Monumentum Adulitanum

The Monumentum Adulitanum is the name for two Greek inscriptions from Adulis, the major port city in the modern day Eritrea Kingdom of Aksum. The two Greek inscriptions are known, respectively, as Monumentum Adulitanum I and Monumentum Adulitanum II (or RIE 277). They are grouped together because both are known through their description by the 6th-century merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography, while neither has been independently physically discovered. Cosmas believed that both inscriptions were erected by the same king, namely, the Hellenistic ruler Ptolemy III (r. 246–222 BC). Modern historians agree that they two were written centuries apart: the first was written by Ptolemy, as Cosmas suspected, whereas the second was a royal Aksumite inscription commissioned by the king from the late second or third century AD. The second one, Monumentum Adulitanum II, is the more famous of the two, being the one that Cosmas said was inscribed onto a throne in Adulis, which also commemorates the military achievements of this Aksumite king (whose name is now lost) from places across the African continent to South Arabia.