Wazena (mid-6th century) was a King 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 ...

. He is primarily known through the

Aksumite currency Aksumite currency was coinage produced and used within the Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum) centered in present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. Its mintages were issued and circulated from the reign of King Endubis around AD 270 until it began its decline in ...

that was minted during his reign. Without any clear discussion,

Stuart Munro-Hay Stuart Christopher Munro-Hay (21 April 1947 – 14 October 2004) was a British archaeologist, numismatist and Ethiopianist. He studied the culture and history of ancient Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa region and South Arabia, particularly their his ...

identifies him with a king Alla Amidas, who is also known only through the coins he issued.

Coinage

Two types of coins bear his name, one in silver, the other in copper. The silver issue bears the crowned bust of the king with the inscription in Ge'ez "King Wazena" on the obverse, a cross with a gilded punch hole center under an arch with the inscription in Ge'ez "The king who exhales the Savior." The copper issue bears a draped profile wearing a head-cloth and holding a stalk of wheat, sometimes topped by a cross with the inscription in Ge'ez "May this please the peoples" on the obverse, while the reverse bears a large cross crossed by an oblique cross with a gilded punch hole center and the inscription "of Wazena, of the King." The legend on the obverse may be a translation from the familiar Greek phrase "May this please the country" used on many earlier issues, the previous instance by

Kaleb Kaleb (, Latin: Caleb), also known as Elesbaan (, ), was King of Aksum, which was situated in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea. Name Procopius calls him "Hellestheaeus," a variant of the Greek version of his regnal name, (''Histories'', 1.20 ...

on his rare bronzes. A king of Aksum issued three types of silver coins with crosses on the reverse inlaid with gold, who identified himself on two types only as "The king who exalts the Savior" (''Za-Ya `Abiyo La Madkhen Negus''); on the third type the name "Wazena" is added, suggesting these silver coins were also issued by Wazena. Munro-Hay notes the reverse "is quite new in the Aksumite numismatic repertoire, and foreshadows a design used frequently in manuscript design." Hahn and West note that this name "in conjunction with the luminous cross of the copper coins ... may have promoted the stories told in Ethiopia about a famous king called Gebre Maskal ("Servant of the cross").Hahn and West, ''Sylloge'', p. 14

Notes

External links

Page showing a coin minted under Wazena
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wazena -- diacritics removed to clarify sorting -- Kings of Axum 6th-century monarchs in Africa