His reign resulted in the control of much of western Yemen, such as the Tihama, Najran, Al-Maʿafir, Ẓafar (until c. 230), and parts of Hashid territory around Hamir in the northern highlands until a joint Himyarite-Sabean alliance pushed them out.

[11] The kingdom continued to expand throughout late antiquity, conquering Kush under Ezana in 330 for a short period of time and inheriting from it the Greek exonym "Ethiopia".

[16] Aksumite dominance in the Red Sea culminated during the reign of Kaleb of Axum (514–542), who, at the behest of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I, invaded the Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen in order to end the persecution of Christians perpetrated by the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas.

This trade across the Red Sea, spanning from the Roman Empire in the north to India and Ceylon in the east, played a crucial role in Aksum's prosperity.

Both archaeological findings and textual evidence suggest that during this period, a centralized regional polity had emerged in the Aksumite area, characterized by defined social stratification.

By the beginning of the fourth century AD, the Aksumite state had become well-established, featuring urban centers, an official currency with coinage struck in gold, silver, and copper, an intensive agricultural system, and a organized military.

[29] Around 200 AD, Aksumite ambitions had expanded to Southern Arabia, where Aksum appears to have established itself in Al-Maafer and engaged in conflicts with Saba and Himyar at various points, forming different alliances with chief kingdoms and tribes.

[30][31][32] By the end of the third century AD, Aksum had gained recognition by the prophet Mani in the Kephalaia, as one of the four great powers of the world alongside Rome, Persia, and China.

Aksumite architecture featured massive dressed granite blocks, smaller uncut stones for walling, mud mortar, bricks for vaulting and arches, and a visible wooden framework, known as "monkey-heads" or square corner extrusions.

In the early sixth century, Cosmas Indicopleustes described his visit to Aksum, mentioning the four-towered palace of the Aksumite king, adorned with bronze statues of unicorns.

These thrones incorporated large panels at the sides and back with inscriptions, attributed to Ousanas, Ezana, Kaleb, and his son Wazeba, serving as victory monuments documenting the wars of these kings.

Arab writers of the time continued to describe Ethiopia (no longer referred to as Aksum) as an extensive and powerful state, though they had lost control of most of the coast and their tributaries.

[50] After a short Dark Age, the Aksumite Empire was succeeded by the Zagwe dynasty in the eleventh or twelfth century (most likely around 1137), although limited in size and scope.

[53] Nilotic groups also inhabited Aksum, as inscriptions from the time of Ezana note the "Barya", an animist tribe who lived in the western part of the empire, believed to be the Naras.

[54][55] Aksumite settlements were distributed across a significant portion of the highlands in the northern Horn of Africa, with the majority located in northeastern Tigray, Ethiopia, as well as the Akele Guzai and Seraye regions of Eritrea.

[57] A complex agricultural system in the Aksumite area, which involved irrigation, dam construction, terracing, and plough-farming, played a crucial role in sustaining both urban and rural populations.

This diverse range of crops, combined with the herding of domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats, contributed to the creation of a highly productive indigenous agropastoral food-producing tradition.

[65][72][73][74] After the seventh century's Muslim conquests in the Middle East and North Africa, which effectively isolated Axum from the Greco-Roman world, Geʿez replaced Greek entirely.

[76] In the UNESCO sponsored General History of Africa French archaeologist Francis Anfray, suggests that the Aksumites worshipped Astar, his son, Mahrem, and Beher.

[77] Steve Kaplan argues that with Aksumite culture came a major change in religion, with only Astar remaining of the old gods, the others being replaced by what he calls a "triad of indigenous divinities, Mahrem, Beher and Medr."

By the time Christianity took hold in the fourth century, many of the originally Hebraic-Jewish elements had been adopted by much of the indigenous population and were no longer viewed as foreign characteristics.

Worked granite was used for architectural features including columns, bases, capitals, doors, windows, paving, water spouts (often shaped like lion heads) and so on, as well as enormous flights of stairs that often flanked the walls of palace pavilions on several sides.

[87] Covering parts of what is now northern Ethiopia and southern and eastern Eritrea, Aksum was deeply involved in the trade network between the Indian subcontinent and the Mediterranean (Rome, later Byzantium), exporting ivory, tortoise shell, gold and emeralds, and importing silk and spices.

[59][60] Aksum's access to both the Red Sea and the Upper Nile enabled its strong navy to profit in trade between various African (Nubia), Arabian (Yemen), and Indian states.

[88] In 525 AD, the Aksumites attempted to take over the Yemen region to gain control over The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; one of the most significant trading routes in the medieval world, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

Rulers were inclined to establish a spot of imperialism across the Red Sea in Yemen to completely control the trading vessels that ran down the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.

A rival, and much older trading network that tapped the same interior region of Africa was that of the Kingdom of Kush, which had long supplied Egypt with African goods via the Nile corridor.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea explicitly describes how ivory collected in Kushite territory was being exported through the port of Adulis instead of being taken to Meroë, the capital of Kush.

[citation needed] The local subsistence base was substantially augmented by a climatic shift during the first century AD that reinforced the spring rains, extended the rainy season from 3 1/2 to six or seven months, vastly improved the surface and subsurface water supply, doubled the length of the growing season, and created an environment comparable to that of modern central Ethiopia (where two crops can be grown per annum without the aid of irrigation).

[91]: 495 The Aksumite Empire is portrayed as the main ally of Byzantium in the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint published by Baen Books.