Talk:Axum

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Fake History?

This whole piece is so far from what is widely known in History. I suspect there are people from Eritrea who are trying to systematically rob somebody else's history. During the Aksumite Empire, there was nothing as Tigray Region or Eritrea. However, the records and the evidences show that the Empire was in what is today known as Ethiopia. Aksum is a town in Ethiopia, not Eritrea. Eritrea was a name given to a former province of Ethiopia By Italians Aksum was by no means an Eritrean civilization. A reader is advised to check some other more credible sources. To the writer: whatever your motive is, you are not doing a good service to the truth or to history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:700:700:6:BC4B:EC0D:9AE:5E34 (talk) 13:23, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? Eritrea is not even mentioned once in this article. Turtlewong (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Niexemetes

The page "Niexemetes" is a redirect to the "Axum" article, but the Axum article doesn't mention Niexemetes. The term doesn't appear in the Axum page history either. The redirect page appears to have been created out of nothing; the term is neither explained nor referenced anywhere. This kind of defeats the purpose of the redirect. Would it useful to include a section on "Niexemetes" in the Axum article?

Was it one of the very early Christian dioceses in Nubia ? BushelCandle (talk) 08:42, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Town vs city

This article seems to always have referred to the modern site as a town, and still did even when the lead was just changed to make it a city. UNESCO calls it a town although the article also discusses the ancient city. One of the main scholars to study Ethiopia, Stuart Munro-Hay, someone whose works we use as sources in various articles, calls it a town.[1] As to other sources, both tourist guides and scholarly, eg []https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iUIJSxxVaI0C&pg=PA44&dq=Aksum+town+tourist&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-_Kn7rNTgAhWBonEKHf_fCwkQ6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=Aksum%20town%20tourist&f=false this]. It's growing and may become a city again, but it has been a town for centuries. Doug Weller talk 12:26, 24 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Axum or Aksum?

Can we consider renaming the article as Aksum? The latter stays more close to Ethiopic script that does not know the letter "x". See also the official name of Aksum University. Rastakwere (talk) 12:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've just changed "Axum University" to "Aksum University" and made it an internal link. --BushelCandle (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support Aksum. Looking through Geʽez script, and the old and new (pre-Tigray-War) web pages of the university, Aksum is clearly favoured in latin script:

2011-08-11 old domain name
2011-10-10 old domain name
2020-07-20 www.aku.edu.et
2021-02-03 www.aku.edu.et (doesn't seem to have any post-2-November 2020 content, presumably due to the internet block; the server itself is apparently not at the university itself, since the university computers are probably all in Eritrea now)

The Tigrinya name that we currently have, ኣኽሱም, would seem to me to be Axsum, based on Geʽez script#Letters used in modern alphabets, but I don't see online evidence that Tigrayans (so far) wish to use this in latin script, and for the moment they obviously have other priorities, such as breaking the communication blockade and surviving and stopping the genocide and famine and SGBV.

So "Aksum" seems to be the current best option. Boud (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having visited Axum many times I disagree. You will encounter "Axum" far more often in writing in English used locally. See this article and photo for an example: https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2020/Nov/180811/ethiopia_accuses_tigray_forces_of_destroying_axum_airport.aspx BushelCandle (talk) 08:21, 4 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the English Wikipedia, we don't call the capital of Serbia, Beograd and we shouldn't be influenced by local language spellings. I do understand that in the Ge'ez alphabet (መጽሐፈ ፡ አክሱም) the words are usually transliterated to maṣḥafa aksūm, and in Amharic to meṣhafe aksūm, and in the local lingo of Tigrinya to meṣḥafe aksūm but that doesn't change the long accepted ENGLISH language spelling - especially when the locals almost exclusively write "Axum" when they are writing in Latin script. In fact the Latin transcription of the Book of Axum (Latin: Liber Axumae) should give you a clue! It has been called "Axum" in English (and Scots English) for more than 220 years!^[1]^[2]^[3] BushelCandle (talk) 06:43, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Even in US English it's been Axum for a very long time. See the 1893 Rand McNally Map of Abyssinia (click on the map image at that URL to enlarge the map and then further enlarge the image using the "+" button) BushelCandle (talk) 09:28, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Boys, all my Storiography reports only Aksum and never Axum; I think that the name Axum could be come later and we have to refer to Aksum in the past with "ks". I don't know where you have found the word Axumae (Axum or Axuma ?) but my Latin dictionary doesn't report them, I think could be a modern word. I'm for keeping the actual situation and for refer to the city in past as Aksum and in the present as Axum. X is a wrong trascription for the letter ks, because they are different phonemes. Did you know that latins and Greeks always changed the names!? Also my Greek dictionary doesn't report it neither as Axum or Aksum.BandiniRaffaele2 (talk) 00:25, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So, if I've understood you correctly, you concede that the modern spelling - in English, as opposed to ancient Greek or Latin or a transcription of one of the local languages of Ethiopia - is Axum and that this spelling should be used for the modern town/city, but that other spellings can be used in a historical context? --Bushel C andle 01:02, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. BandiniRaffaele2 (talk) 01:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Axum spelling has been used in American English for more than 200 years. You will need to considerably enlarge the map, but then you will see an early example of the Axum spelling on this 1843 map. --Bushel C andle 02:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC) [reply]

References

^ Tefera, Amsalu (1 Jan 2015). Traditions on Zion and Axum (The Ethiopian Homily on the Ark of the Covenant ed.). Brill. pp. 39–80. ISBN 9789004297180. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
^ Shahan, Thomas (1907). ""Axum."". New Advent. New York: Robert Appleton Company: The Catholic Encyclopedia. pp. Vol. 2. Retrieved 6 April 2021. Among the valuable Ethiopic manuscripts found in Abyssinia in modern times is the Book of Axum, or Abyssinian Chronicles, brought back by the traveller Bruce.
^ Bruce of Kinnaird, James (1804). "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 (1804 Edinburgh 2nd ed. text used here)". Oliver's Bookshelf. Retrieved 6 April 2021. Although the years laid down in the book of Axum do not precisely agree with our account, yet they are so near, that we cannot doubt that the revolt of the ten tribes, and destruction of Rehoboam's fleet, which followed, occasioned the removal of Menilek's capital to Tigre. † But, whatever was the cause, Menilek did remove his court from Azab to a place near Axum, at this day called Adega Daid, the House of David; and, at no great distance, is another, called Azabo, from his ancient metropolis, where there are old remains of buildings of stone and lime; a certain proof that Axum was then fallen, else he would have naturally gone thither immediately upon forsaking his mother's capital of Azab.

axum official language

The official language on the other page is written as Greek which is completely false and makes it seem as if Ge'ez was used much after. It maybe worth trying to change that. Rania212 (talk) 00:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Tefera, Amsalu (1 Jan 2015). Traditions on Zion and Axum (The Ethiopian Homily on the Ark of the Covenant ed.). Brill. pp. 39–80. ISBN 9789004297180. Retrieved 6 April 2021.

[2] Shahan, Thomas (1907). ""Axum."". New Advent. New York: Robert Appleton Company: The Catholic Encyclopedia. pp. Vol. 2. Retrieved 6 April 2021. Among the valuable Ethiopic manuscripts found in Abyssinia in modern times is the Book of Axum, or Abyssinian Chronicles, brought back by the traveller Bruce.

[3] Bruce of Kinnaird, James (1804). "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 (1804 Edinburgh 2nd ed. text used here)". Oliver's Bookshelf. Retrieved 6 April 2021. Although the years laid down in the book of Axum do not precisely agree with our account, yet they are so near, that we cannot doubt that the revolt of the ten tribes, and destruction of Rehoboam's fleet, which followed, occasioned the removal of Menilek's capital to Tigre. † But, whatever was the cause, Menilek did remove his court from Azab to a place near Axum, at this day called Adega Daid, the House of David; and, at no great distance, is another, called Azabo, from his ancient metropolis, where there are old remains of buildings of stone and lime; a certain proof that Axum was then fallen, else he would have naturally gone thither immediately upon forsaking his mother's capital of Azab.

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