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Adulis is an archeological site in Eritrea, about 30 miles south of Massawa. Pliny the Elder is the earliest writer to mention Adulis (N.H. 6.34), who misunderstood the name of the place, and claimed that it had been founded by escaped Egyptian slaves. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a guide of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, written by a Greek merchant, describes Adulis as the port of Axum, and as an emporium for the ivory, hides, slaves and other exports of the interior. It may have previously been known as Berenice Panchrysus of the Ptolemies.
Cosmas Indicopleustes records two inscriptions he found here in the 6th century: the first records how Ptolemy Euergetes (247-222 BC) used war elephants captured in the region to gain victories in his wars aborad; the second, known as the Monumentum Adulitanum, was inscribed in the 27th year of an unnamed king of Axum, boasting of his victories to the north and south of Axum.
Control of Adulis allowed Axum to be the major power on the Red Sea. But a sign of the kingdom's decline was a destructive attack in the mid-7th century. The Arabs captured Adulis at some point in the following centuries, bringing Axum's naval ability to an end and contributing to Ethiopia's isolation from the Byzantine Empire and other traditional allies.
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