Tigray is the cradle of East Africa with a history that goes back thousands of years. Tigray is a home to the kingdom of Axum, the then epicenter of power of the Red Sea and second only to the Roman and Persian empires, with which it had a very active trade of ivory and salt.
The first known kingdom to arise in Tigray, was “D`mat” about 800 BC, in which the Yeha Temple remains represent. The D’mat kingdom was later replaced by the infamous and more powerful the Aksumite kingdom, which lasted from at least 400 BC to the 900 AC. The Aksumite kingdom spans far beyond modern Eritrea and Tigray, with Axum being its political center and Adulis being its economic center for trading with Yemen, Persian and Roman empires. The Axumite kingdom left many historical monuments like majestic stelae, the ruins of many palaces whose archaeology still remains to be studied and the famous rock-hewn churches.
