Alla Amidas

Alla Amidas (c. 540) was a king of the Kingdom of Aksum. He is primarily known from the coins minted during his reign.

Alla Amidas
King of Axum
Reignc. 540
PredecessorKaleb
SuccessorWazena

Based on die-links between the coins of Alla Amidas and Kaleb, Stuart Munro-Hay suggests that the two kings were co-rulers. Alla Amidas possibly ruled the Aksumite territories on the western side of the Red Sea, while Kaleb was campaigning in the east in Southern Arabia.[1]

Some Ethiopian chroniclers claimed that it was during the reign of Alla Amidas that the Nine Saints came to Ethiopia.[2]

Coinage

Only gold coins bearing the name of Alla Amidas are known. These comprise one type with crowned and draped right-facing profile with a crown between two stalks of wheat within a circle on the obverse, and a right-facing profile with a head-cloth on the reverse; the legend on the obverse is his name in Greek ("AΛΛΑΑΜΙΔΑΣ"), and legend on the reverse is his title "King".[3] A similar type where the name has been read in the past as "Allamiruis" ("ΑΛΛΑΜΙΡΥΙΣ") is now attributed to him.[4]

Because no silver or copper coins are known bearing his name, and no gold coins bearing the name of Armah are known, expert consensus has identified the two as the same king, "Alla Amidas" being his throne name while "Armah" was his personal name.[5]

Notes
  1. Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: University Press, 1991), pp. 156f.
  2. Budge, E. A. Wallis (1928). A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia. Vol. 1. London: Methuen & Co. p. 152.
  3. Munro-Hay, Stuart C. The Coinage of Aksum (Manohar, 1984), p. 129
  4. Munro-Hay, Coinage of Aksum, p. 130
  5. Hahn, Wolfgang; West, Vincent, Sylloge of Aksumite Coins in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2016), p. 14
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