John Taylor, age 15, of Orlando, Fla., for his question:

WHERE WAS THE KINGDOM OF AKSUM?

The Kingdom of Aksum was an ancient kingdom that flourished in what is now northern Ethiopia between the first and sixth centuries A.D. It was founded probably by the gradual federation of earlier immigrants from southern Arabia and was centered at Aksum.

The kingdom had well established trade links with the Greco Roman world, as well as with India, and figured prominently in the commercial rivalry between the Roman and Persian empires. In the third and sixth centuries A.D., Aksum also dominated Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.

Aksum was Christianized in the early fourth century by St. Frumentius and the Bible was subsequently translated into Geez, the language of the kingdom. with the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the seventh century, however, contact with the rest of the Christian world was broken.

Aksum later became the kingdom of Ethiopia.