Adulis

Adulis was an ancient city along the Red Sea in the Gulf of Zula, about 40 kilometers south of Massawa [1]. Archeological excavations conducted at Adulis unearthed the existence of a late prehistoric settlement beneath the town, dating from the mid-2nd to early 1st millennium BCE [1]. Pliny the Elder is the earliest European writer to mention Adulis [1]. Adulis is also mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a guide of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean [1]. Adulis was one of the first Axumite sites to undergo excavation, when a French mission to Eritrea under Vignaud and Petit performed an initial survey in 1840, and prepared a map which marked the location of three structures they believed were temples [1]. The first scientific excavations at Adulis were undertaken in 1906, under the supervision of Richard Sundström [1]. Sundström worked in the northern sector of the site, exposing a large structure, which he dubbed the "palace of Adulis", as well as recovering some examples of Axumite coinage [1].