- Aphilas
###@@@KEYEND@@@###
Aphilas (early
4th century ) was a king of Axum. He is known from the coins he minted, which are characterized by a number of experiments in imagery on theobverse , and being issued in fractions of weight that none of his successors copied. [S. C. Munro-Hay, "Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity" (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 188.]G.W.B. Huntingford suggests that he was the ruler who erected the anonymous inscription at
Adulis known as the "Monumentum Adulitanum ". [G.W.B. Huntingford, "The Historical Geography of Ethiopia" (London: The British Academy, 1989), pp. 40f.]His coins
He produced the smallest gold coins ever minted in sub-saharan Africa, equivalent to one sixteenth of a Roman
aureus . The obverse of this coin feature not only his portrait, but the crescent and disc symbolic of their pre-Christian beliefs. The reverse features his name and title rendered in Greek, the lingua-franca of the civilized world at that time. Note that the "A"s lack a horizontal crossbar but have a dot placed below them instead.His silver coin features his portrait on both the obverse and reverse with the disc and crescent (at top). The reverse revals a distinguishing festure of Axumite coinage; gilding. The reverse interior portrait is overlaid with gold.
Notes
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
