Adulis

Adulis (Greek: Ἄδουλις, Adoulis) was one of the most important ports mentioned in the Periplus Maris Erythraei.

1. Where was Adulis?

Adulis was on the African side of the Red Sea, in what is now Eritrea, near the Gulf of Zula.

It was strategically situated because it connected:

Red Sea → African interior → Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean trade

The port became particularly important because goods from the interior could reach the Red Sea there and then move north toward Egypt or across the sea toward Arabia and India.

2. What does the Periplus say?

The author places Adulis south of Ptolemais Theron and describes it as a major commercial centre.

He says that goods brought to Adulis included products from the African interior, including:

ivory

rhinoceros horn

hippopotamus hide

tortoiseshell

various other products of the African hinterland.

The Periplus also mentions that elephants were hunted in the region.

This is important because the author is not simply describing a port. He is describing a collection point between the African interior and the maritime trading system.

3. Adulis and the "Barbaroi"

The Periplus distinguishes between the Greek/Roman commercial world and the various peoples living along the African coast. Adulis was a place where merchants interacted with these populations.

The Greek word Ἀδουλίτης (Adoulitēs) means an inhabitant/person of Adulis, while the surrounding peoples are sometimes described with Greek ethnographic terminology.

4. Adulis and Aksum

Adulis later became the principal Red Sea port of the Kingdom of Aksum.

That is particularly interesting historically. The port was not simply an Egyptian or Roman establishment. It became the maritime outlet of an indigenous African kingdom whose political centre was inland.

So we can visualize the system roughly as:

African interior → Adulis → Red Sea → Arabia / Egypt → wider Indian Ocean

And by the fourth century CE, Aksum and Adulis were major participants in the international trade connecting Africa, Arabia, the Mediterranean and India.

One caution concerning the Periplus: the Adulis of the first century CE should not automatically be equated with the later, much more powerful Aksumite Adulis. The port developed considerably over the centuries.