A crossroads between the seas: the origins of early Christianity

‘Until the borders of Ethiopia, in the region called Barbaria’: it was with these words that Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant and theologian from Alexandria, in Egypt, introduced the Ethiopic area at the beginning of the 6th century AD. While much about ancient Ethiopia and Barbaria continues to offer fertile ground for scholarly debate, it is certain that this area of Africa was home to thriving cosmopolitan centres. Today, the ruins of one such centre, the ancient port city of Adulis, can be found bordered by the river Haddas in present-day Eritrea, 50km south of Massaua. Adulis lies within a flat desert landscape, speckled with basalt and schist, relics of the region’s volcanic ori