the sea power of Axum waned and security for the Red Sea fell on other shoulders.








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References


Wikipedia contributors. (2017, November 23). Adulis. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:37, February 3, 2019, from Link
Paribeni in Adulis Archived July 11, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
Leclant, Jean (1993). Sesto Congresso internazionale di egittologia: atti, Volume 2. International Association of Egyptologists. p. 402. Retrieved 15 September 2014. Link
"Eritrea wants artefacts back". 2005-10-02. Archived from the original on 2006-06-20. Retrieved 2007-02-05. Link
G W Bowersock. The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea wars on the eve of Islam. Oxford: University Press. 2013. ISBN 978 0 19 973932 5 (reviewed by Peter Thonemann in "Gates of Horn", Times Literary Supplement, 6 December 2013, pp. 9–10)
Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0-7486-0106-6
Yuri M. Kobishchanov. Axum (Joseph W. Michels, editor; Lorraine T. Kapitanoff, translator). University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 1979. ISBN 0-271-00531-9