AKSUM (previously Axum), an ancient city in Tigre, Abys sinia, 14° 8' N., 38° 31' E., altitude 7,226ft., 12M. W. by S. of Aduwa. The old Abyssinian Book of Aksum contains the native legend of its foundation many thousands of years ago; the first authoritative mention of it, however, is in the Periplus Maris Erytjiraei (c. A.D. 67) where it is referred to as the seat of the Axumite Kingdom, the successor of the more ancient Punt and the forerunner of the modern Abyssinia. (See ETHIOPIA.) It contains the ancient church where, according to tradition, the Tobot or Ark of the Covenant, brought from Jerusalem by the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was deposited and is still supposed to rest. The church was burned when Axum was sacked by Mohammed Gran the Muslim invader of Abyssinia in about 1535 and a new one was erected by the Portuguese shortly afterwards. It is famous for the ancient inscriptions in Minaco Sabaean, a Giz script of the 4th and 5th centuries and for its wonderful stone obelisks, many of which are still standing. They form a consecutive series from rude unhewn stones to highly finished obelisks, of which the tallest still erect is 6of t. in height, with 8f t. Tin. extreme front width ; others that are fallen may have been taller. The highly finished monoliths are all represen tations of a many-storeyed castle, with an altar at the base of each. They appear to be connected with Semitic sun-worship and are assigned by Bent to the same period as the temple at Baalbek. BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Classical references, Pietschmann in Pauly's Realen cyklopadie (2nd ed.) ; History from inscriptions, see D. H. Muller, Appendix to J. T. Bent's Sacred City of the Ethiopians (1893), and E. Glaser, Die Abessinier in Arabien (Munich, 1895) ; Antiquities, Bruce's Travels (179o) ; Salt, in the Travels of Viscount Valentia, iii. 87-97 and 178-20o (1809) ; J. T. Bent loc. cit. and A. B. Wylde, Modern Abyssinia (19o1) .