Zoskales ()Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, 5 /ref> () was a
King
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
of the
Kingdom of Aksum
The Kingdom of Aksum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan. Emerging ...
.
History
In the ''
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' (), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and Roman commerce, trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports lik ...
,'' Zoskales is described as the only ruler of the region between
Ptolemais Theron
Ptolemais Theron ( and Πτολεμαῒς ἡ τῶν θηρῶν) ('Ptolemais of the Hunts') was a marketplace on the African side of the Red Sea,Raoul McLaughlin, ''The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean'', p. 114, Barnsley, Pen & Sword Military, ...
on the Sudanese coast and the rest of Barbaria. He was described as a miserly person but otherwise upright and had a
Greek
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Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
education.
At least as early as Henry Salt, some scholars, including Sergew Hable Sellassie and Y. M. Kobishchanov, have identified him with Za Haqala, who is listed in the King Lists of the
Kingdom of Aksum
The Kingdom of Aksum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan. Emerging ...
as having ruled for 13 years, and who ruled between Za Zalis and Za Dembalé. The identification of Zoskales with Za Haqala is unlikely given the kings list post-dates the periplus by well over a thousand years.
G.W.B. Huntingford
George Wynn Brereton Huntingford (19 November 1901 – 19 February 1978) was an English linguist, anthropologist and historian. He lectured in East African languages and cultures at SOAS, University of London from 1950 until 1966.
points out, on the other hand, that there is not enough information to be certain of this identification. He argues instead that Zoskales was a petty king whose power was limited to only Adulis. It was initially assumed that Zoskales was not a king of Aksum because the periplus does not specifically refer to him as a king of Aksum, but instead mentions him in the context of the commerce of
Adulis
Adulis (Sabaic, Sabaean: 𐩱 𐩵 𐩡 𐩪, , ) was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about south of Massawa. Its ruins lie within the modern Eritrean list of cities in Eritrea, city of Zula. It was the emporium (antiquit ...
.
George Hatke
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concludes that a realm as vast as Zoskales would likely have been based in the more fertile highlands where Aksum was situated rather than in Adulis. This is because the coastal plain of Eritrea, which is around 40-60 km wide, is mostly unsuitable for agriculture to support a state as extensive as Zoskales realm. Zoskales likely maintained various residences across his realm and regularly stayed at each, a practice common among kings in history, such as medieval Ethiopian monarchs.