In her latest piece, a gripping radio drama about an increasingly despotic queen and her cunning twin sons, playwright Banna Desta has brought to life this often-overlooked ancient African civilization.
“As well as wanting the audience to be entertained – because the play is good fun – I wanted to add another dimension to people’s understanding of Africa,”
“I wanted to write about a time when the continent wasn’t afflicted by colonialism and there were thriving societies,” she explains.
The Aksumite Empire, often called the Kingdom of Aksum, is the setting for The Abyssinians, which takes place in the fifth century.
The kingdom of Aksum, which at its height included what is now northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, southern Saudi Arabia, and western Yemen, was rich and powerful.
