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G. W. Bowersock The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 208. $24.95.
This brief book offers a lively introduction to the early history of Ethiopia and its relations with South Arabia. In it Bowersock opens up for readers the world of ancient East Africa primarily through the careful exegesis of two inscriptions that once were found on a now lost monument, the throne of Adulis, for which the book is titled. Our knowledge of this ancient structure comes entirely from the famous sixth-century traveler and geographer, Cosmas Indicopleustes, who saw the monument in the city of Adulis on the coast of the Red Sea sometime around 525 c.e. Cosmas had been tasked with making a transcription of these Greek inscriptions for the Ethiopian king in Axum, and apparently he kept a copy for himself, which he then included in his Christian Topography.
Bowersock's decision to focus on this pair of vanished inscriptions may initially seem a bit odd, particularly since so many other inscriptions from the region do survive. Nevertheless, this is partly explained by the fact that this book was commissioned for a series on emblematic objects or events, but also by the fact that one of the inscriptions in question "is undoubtedly the earliest of all known Axumite royal inscriptions" (45). Moreover, the nature...