The Aksumite kings, powerful rulers of a kingdom in northern Ethiopia from the 2nd to the 9th century AD, and Christian from the 4th century, issued little gold coins, with a very little bronze and terribly rare silver, from the third century onward; the initially Greek inscriptions were replaced ultimately by Amharic. Indigenous coinage lapsed in the 10th century, the country turning into addicted to imported currencies, of that the silver Maria Theresa thalers of Austria were conspicuous from the eighteenth century onward.

National coinage was resumed by King Menilek II, emperor of Ethiopia (1889-1913) with silver coins called talaris and their fractions and subsidiary copper, showing the Lion of Judah reverse-an allusion to the tradition that Menilek I had been the son of King Solomon and therefore the Queen of Sheba. Some gold came later, to be continued by Emperor Haile Selassie (1930-36), who coined conjointly in nickel and bronze till the Italian occupation and when his restoration in 1941. A national coinage continued once he was deposed in 1974.