Aphilas

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 the obverse, and being issued in fractions of weight that none of his successors copied.¹

He produced the smallest gold coins ever minted in sub-saharan africa equivalent to one sixth 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. ΑΦΙ-ΛΑC ΒΑCΙ-ΛΕY (Aphilas, King) Notice 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.

G.W.B. Huntingford suggests that he was the ruler who erected the anonymous inscription at Adulis known as the Monumentum Adulitanum.²

Notes

1. S. C. Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), p. 188.
2. G.W.B. Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia (London: The British Academy, 1989), pp. 40f.

ΑΦΙΛΑC ΒΑCΙΛΕY (Aphilas, King)