It boasted its own language and script, and minted its own coinage. This likely was the ultimate basis of its supreme power, but it was underlined by control of an extensive network of inland commercial and/or political relationships with ancient Egypt, Nubia, and regions further south in Ethiopia. Its chronological parameters are variable and its greatest extent uncertain, but for several centuries the empire encompassed both sides of the southern Red Sea and so controlled all seaborne commerce between Rome/Byzantium and India/Indian Ocean. The Kingdom of Aksum, centered in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, flourished in the first six centuries ad, with earlier roots in the last seven or eight centuries bc.
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