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Cover:
etas from a two-sded
votve tabet of ng Tanydaman (Cat. 121),
Merotc Perod, about 100 B.C.
(Batmore 22.258).
rontspece:
ock crysta ba wth athor head (Cat. 93),
Napatan Perod, ate eghth century B.C.
(Boston 21.321).
Transators: ana . Peters, Chares M. tern.
dtors: yva ochfed, abeth efstah.
esgn: Graphcon, td.
Typesettng: oto- pectrum Inc.
Prnted n the U. .A. by the acon Press.
Pubshed n two voumes by the vson of Pubcatons and Marketng ervces,
The Brookyn Museum, astern Parkway, Brookyn, New York 11238.
1978 The Brookyn Museum,
a department of the Brookyn Insttute of Arts and cences.
A rghts reserved.
No part of ths pubcaton may be reproduced,
stored n a retreva system,
or transmtted n any form or by any means,
eectronc, mechanca, photocopyng, recordng, or otherwse,
wthout the pror permsson, n wrtng,
of The Brookyn Museum.
brary of Congress Cataogng n Pubcaton ata
Afrca n ant uty.
Cataog of the e hbton hed at the Brookyn Museum,
eptember 30- ecember 31, 1978 and other paces.
Incudes bbographes and nde .
1. Nuba Ant utes Addresses, essays, ectures.
2. udan Ant utes Addresses, essays, ectures.
3. gypt Ant utes Addresses, essays, ectures.
4. Art Nuba Addresses, essays, ectures. 5. Art-
udan Addresses, essays, ectures. 6. Art Nuba
Cataogs. 7. Art udan Cataogs. I. Brookyn
Insttute of Arts and cences. Museum.
T159.6.N83A34 709 32 78-10925
sbn 0-87273-065-4 ( oume I, paperback)
sbn 0-87273-063-8 ( oume I, cothbound)
sbn 0-87273-066-2 ( oume II, paperback)
sbn 0-87273-064-6 ( oume II, cothbound)
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A ICA
IN ANTI UITY
The Arts of Ancent Nuba and the udan
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A ICA
N ANTI UITY
The Arts of Ancent Nuba and the udan
The Brookyn Museum, New York, New York
eptember 30- ecember 31, 1978
eatte Art Museum, eatte, ashngton
ebruary 15-Apr 15, 1979
New reans Museum of Art, New reans, ousana
May 19-August 12, 1979
aags Gemeentemuseum, The ague, The Netherands
eptember 15-November 11, 1979
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Contents
1
4
enders to the hbton 8
oreword
Mchae Botwnck 9
Abbrevatons 13
Chapter Geography and Popuaton
of the Ne aey
am Y. Adams 16
Chapter Nuban, Negro, Back, Notc
Bruce G. Trgger 26
Chapter A story of Archaeoogca esearch
n Nuba and the udan
Ahmed M. A akem 36
Chapter Nuba before the New ngdom
avd Connor 46
Chapter gypt n Nuba durng the
d, Mdde, and New ngdoms
ean ecant 62
Chapter The ngdom of ush:
The Napatan Perod
ar- en Prese 74
The ngdom of ush:
The Merotc Perod
7 rt nt e 89
Chapter The Baana Cuture and the
Comng of Chrstanty
a Bruce G. Trgger 106
Chapter Medeva Nuba
am Y. Adams 120
Chapter Ceramcs
am Y. Adams 126
Maps 135
ub ect Bbography 139
Credts 143
The nde to oumes and IIbegns on page 354 of oume II.
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8 enders to the hbton
Natona Archaeoogca Museum
Athens
The aters Art Gaery
Batmore
taatche Museen u Bern,
Agyptsches Museum
Bern/
umbodt-U nverst t
Bern/
Boton Museum and Art Gaery
( ady ever Art Gaery)
Boton
Museum of ne Arts
Boston
The Brookyn Museum
Brookyn
Musees oyau d Art et d store
Brusses
Museum of gyptan Ant utes
Caro
t wam Museum
Cambrdge
The renta Insttute Museum,
The Unversty of Chcago
Chcago
hartoum Unversty, epartment of
Archaeoogy
hartoum
udan Natona Museum
hartoum
ar-Mar -Unverstat,
Agyptsches Museum
ep g
Merseysde County Museums
verpoo
The Unversty of verpoo,
choo of Archaeoogy and renta tudes
verpoo
The Brtsh Museum
ondon
UC A Museum of Cutura story
os Angees
taatche ammung Agyptscher unst
Munch
Chrstos G. Basts Coecton
New York
Mr. and Mrs. Car . eden
New York
Ashmoean Museum of Art and Archaeoogy
ford
The Unversty Museum,
Unversty of Pennsyvana
Phadepha
Mu eum Narodowe
arsaw
Natona Museum of Natura story,
mthsonan Insttuton
ashngton, .C
orcester Art Museum
orcester
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oreword
Mchae Botwnck
rector, The Brookyn Museum
ow many of us accept the rather commony hed
noton that the study of the cv atons of the past s a
dry and dusty dscpne e come to know the ancent
word through the reated dscpnes of art hstory,
archaeoogy, anthropoogy, hstory, and phoogy, and
these are, after a, dffcut, amost arcane feds.
e are separated from these sub ects by anguage,
cuture, and centures. It s no wonder, consderng the
obstaces, that we know very tte about the ancent
word. ccasonay, a snge personaty w spark
our magnaton and break through our ndfference. But
for most of us, the cv atons of ant uty are as
unfamar as the features of the far sde of the moon.
And ths s our oss.
Nowhere s ths more true than n Afrca. In
modern tmes, most peope have assumed that n Afrca
the ancent word was mted to gypt, and that
sub- aharan Afrca had no hstorc past before the
Portuguese contact n the s teenth century. But there s
a cuture, perhaps as od as hstorc tme tsef, set
geographcay between the pyramds of gypt and the
unges of centra Afrca. The crade of ths cuture
es at the very confuence of the Bue and hte Nes
Nether gyptan nor Afrcan, yet often both, ths
vgorous cuture estabshed tsef n a harsh and unyedng
envronment. Throughout recorded hstory t es at
the outer edge, frst of the ancent word, then at the
edge of the Cassca word, and then at the edge of the
Chrstan word. It had ts own prehstory, ts own
anguage, and ts own anthropoogca and artstc
deveopment. ven as t stands at the outer edge
of the known word, t s aso a crossroads. It s a contact
and transfer pont between Afrca and, each n ts
turn, Ancent gypt, Ancent Greece, Ancent ome,
Chrstanty, and Isam. n ths canvas that stretches
from the frst cataract of the Ne to the fooths of
thopa, ths cuture works out ts own destny
sometmes sub ugated and sometmes as con ueror of
the ands around t.
ow can we fa to be moved by the dramatc
course of ths cv aton It s ronc that t s barey a
pnprck on contemporary conscousness. e speak,
after a, not of a cv aton that had a bref fashng
moment. Nuba fourshes more than fve hundred years
before the budng of the great pyramds of gypt and
contnues on after Coumbus s voyages to the New
ord. Nuba s a fve-thousand-year hertage. If such a
cuture rose up today, t woud be the year 7400 before
t ran ts course. And we thnk of the twenty-frst
century as the dstant future. hat are we to thnk of the
seventy-fourth century
But Nuba shoud mean more to us than myth,
egend, and the fabed kngdoms of ush and Meroe.
There s a egacy of art and knowedge, of the growth of
a peope n the fve-thousand-year course of ths
cv aton. If we are to come to grps wth t, to know t n
the true sense, t w be the peope who organ ed
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10
.
the e hbton, Afrca n Ant uty: The Arts of Ancent
Nuba and the udan, and the two-voume pubcaton
whch accompanes the show who w n arge measure
ead the way.
Nuba as a ma or fed of study has evoved, to a great
e tent, ony wthn the ast twenty-fve years. The area
was known to the Greeks and omans, but t graduay
faded from estern conscousness durng the Mdde
Ages, when t spped from the edge of the Chrstan orbt
to become a part of the Isamc word. Not unt the 1820s
dd the frst modern uropean adventurers and e porers
enter the regon agan, and they were foowed by
others some seekng knowedge and some treasure n
the egendary cty of Meroe descrbed by the ancent
wrters. Two ngshmen, addngton and anbury,
pubshed an account of ther traves to thopa, as the
regon was then known to uropeans, n 1822, and four
years ater the renchman rederc Caaud brought out
an account of hs voyages up the Ne, compete wth
descrptons, pans, and drawngs that are st nvauabe
today. ater n the decade, Champoon-e- eune, the
man who had unocked the secret of gyptan
herogyphs, and the Itaan osen penetrated up the
Ne to a pont beyond the econd Cataract and made the
frst systematc survey of Nuban geography and
monuments. In the 1840s came the great German
archaeoogst C. . epsus, who traveed as far south as
the Isand of Meroe. s metcuous maps and drawngs
paved the way for a scentfc approach to the study of the
cutures of the udan. In the ast decades of the nneteenth
century, however, as the resut of potca turmo n the
regon, Nuba and the udan were cut off from the
manstream of archaeoogca nvestgaton. As ate as
1905, an ngsh ournast coud ca the udan a and of
whch ... we as yet know tte.
Much archaeoogca actvty n Nuba n the
twenteth century has been undertaken on an emergency
bass. In 1902, the gyptan government competed the
Aswan am and thus took the frst step athough
nobody rea ed t at the tme toward the utmate
destructon of the Nuban heartand. ach heghtenng of
the dam has been preceded by desperate efforts to record
the traces of ancent cutures before they were ost forever
beneath the rsng waters of the Ne. In 1907, when the
government decded to augment the dam for the frst tme,
the Amercan archaeoogst G. A. esner was asked by
the gyptan urvey epartment to conduct a survey of
the area to be nundated, and t was hs nvestgatons that
ed to the frst systematc cassfcaton of the cutures n
the regon. Before the Ne waters reached ther new eve,
n 1912, scentsts from many natons had worked n
Nuba, recordng and savng whatever they coud as the
waters sowy rose.
The rst ord ar caed a hat to scentfc
actvty n Nuba and the udan, and the unsetted
economc condtons that peace brought were not
encouragng to potenta patrons of archaeoogca
actvty n those days, most of the funds came from
prvate sources. The pubc was more nterested n the
spectacuar dscoveres beng made esewhere n gypt,
n Mesopotama, n Paestne and Anatoa. The mstaken
opnon perssted that the Nuban remans represented
ony a debased refecton of ancent gyptan cv aton.
Not unt the 1930s, when the gyptan government
agan heghtened the Aswan am, dd the archaeoogsts
return n numbers. The great dscoveres of ths decade
were made at two stes caed Baana and ustu, where
the ngsh nvestgators mery and rwan found the
remans of a cuture htherto unknown, and competey
une pected, n the monumenta tombs of kngs who had
been bured wth ob ects n precous meta that matched
n beauty and craftsmanshp anythng known from the
ancent word.
The ast great savage operaton s famar to a the
word ndeed, many of us know the name of Nuba today
ony through the wde pubcty gven the UN C -
sponsored savage venture that preceded the budng of
the Aswan gh am, whch fooded vast areas aong the
Ne. The campagn to save the monuments of ancent
Nuba was an nternatona enterprse, an e ercse n
cooperaton between twenty-fve countres from
Argentna to Yugosava. Its greatest achevement the
dsmantng of the rock tempe of amesses II at Abu
mbe and ts reconstructon hgh on a buff above the
waters of the Ne was a trumph of modern engneerng
n the servce of savng the past.
Today, most of Nuba s under water, but ts hstory
beongs to a of us. The ancent cutures of Nuba and the
northern udan w never agan be forgotten thanks to
the ntrepd nneteenth-century traveers who braved a
harsh, nhosptabe and, to the Ant utes ervce of
gypt, whch sent archaeoogsts to save what they coud
before the dam buders moved n, to the Ant utes
ervce of the emocratc epubc of the udan, whose
concern for the cutura hertage of the naton has been
responsbe and enghtened and to the peope who have
contrbuted to the deveopment of ths e hbton and ts
pubcaton. They are, n a rea sense, poneers n the
academc fed.
In the wake of the e hbton Akhenaten and
Nefertt, hed n Brookyn n 1973, Bernard . Bothmer,
Charman of the epartment of gyptan and Cassca
Art, The Brookyn Museum, n conversaton wth r.
teffen eng, at that tme Assocate Curator of the
Agyptsches Museum, taatche Museen u
Bern/ , deveoped the dea of a Nuban e hbton.
e owe Bernard Bothmer a tremendous debt of
grattude. It was he who perceved a of the eements to
create a fundamentay new perod of growth and
deveopment n Nuban studes. Those nta
conversatons wth teffen eng, an authorty on
Nuban and udanese archaeoogy, sparked the growth of
ths un ue and mportant pro ect. And t took root n
both Brookyn and Bern.
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In 1974, the Men oundaton, through Mrs. ean de
Men, awarded a grant whch proved to be the budng
bock of the entre pro ect. The grant aowed Mr.
Bothmer to vst and study a of the ma or coectons of
Nuban ant utes n the Unted tates, urope, gypt,
and the udan. Ths ntensve two-year reassessment of
the matera provded the data base from whch the entre
pro ect was created. Bernard Bothmer s energy, vson,
and commtment have taken ths pro ect through fve
dffcut years of research and preparaton. he many
have had a hand n ths pro ect, the dverse eements of the
e hbton, cataogue, and essays a have a sharpness of
focus, a sense of drecton that s due to hs overa
drecton of the pro ect. s wngness and abty to
devote months, even years, to workng wth r. eng on
the choce of ob ects for the cataogue, wth the authors of
the essays on the deveopment of ther work, and wth
coeagues around the word as ther deas and
contrbutons broadened and enrched ths pro ect s a
perfect e ampe of hs contrbuton to the fed of art
hstory and archaeoogy over the years.
urng ths phase of the work, addtona support
generousy gven by the Bankers Trust Company, Mrs.
ean de Men, ack A. osephson, Mathas omor, the
.A. . und, the obert ehman oundaton, the ate
Mme Pau Maon, the Maya Corporaton, Mrs. enry .
Moses, Mrs. Ashton anborn, Car . eden, Mss Ace
Tuy, and Mrs. a Acheson aace kept the compe
and far-fung actvtes of the pro ect gong. e are
gratefu to those peope who nsured the proper tme and
eve of preparaton for so massve an undertakng.
e must aso pont out here the frutfu coaboratve
efforts of our coeagues at the taatche Museen u
Bern/ . The contrbuton of r. tefen eng to
ths pro ect s mmense. s cataogue w surey be a
standard reference work n the fed for years to come. e
are gratefu for hs knowedge and hs dedcaton. s
nvovement goes beyond the cataogue, and hs deas and
contrbutons permeate the e hbton. Under the
eadershp of Prof. r. ofgang Muer, rector of the
Agyptsches Museum, taatche Museen u
Bern/ , our coeagues n Bern worked sde by sde
wth us on the deveopment of the e hbton. The
e hbton was organ ed wth the schoary partcpaton
of the taatche Museen u Bern/ . But a persona
word of thanks must be gven to r. berhard Bartke,
Genera rector of the taatche Museen u
Bern/ , a coeague and a frend. thout hs deep
commtment to the deas of the show, the dea of
schoary coaboraton, and hs decsve support n the
cruca fna stages of preparaton, ths e hbton woud
not have reached fruton.
To the contrbutng authors of the essays we gve our
thanks for entrustng ther deas and ther work to us. By
onng together they have greaty ncreased the
accessbty of much mportant work n the fed of
Nuban studes. e are ndeed gratefu to our coeagues,
the drectors and curators of a of the nsttutons n
urope and the Unted tates who have been so
supportve n sharng ther ob ects and aowng ther
ncuson n the e hbton.
The Arab epubc of gypt and the emocratc
epubc of the udan are the modern naton-states
whch encompass portons of the and of Nuba. ur
coeagues n Caro, r. hehada Adam, Presdent,
rgan aton of gyptan Ant utes r. ctor Grgs,
rector, rgan aton of gyptan Ant utes r. a
Abu Gha , rector Genera, Museums of the Arab
epubc of gypt and r. assan Ashery, rector,
The Caro Museum and n hartoum, r. Negm e n
M. herf, Commssoner for Archaeoogy and Natona
Museums, emocratc epubc of the udan r.
Ahmed M. A akem, ead, epartment of
Archaeoogy, Unversty of hartoum and r.
Mohamed A Akasha, Chef Curator, udan Natona
Museum, have been key eements n assurng that the
Nuban treasures of gypt and the udan shoud be part
of ths great pro ect and be shared wth the word. e note
wth speca thanks the efforts of r. Abde Monem -
awy, Mnster of Informaton and Cuture, Arab
epubc of gypt, and Mr. uad - rab, rst Under
ecretary, Mnstry of Cuture and Informaton, Arab
epubc of gypt, and The onorabe Bona Mawa,
Mnster of Cuture and Informaton, emocratc
epubc of the udan, and r. rancs eng, Mnster of
tate for oregn Affars, emocratc epubc of the
udan, who, n spte of the great burdens of responsbty
they bear, nsured the partcpaton of ther countres.
e record wth prde the patronage of the
Internatona Counc of Museums and our thanks to r.
endrck oetnk, Presdent of the hbton
Commttee, IC M, and Mr. us Monrea, ecretary
Genera, IC M, for ther hep and support. e hope a
w recogn e that, wthout the support of the Natona
ndowment for the Arts, the Natona ndowment for
the umantes, the New York tate Counc on the Arts,
and the edera Counc on the Arts and umantes, we
woud not have been abe to carry through ths pro ect.
ur thanks to ohn Buard, rector, The New
reans Museum of Art s oods, rector, and
enry Trubner, eputy rector, eatte Art Museum
r. Th. van esen, rector, and r. . . . senbeek,
former rector of the aags Gemeentemuseum, The
Netherands, for ther cooperaton n organ ng the tour
of the e hbton.
The preparaton of the e hbton, the cataogue, and
the ogstcs of t a has been a arge task, and many have
abored to see t through. e are gratefu to Chares B.
room, who desgned the e hbton branty. A speca
word of thanks to erome . awton, whose roe was to
e ecute the compe and demandng e hbton
nstaaton. But beyond ths, out of hs own consderabe
enthusasm, he assocated hmsef vountary wth the
entre pro ect and on countess occasons resoved
11
oreword
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12 seemngy nsurmountabe probems of organ aton
and ogstcs. Much was accompshed due soey to hs
efforts.
ver fve years, ths pro ect has nvoved amost
everyone on the Museum s staff. he we mght want to
st a two hundred and ffty staff members, t s possbe
to thank ony a few. At one pont or another, every
member of the epartment of gyptan and Cassca Art
was caed upon to hep, and we thank them a. Mare-
Therese Brncard, ducaton pecast, epartment of
Pubc Programs and Meda, has made a great
contrbuton n the deveopment of the ddactc materas
and the contemporary Nuban secton of the e hbton.
Idko effernan and Gerard e rancos under the
eadershp of avd at ve, Assstant rector for
ducaton and Program eveopment, have deveoped
one of the most comprehensve and rch communty
servces and pubc programs ever presented for an
e hbton. It w surey deepen the pubc e perence and
understandng. ur thanks to Beatrce Brasford, who
steadfasty hed together the preparaton of the ddactc
matera. ur thanks aso to Catherne Grmshaw, who
handed the consderabe correspondence and
communcatons. Perhaps the most dffcut ob was gven
to oyd attn, Coordnator of the hbton. s
knowedge, hs warmth, hs wngness, and the sureness
wth whch he has moved effectvey through every aspect
of ths pro ect have earned hm the admraton, respect,
and grattude of every one of us. As the demands of the
pro ect have grown, he has grown, and we have great
prde n what he has accompshed for a of us.
It s a great prvege for a of us at Brookyn to have
been assocated wth ths pro ect. It s, n many ways, an
attempt to brng together the fnest eements of the
museum word. If we have had any success, we w have
heped wth the redscovery of a great cv aton n the
popuar magnaton, on the one hand, whe brngng
together the stmuatng toos for decades of new
schoarshp n the fed, on the other hand. uch a pro ect
as ths can serve as a brdge frmy based n both the
academc word and the popuar word. The
coaboraton of so many peope, on so many eves, from
so many dscpnes, has gven greater meanng to a of
our work. e are a gratefu for the opportunty.
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Abbrevatons 13
Bar. Barka
Beg. N. Begrawya North
Beg. . Begrawya outh
Beg. . Begrawya est
Copenhagen NCG Ny Caresberg Gyptotek
Gen. Generaton
erma
u. urru
verpoo MCM Merseysde County Museums
verpoo A choo of Archaeoogy and renta tudes
N Nur
udan
Abbrevatons used by G.A. esner:
B.P. Back poshed ware
Bkt. Back-topped red poshed ware
Bk. . Back of oca orgn, brown on back surface
.P. ed poshed ware
rdnary red ware wth whte sp or wash
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14
g. 1. eef of Prnce Arkankharer smtng enemes (Cat.
125), Merotc Perod, begnnng of frst century a.d.
( orcester 1922.145).
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In ths chapter and those that foow, we sha be
speakng of some famar and some not-so-famar
paces: gypt, Nuba, the udan, and thopa.
Unfortunatey, each of these names can be used wth more
than one meanng ke many names they have meant
dfferent thngs at dfferent tmes n hstory. To further
confuse matters, the terrtores whch they descrbe are to
some e tent overappng. et us begn, therefore, by
attemptng to defne the areas that w be deat wth n ths
work and n ths e hbton.
gypt s both a potca and an ethnc and cutura
unt, though the two do not precsey concde. thncay
and cuturay, gypt means for a practca purposes
the vaey of the ver Ne from ts mouth to the rst
Cataract, about 600 mes upstream, near the modern
town of Aswan. It was wthn ths regon that the ancent
cv aton of gypt arose, more than 5,000 years ago,
and unt modern tmes the ower Ne aey has aways
been occuped by the same gyptan peope. Potcay,
however, gypt has aso usuay ncuded some
neghborng terrtores occuped by other, non- gyptan
peopes. Today these terrtores ncude the ed ea s
and coast to the east of the Ne, a part of the byan
esert to the west of the Ne, and, most mportanty
for us, that part of Nuba whch es between the rst
and econd Cataracts of the rver ( g. 2).
Nuba s not a separate potca entty n the modern
word, athough t has often been so n the past. Today
ths name s apped, as an ethnc and cutura
desgnaton, to that part of the Ne aey whch s
occuped by speakers of the Nuban anguages, about
whom we sha have more to say presenty. These peopes
are the mmedate southern neghbors of the gyptans,
and ther terrtory (before ts foodng by the Aswan
ams) e tended up the Ne from Aswan to a pont near
the vage of d- ebba, at the bottom of the great
bend of the rver ( g. 3). Today, about one-thrd of
modern Nuba (that part between the rst and econd
Cataracts tradtonay caed ower Nuba) es wthn
the Arab epubc of gypt, whe the remanng
two-thrds (tradtonay caed Upper Nuba) s part
of the emocratc epubc of the udan.
In earer tmes, Nuban-speakng peopes occuped
a much arger area than they do today as ate as the
s teenth century they were found at east as far upstream
as the uncton of the Bue and hte Nes at modern
hartoum. Thus, the name Nuba when used n medeva
te ts may refer to the whoe of the Ne aey between
the modern ocates of hartoum and Aswan.
udan s the short form of Bades- udan, meanng
and of the Backs n Arabc. In ts broadest sense,
the name has been apped by both Arabs and uropeans
to the whoe sub- aharan frnge e tendng across Afrca
from the Nger basn to the ed ea coast. Among
the modern natons of post-coona Afrca, however,
ony the regon yng mmedatey to the south of gypt
has taken udan as ts offca name. Ths regon, known
before 1956 as the Ango- gyptan udan, has
become, snce ndependence, the emocratc epubc of
the udan. Ths s the ony udan wth whch we are
concerned n ths e hbton.
The epubc of the udan ncudes not ony the
southery porton of Nuba (Upper Nuba), but many
ad onng areas to the east, west, and south. ast of the
Ne are the hgher reaches of the ed ea s and a
porton of the ed ea coast to the west are the vast
steppeand provnces of ordofan and arfur. Upstream
from hartoum are the e tensve swampands of the
udd and, beyond them, the e uatora ran forests of the
upper hte Ne.
thopa s the name taken n modern tmes by a very
ancent kngdom, formery known as Abyssna, whch
occupes the remote hghands to the east of the udan.
Athough ths kngdom was aready n e stence n
Cassca tmes, t s mportant to note that the Aethopa
of Greek and oman authors (for e ampe, erodotus,
trabo, and Pny) s not the thopa of today. The
name n Greek means and of Burnt aces, and
t was more or ess ndscrmnatey apped to a parts
of Afrca occuped by dark-sknned peopes. nce
the part of nner Afrca whch was best known to the ,
ancents was Nuba, however, the name Aethopa
appearng n an ancent te t usuay refers to the Nuba
of today. erodotus, for e ampe, descrbes the ancent
ushte capta of Meroe as the cty of the thopans.
As recenty as 1835,the ngsh traveerG. A. oskns
pubshed an account of hs ourney through the udan
(whch dd not carry hm far beyond the ste of modern
hartoum) under the tte Traves n thopa.
AN CAP GYPT AN T U AN
The andscape of gypt s famar, at east n
magnaton, to neary everyone: the broad, suggsh
Ne, frnged on ether sde wth pam and acaca groves
the ncredby green feds crsscrossed by countess
rrgaton canas and, never far away, the mestone buffs
that mark the margns of the desert and of the gyptans
word. The andscape of Nuba s n many ways smar,
partcuary n regard to the centra mportance of the
rver. Both countres are, n the words of erodotus,
the gft of the Ne, wthout whose waters and
annuay repenshed foodpan no human fe or
endeavor woud be possbe n ths most barren
of a deserts.
The andscape of Nuba s nevertheess a harsher
and ess attractve one than that of gypt. Arabe and,
nstead of formng a contnuous ferte bet aong
both sdes of the rver, occurs n Nuba ony n t
dsconnected patches and pockets esewhere, the desert
sands or the stumps of ancent, worn-down grante
mountans e tend drecty to the water s edge. The smooth
fow of the Ne s tsef nterrupted by cataracts whch
mpede and at tmes atogether precude navgaton
( g. 4). These condtons have had much to do wth
17
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1000 km
g. 2. Potca and geographc regons of the Ne basn.
the preservaton of Nuban cutura ndependence over
the centures, for they rendered the regon unattractve
to foregn coon aton, athough the gyptans often
anne ed parts of Nuba for the sake of ts trbute of
god, vory, and saves.
The gyptan and Nuban envronments share
ther tota dependence on the Ne for a the necesstes
of fe. Not unt one comes neary to the southern
mt of Nuba s there any possbty for human
vehood away from the rver s banks. ma amounts
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was wont to ook upon the Nubans as reatve newcomers
to the Ne aey, and to attrbute the remans of
the oder udanese cv atons (A-group, C-group,
Merotc, etc.) to other, pre-Nuban peopes. In fact,
t was popuar at one tme to attrbute each new
cutura hor on to the comng of a new peope.
Modern archaeoogsts, takng account of the obvous
cutura contnutes from one perod to the ne t, are
much more ready to consder the possbty that the
ancent nhabtants of the northern udan may have been
Nubans n the ngustc sense from the begnnng.
Certany they were Nubans n the cutura sense, for
21
g. 6. Present popuatons of the Ne basn.
1000 km
Chapter 1 Geography and Popuaton
of the Ne aey
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22 wthn the narrow corrdor of the mdde Ne they
deveoped a dstnctve cutura adaptaton whch has
evoved wthout sgnfcant nterrupton down to modern
tmes. The modern Nubans are, then, the cutura f
not specfcay the ngustc hers of the earest setters
of whom we have archaeoogca evdence.
The Nubans are un ue among a the peopes of
nner Afrca n that ther pace n hstory s amost as od
as hstory tsef. Unke ther neghbors, they were not
entrey soated from the outsde word by mountans,
desert, or ocean on the contrary, ther ancestra
homeand aong the mdde Ne was n ancent tmes the
one feasbe route of communcaton between the
Medterranean basn and the nteror of the Afrcan
contnent. Conse uenty, they were brought nto contact
wth the word s earest cv atons at a far earer date
than were most uropean peopes. Centures and even
menna ago, they made the crtca transformatons
from trbesmen to peasant farmers and from pagans to
Chrstans (and attery to Musms), whch have sooner
or ater been the e perence of most peopes n the
estern word. Not ony dd they deveop, n tme, a
cv aton n ther own rght, but they were the man
channe through whch cv ng nfuences were
transmtted to other Afrcan peopes and Afrcan
nfuences reached the Medterranean ands. Through a
the ebb and fow of cutura nfuences, however, the
Nubans have somehow managed to mantan a dstnct
ethnc and cutura dentty.
Today, the re urements of modern technoogy
threaten what centures of foregn nvason and cutura
transformaton coud never acheve n the past: the ethnc
e tncton of the Nubans. The budng of dams at
Aswan, frst n the 1890s and more recenty n the 1960s,
has drowned and made unnhabtabe more than haf of
ther ancestra homeand. Amost haf of the survvng
I Nuban popuaton (estmated today at 200,000) have had
to fnd new homes outsde Nuba, at om mbo n
gypt and at hashm e Grban the remote eastern
udan. In both paces, the Nubans are n cose
contact wth, and n a sense are surrounded by, other
peopes of non-Nuban e tracton. In these unfamar
and threatenng surroundngs, they have done what
they coud to preserve ther ethnc separateness, but the
barrer of soaton whch has been ther chef protecton
over the centures s gone. Presumaby they w
graduay met nto the detrba ed peasant popuatons
of gypt and the udan, eavng ther untranspanted
knsmen n the uppermost part of od Nuba as the
ast true Nubans.
ome consoaton may be found n the fact
that the e tncton of the Nubans s threatened ony n a
narrowy ethnc and ngustc sense. More broady
speakng, a of the peopes of the modern udan are
ther cutura and hstorca hers, for the udanese
epubc of today rests frmy upon the foundatons of
those oder Nuban states and empres whch hed
sway over the mdde Ne and ts hnterand for the best
part of 3,000 years. And f the Nubans are now a
dwndng mnorty wthn the regon whch they so ong
domnated, t s n part due to ther own efforts n
e tendng ther cutura and potca hegemony over
the many neghborng peopes wth whom they now share
udanese ct enshp.
The rverne Arabs are farmng peopes who
occupy that part of the Ne aey whch es upstream
from the Nuban fronter at d- ebba, and e tendng to
a pont we beyond hartoum. The rverne Arabs
dffer from the Nubans n no mportant respect save that
they speak Arabc nstead of Nuban. Athough they do
not acknowedge a Nuban ancestry, but trace ther
descent from nomadc trbes of the Araban pennsua, we
know that n fact these peopes were speakers of Nuban
daects as recenty as 500 years ago. Ther ngustc
converson (very probaby not the frst n Nuban hstory)
s attrbutabe to the fact that ther terrtory, whch es
wthn the udanese ranfa bet, was overrun by
mgratng Arab nomads at the end of the Mdde Ages.
hen these newcomers set themseves up as potca
overords aong the mdde Ne, ther anguage graduay
suppanted the natve speech. The more northery
Nubans, who were protected from nomadc ncurson by
the raness deserts on ether sde of them, dd not have
the same cose e perence of the nvaders, and as a resut
were abe to mantan ther ethnc and ngustc
separateness. e sha, however, use the term Nuban
to refer to the ancestors both of the present-day
Nubans and of the rverne Arabs, whose neage
contans very tte genuney Arab bood.
Be a trbes are nomadc pastorasts who occupy the
hgher eevatons of the ed ea s, athough some
groups come down seasonay to the banks of the Ne
( g. 7). They speak anguages of the Cushtc famy,
whch s dstanty reated both to Arabc and to ancent
gyptan. Prmary herders of sheep and goats, the Be a
for the most part wander about n sma bands ute
unke the great trba mgratons of Arab nomads. In the
past, however, some Be a groups have commanded
suffcent mtary force to represent a serous menace to
the rverne farmers. The Be a frst appear n hstory,
under the name Med ay, as far back as the gyptan
s d ngdom (ca. 2400 B.C.), and n the Mdde ngdom
(ca. 2000 B.C.) a great fortress caed epressng the
Med ay was but n Nuba by gyptan overords. Under
t the name Bemmye, the Be a are mentoned n a
number of ate Cassca and medeva te ts, usuay as the
perpetrators of rads upon Aswan and the farmng
settements of ower Nuba. In the ate Mdde Ages they
controed, and at tmes dsrupted, the caravan trade
between the Ne aey and the ed ea, and as recenty
I as 1883-85 the adendowa trbe of Be a was a potent
force n the uprsng of the udanese Mahd. Ther
warke prowess was ceebrated by png n hs poem
u y- u y.
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cuture st preserves many features of the ancent
A-group and C-group cutures of Nuba (see Chapter 4),
before the nfuence of gyptan cv aton became
predomnant n the north.
gyptans, the northern neghbors of the Nubans,
have been a contnung presence n Nuba tsef amost
snce the dawn of hstory. Mtary e pedtons nto Nuba
are recorded as far back as the gyptan ynasty I
(ca. 3000 B.C.) by ynasty I (ca. 2500 B.C.) there s
evdence of an gyptan mnng coony at Buhen, near the
econd Cataract. arge gyptan garrsons were
estabshed n the Mdde ngdom (ca. 2000-1800 B.C.) to
guard the passage of the Ne through the cataract regon,
and the outrght coona anne aton of the New
ngdom (ca. 1470-1080 B.C) brought a host of gyptan
cv and regous offcas nto the southern country.
ven after the wthdrawa of Pharaonc authorty,
gyptan artsans and overseers remaned behnd n the
servce of the Nuban kngs ther nfuence can st be
detected today, many centures after the coapse of
ancent gyptan power.
The Chrstan aton of Nuba durng the Mdde
Ages brought n gyptan cergy and monks, and
gyptan merchants were then aso aowed to py ther
trades n ower Nuba. nay, the coona anne aton
of the udan by the Brtsh n the nneteenth century
ed to a fresh wave of gyptan mgraton. nce the
country s ndependence, the foregn cv and mtary
offcas have gone, but even today gyptan merchants
st pay a eadng roe n the commerce of the udan.
The gyptans are mportant to our story not ony
because of ther nfuence upon the cutura and potca
hstory of the udan, but because some of the
outstandng archaeoogca remans of ancent Nuba,
such as the econd Cataract fortresses and the
great rock tempes of Abu mbe, are attrbutabe
drecty to them.
Greeks and other entrepreneurs are a fna group
whose presence n the udan s noteworthy. The gyptan
recoon aton of 1821-22 brought n a host of Greek,
Armenan, yran, ebanese, and other merchant
venturers, whose descendants st domnate certan
trades n the udan today. They are not by any means a
new eement on the scene. As far back as the ate
Merotc Perod (ca. a.d. 200-400), there s very cear-cut
evdence of Greek actvty and Greek nfuence n
ower Nuba and even as far upstream as Meroe. The
Nuban Chrstan church aso shows sgns of Greek
nfuence, and even used Greek for severa centures as
ts turgca anguage. nce the prosperty of Nuba
has aways depended to a very arge e tent on ts foregn
e ports, t shoud occason no surprse that the merchant
peopes of the eastern Medterranean have ong had a
hand n that commerce.
25
Chapter 1 Geography and Popuaton
of the Ne aey
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IN owhere has the confuson of cuturay ac ured
characterstcs wth boogcay nherted ones produced
more b arre and dangerous myths than n respect to
northeastern Afrca. In the nneteenth century, schoars,
who acked reabe hstorca nformaton for many parts
of the word, sought to ut e contemporary varatons n
physca type as a means of reconstructng mportant
aspects of human hstory. They assumed that as a genera
rue the more smar two groups of peope were
physcay, the more cosey reated they were hstorcay
and cuturay. ary human hstory was seen as a process
of dspersa and dfferentaton whch occurred at the
same tme and aong smar nes n terms of race,
anguage, and cuture.
These eary raca studes emboded contemporary
natonastc and raca pre udces. In Afrca, as
esewhere, they aso became a metaphysca ustfcaton
for uropean coon aton. he the scentfc bass
for these studes has ong been dscredted (e.g., Cons
1968), specfc deas and much of the termnoogy survve
and contnue to nfuence nterpretatons of Afrcan
prehstory. As a resut, any dscusson of the physca
characterstcs of the peope of Nuba must begn by
revewng essentas.
The tradtona approach to the study of race
postuated that at an eary perod manknd conssted of a
number of pure races. ach of these races was
beeved to have deveoped n geographca soaton
from the rest, thereby ac urng and preservng ts own
dstnctve and reatvey homogeneous physca
characterstcs. ach race aso evoved one or more
dstnctve anguage fames and ts own dstnctve
cutura patterns. It was never agreed how many
pure races had e sted, where they had orgnated,
or what precsey each was ke. Most physca
anthropoogsts devoted speca attenton to three races
that were varousy abeed hte or Caucasod,
Back or Negrod, and Yeow or Mongood. ach was
consdered to have occuped one of the three
contnents of the d ord. The concept of pure races
assumed that n the course of tme such races had
e panded and ntermnged to produce the physcay
transtona or ntermedate popuatons that are so
conspcuous n the modern word. It was aso beeved
that vad procedures coud be devsed that woud aow
the characterstcs of these orgna races to be
ascertaned. Ths woud permt the unatered descendants
of these races to be dfferentated from popuatons
resutng from raca m ture, even when the genetc
consttuents of the atter had been randomy m ed for a
ong tme. As op (1962,461) has observed, the Patonc
dea of pure races became so compeng that t resuted n
a rea peopes (e cept perhaps those of one s own
natonaty) beng vewed as beongng to fase races.
Today, most physca anthropoogsts do not beeve
that pure races ever e sted or that human popuatons
generay deveoped n soaton over ong perods.
Physca trats tend to vary n fre uency from one regon
to another. Yet, whe one characterstc may ncrease
n fre uency from north to south, another w do so
from west to east, or from the center to the perphery
of ts range. Ths happens because natura seecton
operates upon specfc genes, and ndvdua
characterstcs are seected for or aganst at dfferent
rates and for dfferent reasons n accordance wth a wde
range of envronmenta varatons. The adaptve
sgnfcance of ndvdua characterstcs must be
understood before the hstory of these characterstcs
can be reconstructed. It s therefore meanngess to
choose a partcuar regon wthn a range of contnuous
varaton and to abe ts nhabtants a race. It s aso
wrong to assume that a gradent between two e tremes
of physca dfference s nevtaby the resut of
raca m ture. In some cases t may be, but the gradent
may aso consst of ntermedate types that never were
more sharpy dfferentated. Nor, n the absence of
hstorca nformaton or of an e tremey detaed
physca anthropoogca record, can t be determned
reaby whch of these aternatves dd occur. Today s
concepts of physca varaton are so dfferent from the
tradtona deas about race that t s probaby mseadng
to use the term race n connecton wth modern studes
( vngstone 1962 Buettner- anusch 1973,479-500).
T NI A Y C NTINUUM
The Ne aey s the ony regon of Afrca where
human settement stretches wthout a break across the
ahara from the southern shores of the Medterranean to
the center of the contnent. Physca types vary n a gente
gradent from one end to the other of ths range, the
changes beng mperceptbe from vage to vage but
evdent at onger ntervas. actors that nfuence change
ncude ncreasng heat and humdty n the south and
perhaps soco-economc condtons, such as ower
popuaton denstes and an ncreasng reance on
pastorasm. n an average, between the eta n
northern gypt and the udd of the Upper Ne, skn
coor tends to darken from ght brown to what appears to
the eye as bush back, har changes from wavy-straght
to cury or knky, noses become fatter and broader,
ps become thcker and more everted, teeth enarge n s e
from sma to medum, heght and nearty of body bud
ncrease to cumnate n the e tremey ta and thn
Notc popuatons of the south, and bodes become
ess hrsute (Brace 1964). A of these peope are
Afrcans. To proceed further and dvde them nto
Caucasod and Negrod stocks s to perform an
act that s arbtrary and whoy devod of hstorca or
boogca sgnfcance.
In the Ne aey contnuum, the modern Nubans
occupy an ntermedate poston. Ther skn coor s
medum brown, wth consderabe ndvdua varaton.
ar s fr y or knky, everted ps are common but not
unversa, and some peope have sharp a une features.
27
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28 Ther stature s medum, athough perhaps a few
centmeters taer than the gyptan average. Most
Nubans are sender, athough stout ndvduas are by
no means unknown. In Caro, Nubans appear as
southerners, whe n hartoum, wth ts nhabtants
drawn from a parts of the udan, they are not
dstngushabe from the rest of the northern udanese
popuaton (Adams 1977, chap. 2).
INT P TATI N NUBIAN ACIA I T Y
Those who thnk n terms of pure races have
nterpreted the Nubans as a m ed race that was
produced by contact and nterbreedng between
Caucasod and Negrod popuatons. As eary as
1880, C. . epsus suggested that a the popuatons of
Afrca coud be e paned n terms of a Negrod stock n
the south and a amtc ( Caucasod ) stock n the
north, wth a one of nterm ture between them
(MacGaffey 1966,3). It was debated fercey whether the
orgna popuaton of the udan had been Negrod,
wth the Caucasod nfu comng ater (Murdock 1959,
161), or Caucasod, wth Negrod types overrunnng
the regon more recenty (Coon 1963,649-51). thers
tended to vew the settement of the udan n terms of the
more or ess smutaneous arrva of Backs and
htes from opposte sdes of the ahara. t others
assgned the Nubans to a Brown race, that
nevertheess was generay conceptua ed as ntermedate
between the Caucasod and Negrod types.
A thrd category of ths sort compcates rather than
smpfes deang wth a contnuum of varaton.
The Brown race s an -defned and mutabe concept
that at varous tmes has embraced such dverse
popuatons as the crcum-Medterraneans, ravdans,
and other peopes aong the Indan cean, and
the atus of centra Afrca (MacGaffey 1966, 3-4).
ary raca studes of northeastern Afrca were
further marred by a confuson of race, anguage, and
cuture and by an accompanyng racsm. The most
popuar of these pseudo-scentfc specuatons was the
so-caed amtc hypothess, whch attempted to
estabsh a prehstorc prototype for the hte
coon aton of Afrca n the nneteenth century. The
prehstorc coonsts were dentfed as amtes,
putatvey resembng popuatons that may st be found
n and around thopa. The orgna amtes were
pctured as beng ta, ght-sknned pastorasts who were
better armed as we as ucker-wtted than the dark
agrcutura Negroes who ved to the south and west of
them ( egman n Cons 1968,126). These uates
aegedy permtted the amtes to push south and to
repace or estabsh themseves as a rung cass amongst
the ndgenous Backs. A centra ed governments
and cutura advances n sub- aharan Afrca were
attrbuted to these amtc con uerors. here such
cutura trats were present and amtc anguages were
not spoken, spurous attempts were made to demonstrate
amtc nfuences. It was sometmes argued
that amtc overords had adopted the anguages of
the con uered Bantu and that ther own speech had
dsappeared wthout a trace. ome arbtrary nterpreted
the mere presence of catte among any group n
sub- aharan Afrca as evdence of amtc nfuence
(Murdock 1959,13). The dea that pastorasts, rather
than agrcuturasts, were creators and dssemnators
of a hgh cuture was a curous one, whch had been
faty dened as a cutura hstorca prncpe esewhere. It
s not surprsng that a growng weath of archaeoogca,
ngustc, and ethnographc data has shown the
amtc hypothess to be based on a umbe of erroneous
and mutuay contradctory evdence (MacGaffey 1966
Greenberg n Cons 1968,124-32).
The specfc nterpretatons of Nuban cutura
hstory that resuted from the frst Archaeoogca urvey
of Nuba (1907-11) portrayed the regon as a ong-term
fronter between the Caucasod and Negrod races.
The Caucasods were assumed to be boogcay
superor to the Negrods, but ther success was regarded
as ess nevtabe than n other versons of the amtc
hypothess. Nuban hstory was seen as composed of
successve waves of cutura deveopment resutng from
an ncrement n the hte component of the popuaton,
whe Negrod mgratons nto Nuba accounted for
the ntervenng ark Ages (van Gerven et a. 1973,555).
As the anatomst G. ot mth, who worked wth
the frst Archaeoogca urvey of Nuba, put t, the
smaest nfuson of Negro bood mmedatey manfests
tsef n a dung of ntatve and a d rag on the
further deveopment of the arts of cv aton (Arch.
urvey of Nuba, Bu. 3,1909,25, n Adams 1977,
chap. 3). These nterpretatons of Nuban hstory had
the fudty characterstc of most racst thnkng.
The ruers of ush generay were portrayed as
Caucasod ( amtc ) when ush was beng descrbed
as a source of cv ng nfuences for the rest of
sub- aharan Afrca, but these same ruers were
character ed as Backs when the regon s achevements
were consdered n reaton to those of ancent gypt.
anda-Macver and ooey (1909,2) had the kngs of
ynasty n mnd when they wrote: But soon
the unfang dynamcs of race reasserted ther force. If a
short-ved and unstabe back empre has occasonay
e tended ts mts to wthn vew of the Medterranean,
t has utmatey been repeed a aong the ne.
ot mth and others sought confrmaton for
these racst theores by demonstratng a postve
correaton between changes n cuture and n the human
skeeta types recovered from the ancent cemeteres of
ower Nuba. Yet they studed ony a sma number
of characterstcs and consstenty sought physca
dfferences between the peopes of varous regons or tme
perods, whe gnorng the smartes. Nor dd they
en ure whether or not the raca categores that they used
as type concepts had any ob ectve vadty. Ther
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methods were so crude that, as Adams ponts out( 1977,
chap. 3), they permtted confrmaton of any hstorca
theory a physca anthropoogst mght wsh to champon.
AN A T NATI INT P TATI N
he hypotheses of raca m ture n northeastern
Afrca contnue to ntrgue some physca anthropoogsts
(e.g., trouha 1971), a growng number now pont out
the nade uaces of ths approach (Greene 1972 van
Gerven et a. 1973). These atter may not whoy re ect
usng skeeta data to trace the human boogca hstory
of a regon, but they argue that to do ths re ures far
more systematc and detaed nformaton about physca
remans than was prevousy used. Comparatve data are
re ured from many ocatons and over a broad
contguous area before the hstorca sgnfcance of
regona varaton can be ade uatey assessed.
urthermore, ony evdence from the same tme perod
must be compared. It s potentay mseadng to base
concusons about physca reatonshps upon
comparsons between ancent popuatons n one area and
modern ones n another, as was often done n the
past. uch a procedure may confuse smartes and
dfferences resutng from hstorca reatonshps
wth ones resutng from the operaton of natura
seecton. It s, for e ampe, far from certan that the
assembage of Negrod trats, whch were aegedy
present n the Badaran cuture of Upper gypt but
dsappeared n the course of the ater Predynastc
se uence, s n fact evdence of a sub- aharan component
n the popuaton of ancent gypt (van Gerven et a.
1973,557). Interbreedng woud dstrbute genes
randomy through a popuaton rather than conservng
them n recogn abe custers. It s aso far from certan
that the trats n ueston, such as prognathsm, whch
may have to do wth the heavy deveopment of the musces
used for mastcaton, are dagnostc of a specfc
raca type. They may have been trats that were seected
aganst, as ncreasng reance on agrcuture atered
the det and therefore the drecton of natura seecton
operatng on the popuaton of Predynastc gypt. v
Nowhere n northeastern Afrca have suffcent
studes been carred out to permt a detaed
reconstructon of the physca hstory of the regon. The
ree amnaton of avaabe data by Batraw( 1945-46),
Mukher ee, and others (1955,85) reveas no evdence of
sgnfcant dscontnutes n physca type n the hstory
of ower Nuba. Instead, ther studes suggest that a
popuaton wth a tte-varyng and remarkaby stabe ,
genetc composton has nhabted ower Nuba from at
east 3000 B.C. to the present. The popuaton of the
erma cuture n Upper Nuba was aso of ths type as, on
the bass of mted skeeta evdence from urru, the
Napatan popuaton appears to have been. he the
greater nterna varaton from Merotc tmes onward
may resut from more wdey rangng contacts, the
varaton remans consderaby ess than s attested for
Brtsh skeetons of the Chrstan ra (Batraw 1945-46,
91). In spte of the hstorcay attested settement n
Nuba of ancent gyptans, Copts, Arab bedoun, and
Bosnan mercenares from the north and of saves
and possbe mgrant groups from the south, Nuba has
retaned a physca type that s characterstc of the mdde
Ne and can most smpy be abeed northern udanese.
It coud aternatvey be caed Nuban, provded that
the atter term s construed n a geographca, rather than
n a narrowy ngustc and ethnc, sense (Trgger 1965,
17). It s the mpresson of archaeoogsts famar wth
naturay mummfed bodes that n ancent tmes the
physca type of Nuba was much the same as t s today n
the northern udan ( hnne 1967,154-55).
Physca anthropoogca evdence s e tremey
fragmentary for the perod pror to 3000 B.C. It therefore
does not consttute a sampe upon whch frm concusons
may be based. mted skeeta matera from the ary
hartoum cuture has been compared wth fnds from
est Afrca (Chama 1968). It may be typca of a
hghy successfu huntng and gatherng popuaton
that was wdey dstrbuted n the sub- aharan savanna
bet n the s th mennum B.C. The hartoum
skeetons have been abeed Negrod, but Coon (1963,
651) descrbes them as beng essentay smar to
those of modern Nubans. The skeeta matera from
the st earer stes at Gebe ahaba (ca. 10,000 B.C.)
and ad afa (ca. 6000 B.C.) has been varousy
descrbed as Caucasod, udanese Negro, or even
hestatngy Boskopod, that s, reated to the
modern Bushman popuaton of southern Afrca
(Anderson 1968 Greene Armeagos 1972 ghtmre
1975). There s, n fact, no evdence to rue out the
e stence of a Nuban-type popuaton n the remote past,
and t s aso possbe that, over the centures, ths
popuaton, whch was open to gene fow from a
sdes, was ess radcay atered by natura seecton than
were the geographcay more remote and soated
popuatons of northern urope and est Afrca.
It s ha ardous to bud arguments on presumed
correatons of race, anguage, and cuture. Nevertheess,
ngustc and cutura data support the noton of
ong-term stabty of popuaton n Nuba. urng
hstorca tmes, much of eastern and northern Afrca and
ad acent parts of southwestern Asa have been occuped
by peope who speak anguages beongng to varous
branches of the Afro-Asatc stock: emtc, motc,
Cushtc, ancent gyptan, Berber, and Chadc( g. 9).
Athough t s not known where ths ngustc stock
orgnated or to what degree ts spread was the resut of
mgraton or dffuson, t appears that ts dfferentaton
and spread took pace after 6000 B.C. (Greenberg 1966
and cted n Trgger 1968,74). It s aso cear that
the Bantu anguages, whch beong to the Nger-
ordofanan stock, have spread from the Cameroon
ghands over much of centra and southern Afrca ony
durng the past 2,000 years. The earer hstory of the
29
Chapter 2 Nuban, Negro, Back, Notc
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ths mportant northern outpost may have had strong
fama as we as economc tes wth gypt.
The Nuban prnces and bshops portrayed n the
aras frescoes conform even more strkngy to
recogn abe modern types, argey because of ther more
naturastc stye. Bshop yros may have average
Nuban features, whe Bshop Petros (Cat. 292) s darker
sknned and ess hrsute and Bshop Maranos ( g. 93)
s ghter sknned, has a broader face, and s more hrsute
( nker 1970, ps. 4,7,9). These varatons may refect,
n part, the far-fung orgns of the offcas of a church
that recruted ts staff from a arge part of the Ne
aey and possby beyond.
C NC U I N
It has been noted that n recent years the fed of race
hstory has been vrtuay abandoned by anthropoogsts
(MacGaffey 1966,1). There has aso been growng
skeptcsm that tradtona raca cassfcatons can serve
any scentfc purpose or are based on vad concepts. The
peope of Nuba are an ndgenous Afrcan popuaton,
whose physca characterstcs are part of a contnuum of
physca varaton n the Ne aey. Yet they are by
no means homogeneous. Ths popuaton has occuped
the mdde porton of the Ne aey throughout recorded
hstory and probaby for much onger. There s no
evdence to suggest that t s the resut of a m ng of
dfferent raca stocks. If such m ng occurred, t
happened so ong ago as to be of no hstorca sgnfcance
for the perod covered n ths voume.
The peope of Nuba ved n a harsh envronment
that supported ony a sma popuaton. Unke the
stuaton n gypt, pastorasts, wth ther dsruptve
nomadc way of fe, outnumbered rverne cutvators. In
spte of ths, the vaey dweers mantaned vey
economc and cutura contacts wth the north and were
abe to draw upon ther own e perence to evove
nsttutons that preserved ther autonomy and
sophstcated cuture over ong perods. Ths suggests
a taented and resourcefu popuaton. hatever ntrnsc
nterest studes of human physca types may have, they
can e pan nothng about such soca and cutura
deveopments.
35
Chapter 2 Nuban, Negro, Back, Notc
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Before the decpherment of ancent gyptan
herogyphs n the eary nneteenth century and the
subse uent deveopment n gyptan studes, knowedge
about the cv aton of Nuba and the udan was
obtaned chefy from the wrtngs of the Greeks and
omans, of By antne eccesastcs, and especay of
Arab hstorans and traveers. The perods covered by
these sources ncuded the Merotc and the Medeva,
Chrstan and Musm, and the accounts of the ands
south of the rst Cataract and the peopes nhabtng
them were based argey on tradton. The deveopment of
archaeoogca nvestgaton has opened to us new areas
of understandng. Most of a, archaeoogy has reveaed
to us the earest cv atons of the Upper Ne, whose
e stence was unsuspected unt modern tmes. n the
foowng pages the hstory of archaeoogca
nvestgaton n ths part of the great Afrcan contnent
w be surveyed.
ANCI NT T A ITI N
The udan was known to the Greeks amost from the
tme of ther frst appearance n hstory. As eary as the
omerc age, the Greeks used the term Aethopa
(meanng and of Burnt aces ) to descrbe not ony the
terrtory south of gypt but most of Afrca. The words
thopa and thopan, as they occur n eary
terature, have no specfc ethnc or geographca
connotaton the term thopan was never apped
e cusvey to the Merotes, but because these peope
possessed certan characterstcs whch the Greeks
assocated wth thopans wrters of the Cassca era
ncuded them among the thopans and caed ther
homeand thopa ( g. 16).
It s n ony a sghty more specfc sense that
erodotus wrote about thopa n the udan, descrbng
ts geographca e tent and ts reatons wth the Persans,
who con uered gypt n 525 B.C. The Ptoemes, through
cose contact, were a tte better nformed about the
regon that ay south of gypt they ac ured some
knowedge of the customs of the peope, ther kngs and
ther court tradtons. Ths nformaton has come down to
us n the wrtngs of odorus cuus (ca. 40 B.C.) and
trabo (ca. 30 B.C.), who uote earer authors. The Greek
tradton was nherted by atn wrters, ncudng eneca
(ca.a. . 10-40), Pny the der (a.d. 24-79), and many
others, down to the thrd century a.d., whose works
sometmes add mportant nformaton. Chrstan and
ewsh authors aso wrote about the ngdom of Meroe
partcuary vauabe are the works of osephus (frst
century a.d.) and uus Afrcanus (ca. a.d. 220), who
uoted e tracts from Manetho s ost hstory of gypt,
probaby wrtten eary n the thrd century B.C., n
whch ynasty was referred to as an thopan
dynasty.
Before the arrva of Chrstan mssonares,
ympodorus (307-280 B.C.), Prscus (f. ca. a. d. 100-
125), and Procopus (a.d. 527-65) wrote about Nuba, ts
reatons wth the omans and wth the Bemmyes n the 37
east (see pp. 22,24). The competton between Chrstan sects
for the offca converson of Nuba and the udan
has been preserved by ohn of phesus, a s th-century
hstoran, n a we-known eccesastca hstory that
descrbes the potca dvson of the country nto the
three kngdoms of Nobata, Makura, and Awa and
dscusses the Bemmyes, who are aso mentoned n ater
By antne and Ae andran sources ( antn 1970,49ff.).
After the Arab con uest of gypt n a.d. 641 and the
subse uent spread of Isam, Nuba and the udan
became a recurrng theme of Arab wrters, who offer a
consderabe body of nformaton about Nuba, whch by
ther tme ncuded Makura and Awa, that s, the area
from Aswan to south of ennar. Ths medeva Arabc
terature ncudes chronces, bographes and
encycopaedas, traveers accounts, topographc studes,
and treatses on varous sub ects ( assan 1967,182ff.).
As Arabc aton and Isam aton contnued, the
udan was steady absorbed nto the Isamc word, unt
fnay a Musm kngdom repaced the ast of the
Chrstan kngdoms at the begnnng of the s teenth
century. Ths was the un utanate of ennar, whch
asted unt 1821 (Crawford 1951). rom ths perod, a not
nconsderabe body of oca udanese tradton was
made avaabe n Arabc to eary nneteenth-century
uropean schoars. These Arabc works ncude trba
geneaoges, the un Chronce, and a bographca
dctonary of Musm hoy men, whch contans
mportant nformaton about men of earnng and poets,
as we as about the soca, cutura, and regous fe of
the un kngdom (Mohammed ad ayfaah 1800).
P ATI N
In 1821, Mohammed A, the ruer of gypt, sent hs
Turko- gyptan armes nto Nuba to pursue and destroy
the ast of the Mameuks, who had escaped the massacre
he had arranged for them n Caro. s troops pushed
south to con uer the udan and put an end to the ast
vestges of the Musm ngdom of ennar. th the
con uerng army came uropean adventurers and
traveers, who had been fascnated by the Cassca
accounts of bameess thopa and the egendary cty
of Meroe, wth ts gods, ts marveous cv aton and
strange customs. nce ther descrptons, pans, and
drawngs are fre uenty the ony records of monuments
that have snce been destroyed, the reports of these
uropean traveers are nvauabe to modern schoarshp.
The ong perod of uropean e poraton began
wth re de rc Caaud, whose accounts of the ant utes
and monuments of the udan were pubshed n three
voumes n 1826 ( g. 17). ther traveers foowed
Caaud, ncudng the renchman nant de
Beefonds, who vsted Nuba and the udan n 1821-22,
but whose account of hs traves was not pubshed
unt more than a century ater (1958). At around the
same tme, addngton and anbury e pored the udan
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44 he produced a report on the Nuban monuments and
ther condton (1911), whch ntated a seres entted
es Tempes mmerge s de a Nube, whch was
pubshed by the gyptan Ant utes ervce. Thus,
between 1911 and 1915, a number of tempes beongng
to dfferent eras of Nuban hstory from the Pharaonc,
oman, and Merotc perods were studed by ngsh,
rench, and German schoars, ncudng the tempes of
Bgeh, abod, aabsha, endur, akka, ades- ebua,
err, and Amada. The epgraphc, conographc,
and archtectura detas recorded n these studes were of
great mportance to gyptoogy they not ony ncreased
our knowedge of the hstory of Nuba durng the
Pharaonc and much ater perods but aso emphas ed
the mportance of Nuba n the hstory of ancent
gyptan cv aton.
Maspero can aso be credted wth ntatng
another form of archaeoogca nvestgaton, namey
archaeoogca surveyng, when he commssoned A.
ega to conduct a seres of surveys n ower Nuba.
ega made the frst survey n 1906 ( ega 1907), usng
surface observaton n an attempt to ocate and descrbe
ant utes, cemeteres, and other remans, and to put
them nto chronoogca order. e drew attenton to the
dstnctve Nuban cuture, the C-group, whch Petre
caed the Pan-grave cuture. s remarks and notes
proved to be of great mportance to ater schoars ( mery
1965,38).
owever, the most thorough archaeoogca survey,
the one whch was to affect most profoundy the
deveopment of archaeoogca nvestgaton n Nuba,
was drected by Captan . G. yons, who came not from
the gyptan Ant utes ervce but from the Mnstry
of Pubc orks. In 1907, when the gyptan government
decded to ncrease the heght of the Aswan am, yons,
then rector Genera of the urvey epartment,
chose esner to conduct an archaeoogca survey of the
area to be nundated. The resuts of esner s work
ad the foundaton for the study of Nuban hstory, ts
cutura phases and soca groups. The abe archaeoogsts
who worked wth esner ncuded C. rth,
A. Backman, and . Bates as assstant archaeoogsts,
and G. ot mth and . erry as physca
anthropoogsts. Athough both esner and ot mth
eft the survey durng the second season (1909), the work
went on unt 1911.
The ma or accompshment of ths team was the
recordng and e cavaton of forty-four cemeteres and a
few mportant fortresses, n partcuar Ikkur and
uban, n the area between the rst Cataract and ad
es- ebua that was affected by the frst heghtenng
of the Aswan am n 1907-12. esner observed the
varatons n the cemeteres and gathered these varatons
nto groups, each cutura group desgnated by a
etter of the aphabet. ( or an e panaton of esner s
se uence, see o. II, pp. 12-13.) Thus was deveoped the
Nuban cutura se uence: A-group, B-group, C-group,
and so forth (a few etters were wsey eft unused
to be apped to future dscoveres). Ths se uence, whch
has wthstood the test of tme, s essentay parae
to the known cutura se uence n gypt, but the
paraesm s chronoogca ony the Nuban groups
are dfferent and oca n nature.
Concurrenty wth the work of the Archaeoogca
urvey, other foregn e pedtons were actve n the
fed. taffed by the Unversty of Pennsyvana, the
ckey B. Co e, unor, pedton to Nuba e cavated
the ste of Arekan 1907 n 1908-10, t worked
n the Merotc cemeteres at aranog and habu, and
pubshed a survey of churches n ower Nuba by
G. . Meham( 1910). The Co e e pedton aso worked
at the ste of Buhen, nvestgatng prmary the
New ngdom remans and a Mdde ngdom gyptan
cemetery. At Anba, the rnst von egn pedton
of ep g began work on the gyptan fort and
cemeteres of the Mdde and New ngdoms, as we as
a arge Nuban cemetery nearby ( tendorff 1935 1937).
nay, the enna Academy sponsored an e pedton,
ed by . unker, to e cavate the C-group cemetery
at ubaneh North ( unker 1920a) n 1910-11, ths
e pedton shfted ts actvtes south to Toshka
and Armnna( unker 1925 1926). A ths work
contrbuted greaty to the consodaton of esner s
scheme, whch became frmy estabshed as the accepted
framework for the hstory of cutures n ower Nuba.
ther factors n addton to the rst ord ar
affected archaeoogca work. The man ob ectve of the
Archaeoogca urvey had been acheved, before the
foodwaters resutng from the heghtenng of the dam
had reached ther new eve n 1912. The areas submerged
were beyond recovery, and those that remaned were
out of further danger. nce there was no onger the
same urgency, efforts coud be drected esewhere,
southward n partcuar, and archaeoogsts coud study
and pubsh the resuts of ther work. An mportant
report, pubshed n two artces by . Carke (1916) and
A. Gardner (1916a), was the study of the gyptan
fortfcatons between the rst and econd Cataracts,
partcuary near the fronter area of the econd Cataract.
urvey work was resumed n ower Nuba after
the rst ord ar, when t was decded to ncrease
the heght of the Aswan am yet agan. Ths tme, the
gyptan Ant utes ervce entrusted the survey to
. mery and . P. rwan, asssted by a group of young
gyptan fed archaeoogsts wth r. A. Batraw as
anatomst. The work was carred out between 1929 and
1934 and ncuded the area between ad es- ebua
and Adndan on the northern udanese border. The
survey produced very tte evdence to ater the pcture
of Nuban cutura hstory aready estabshed by the frst
survey but the e cavaton begun by rth at the fort of
uban was competed before the ste was destroyed
by rsng water and, perhaps the most spectacuar
contrbuton of ths pro ect, the great tombs of
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purey descrptve survey of Nuban cutures
pror to the New ngdom does tte more than
estabsh that they functoned at very dfferent eves
from that of contemporary gypt. Comparson reveas
a cassc contrast between a cuturay advanced,
domnant cv aton the gyptan and the
ess advanced, subordnate Nuban cutures. storc
gypt had a compe soco-economc organ aton
of consderabe sophstcaton, a we-documented and
eaborate set of regous beefs and practces,
and stystcay rch, techncay accompshed art
v forms. Ancent Nuban fe s ess easy reconstructbe,
but t s cear that n genera the peopes of the
regon were organ ed n oose trba unts rather than
n a state, had a reatvey smpe regous fe (at
east to udge from ts e presson n survvng matera
remans), and were severey restrctve n the e presson
of ther aesthetc abtes and deas. hen reatvey
sophstcated art forms do appear n Nuba durng
the ate second mennum B.C., they are ceary
dependent, to consderabe f varyng degrees, upon
gyptan modes n stye, functon, and techn ue.
owever, the survey gans n depth and nterest
f one keeps n mnd certan uestons whch are
partcuary reevant n the conte t of ths voume.
Gven the pro mty of Nuba n gypt, the ong
hstory of contact between the two cutures, the
comparatve smaness of the Nuban popuaton, and
the reatve nfe bty and nferor uaty of ts
f resources, why dd Nuba and especay ower
Nuba not become much earer a mere e tenson of
gyptan cuture The answer es n the ver Ne,
whch was ong the ony practcabe route between
gypt and the Afrcan hnterand the rst Cataract
of that rver, at Aswan, has been a ma or ethnc and
ngustc dvde throughout recorded hstory. In
the tme span of nterest to us here, dstnctve Nuban
cutures perssted to about 1600 B.C. n ower
Nuba and even ater n the ad afa/ econd
Cataract area and beyond. urther, why despte
ther cutura tenacty dd the Nubans fa
to deveop a we-defned set of ndgenous art forms
and fnay assume gyptan modes of artstc
e presson The mpcatons of ths probem are not
negatve hstorca and ethnographc records revea
a number of reatvey compe socetes that dd not,
for a varety of reasons, produce what we woud
consder advanced art forms (statuary or at east
substanta three-dmensona forms, arge-scae
pantng or reef work), and the adopton of aen art
forms can be a stmuus to the deveopment of
ndgenous art. Nevertheess, n terms of any specfc
group, such as the Nubans, the ueston s of
consderabe nterest.
rst, however, the basc documentaton on
the Nuban cutures must be outned. Archaeoogcay,
the hstory of human actvty n Nuba can be traced
back to Paeothc tmes, but for our purposes
we sha concentrate upon the fourth to the mdde of
the second mennum B.C. The data fa nto two,
not aways easy reconcabe sets for the entre span
we have the archaeoogca record of both gypt and
Nuba, and for ts ast 1,500 years we have gyptan
te tua references to Nuba and the Nubans. The basc
cutura, chronoogca, and topographca facts
provded by these data are summar ed n g. 25,
whch s argey sef-e panatory and re ures ony a
bref commentary.
ookng at the genera pattern of Nuban
cutures, we must remember that we are deang
prmary wth assembages of matera ob ects. ach
cuture s an assembage of structures and artfacts
suffcenty un ue n typoogy and stystc treatment
to be easy dstngushed from the assembages
of other cutures. ach has been assgned an
dentfyng name, ether a smpe etter or that of a type
ste, and s set nto a reatve chronoogy that s at
east appro matey reated to the estabshed dynastc
chronoogy of gypt. th ths n mnd, t can easy
be seen that matera cuture n ower and Upper
Nuba and ad onng regons was much more dverse
than n contemporary gypt, a refecton of mportant
potca and perhaps ethno-ngustc dfferences
wthn the Nuban habtat.
ven n prehstorc tmes, a unform matera
cuture (Na ada I-II) was ncreasngy characterstc
of Upper and Mdde gypt, and by the end of
the ary ynastc perod (ca. 2635 B.C.) cutura
unformty typfed the entre country. In contemporary
Nuba, there was a gradua spread southward of
gyptan matera cuture (ts ethno-ngustc
sgnfcance beng ute uncertan) unt t abutted
aganst other matera cutures whch had been
smutaneousy deveopng n the ad afa/ econd
Cataract regon. These were n part reated to an
ndgenous ower Nuban cuture of the precedng
perod, but they were aso nked, va certan Upper
Nuban cutures, to a great centra udanese cutura
regon. The abutment generated an nteractve
process between gyptan and Nuban matera
cutures, from whch deveoped the frst dstnctvey
Nuban assembage to be found throughout a ower
Nuba, the A-group.
Upper Nuba durng the A-group perod s not
we documented, but one thng s cear. Thereafter,
ower Nuban cutures beonged to the same genera
cutura hor on (despte dstnctve dfferences n
deta) as those of Upper Nuba, and both were, n a
broad sense, essentay outers of centra udanese
cutures. Ths fact, combned wth ethnc and ngustc
dfferences between gyptans and Nubans evdent
from ynasty I (2290-2155 b.C.) on, and probaby
antedatng t consderaby, contrbuted decsvey
to the cutura tenacty of the Nubans.
47
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50
hfA GA
0 A I
M a k s y
- Y N (A AN )
Tarfaw w
0 I, MA
MA A -fA A
I (
ABU AM
AGA M A
( GU )
orte uarry
v es
0
50
100
200
300 km
g. 26. Map of Nuba n the d ngdom.
The A-group s usuay thought to have termnated
eary n the gyptan ynasty I (ca. 3000 B.C.), at
whch pont mported gyptan artfacts cease
n A-group conte ts. owever, a smar cessaton n
the succeedng C-group marked the end of ndgenous
tradng opportuntes but not of cutura e tncton,
and t s possbe that the A-group, undergong
a comparabe e perence, survved nto the d
ngdom ( g. 26). It s true that the B-group,
supposedy the mpovershed descendant of the
A-group, has been shown to be an archaeoogca
fcton, but some at east of an unpubshed coecton
of ndsputabe A-group sherds from the d ngdom
town at Buhen were certany deposted there whe
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the town was occuped, that s, durng ynastes
I and . It s possbe that the deposton was
secondary and that the matera came from an earer
dsturbed cemetery or settement, but no traces of
such were found, and the domnant typoogca features
of the sherds mark them off from both the Cassc
and Termna A-group.
owever, the A-group dd decne n cutura
strength, and there was a decrease or dspacement of
an aready sma popuaton. The ne t ower Nuban
assembage, the C-group, cannot date earer than
gyptan ynasty I and appears to be ntrusve, n that
specfc reatonshps wth the A-group cannot be
easy estabshed. The orgn of the C-group s
uncertan gven the then prevang envronmenta
condtons, ts bearers mght have come from now
desert regons on the east or west or from Upper
Nuba. The Upper Nuban arer erma cuture does
not apparenty revea any detaed resembances
to the C-group, but ts upper date remans uncertan.
The erma cuture was the characterstc assembage
of northern (and perhaps southern) Upper Nuba
from at east the Mdde ngdom to eary ynasty
III, that s, from 1991 to 1551 b.C. Its poston on
g. 25 s unconventona and re ures comment.
The ater erma cuture s frmy dated to the
atter part of the econd Intermedate Perod
(1785-1551 B.C.) by assocated gyptan artfacts. The
arer erma cuture s usuay dated after ths
perod. owever, the arer erma cuture s strong
genera affntes n grave types, bura customs,
and to a degree n artfacts wth the C-group, whch
had ost ts dstnctve Nuban character by about 1600
b.c, and ts faure to refect the nevtabe repercussons
of the ynasty III occupaton of Upper Nuba
both suggest that the reversed reatve chronoogy
used here s correct. The arer erma cuture,
known ony from erma and a, has so far been
pubshed ony n e tremey summary form.
The arer erma cuture ncudes severa
subphases, and ts chronoogy n gyptan terms s
uncertan. Its reatonshp to the ater assembage
nsures that t must correspond n part to the Mdde
ngdom, and t may go back to ynasty I. gyptan
stone vases of that date were found at erma, but
not, unfortunatey, n drect assocaton wth ether
phase of the ndgenous assembage. owever,
snce Upper Nuba was not under the strong gyptan
pressure whch contrbuted to the cutura dscontnuty
between the A- and C-groups, the Upper Nuban
contnuty mped here s at east theoretcay possbe.
The Pan-grave cuture ( g. 25) s an ntrusve
assembage n gypt and ower Nuba and s certany
a econd Intermedate Perod sampe of the matera
cuture of the Med ay, the nomadc nhabtants
of the eastern Nuban desert, where the ranfa of the
ed ea s has aways supported a sgnfcant
popuaton. Med ay hstory goes back to the d
ngdom, but further e poraton n the desert
regons s re ured both to recover earer Med ay
matera cuture and to estabsh the sgnfcance of
other assembages, reated to the rverne cutures but
found as far afed as Agordat and the ad owar.
Unt the onset of ardty was competed (ca. ynasty
I), envronmenta condtons permtted sgnfcant
human movement and contact n areas of now
unnhabted desert. The A-group and the earer
C-group may therefore have had mportant nks
wth e tra-rverne areas, whe the Yamtes,
nhabtng northern Upper Nuba n ynasty I,
pursued nto the desert the T emeh-peope, certany
a western desert group.
The gyptans fre uenty referred to the rverne
Nubans, the Med ay, and even the Punttes of the ed
ea coast as Nehasyu, southerners but
more specfc references as we as conographc
data can be correated n greater deta wth the
estabshed chronoogy and dstrbuton of the Nuban
cutures. No certan reference to the A-group s
known, snce an eary ynasty I rad on the and of
the Nehasyu) whe not necessary post-datng
the A-group, may refer to an area beyond ther habtat.
The C-group, however, are certany to be dentfed
as the nhabtants of the ower Nuban subregons of
awat, Irt et, and et au referred to n ynasty
I, and of awat n the sense of a ower Nuba
thereafter. hether the ynasty I Yamtes are to
be e uated wth the begnnng of the arer erma
cuture s uncertan, but certany both phases of
the erma cuture may be descrbed as ushte, snce
Upper Nuba was, n a genera sense, caed ush
from the begnnng of ynasty II on.
The toponyms and persona names assocated
wth the Nuban cutures descrbed above (e cept
the A-group) show that the Nuban anguage(s)
dffered from gyptan, whe depctons
of awat peope and Med ay durng the rst
Intermedate Perod and ater, and of ushtes n the
New ngdom, show that the Nubans as a whoe
were dstngushed from the gyptans by ther darker
skns and other, superfca but vsuay strkng,
characterstcs ( g. 27). keeta remans are fre uenty
ess concusvey dfferent from gyptan ones, a
resut hardy surprsng n an ntermedate one
where the popuaton was probaby argey hybrd.
By the eary New ngdom, and wthout any ma or
dspacement of popuaton, the cuture of awat,
that s, the C-group, had assmated to gyptan norms,
vrtuay competey n matera cuture and to a
consderabe degree n nteectua. The sma ntrusve
groups of Med ay and ushtes n gypt and
ower Nuba were aso competey accuturated, but
the degree of accuturaton reached n the homeands
of each group remans unknown.
51
Chapter 4 Nuba before the New ngdom
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gyptan cuture n the ate fourth mennum B.C.
and reated potca and mtary events.
Crysta aton must have sharpened the dfferences,
perhaps partcuary n the vta area of communcaton.
It seems key that there was an ntermedate ngustc
one between Upper gypt and Nuba that factated
contact, but the deveopment of a wrtten form of
gyptan by about 3000 B.C. must have ncreasngy
mposed a rgdty upon the gyptan anguage,
partcuary sgnfcant n ths conte t f the vocabuary
and pronuncaton then gven permanence and symboc
domnance were based on Northern or Mdde rather
than Upper gyptan daects. Potca hstory s reevant
n that the unfcaton of ary ynastc gypt ceary
nvoved confct between e pandng, compettve
subregons. The southernmost part of gypt, wheren
there s no trace of A-group matera, was ncorporated
nto the gyptan state at a ate date. Throughout
ynasty I (.e., for over 210 years) the regon of Ta-sety
was a one of confct, and ths toponym probaby
referred then ony to southernmost gypt and not, as
ater, to ower Nuba aso. The gradua assmaton of
Ta-sety must have renforced the sgnfcance of
the rst Cataract as a potca and strategc as we
as an ethno-ngustc dvde.
ubse uenty, the Nuban cutures were suffcenty
mted n ther chosen means of aesthetc e presson
throughout ther ong hstory as to suggest a menta bas
n ther word vew whch nhbted the deveopment
of ma or art forms. Ths bas cannot now be recovered.
Nevertheess, eary Nuban art was not entrey restrcted
to apparenty decoratve functons, and the Nuban
reacton to contact wth gyptan art forms was both
postve and compe . It s therefore usefu to e amne
other factors that ether nhbted or stmuated the
deveopment of Nuban art.
In both the A- and C-groups there was a reatvey
strong tradton of abstract, geometrc desgns
whch appear fre uenty on ncsed (Cats. 27-40),
mpressed, and (n the A-group ony) panted wares
(Cats. 6-10 g. 28), and n smper form on occasona
A-group stone artfacts and n C-group beadwork.
The evdent orgn of many of these desgns n
basketwork and beadwork patterns, ther restrcton to
ob ects of argey practca or decoratve use, and
the amost compete absence of naturastc motfs
a suggest strongy that ths geometrc tradton was
purey decoratve and had none of the symboc
sgnfcance that superfcay abstract patterns have
had n other cutures.
Both the A- and C-groups had very restrcted
types of pastc art. are, hghy schematc human
fgurnes (Cats. 1,2,12-18 g. 29) occur n both
cutures, and anmas (catte, goats , anteope )
are added to the repertore n the C-group (Cats.
19-22). These fgurnes are very sma n scae, made of
mud and cay, and found arranged n ony the smpest
of groupngs however, ther very e stence and the
funerary conte ts n whch they are usuay found
ndcate that they had a more than decoratve
sgnfcance. Another nterestng naturastc tradton
s restrcted to the C-group. n a very specfc cass
of coarseware ars, found n both funerary and
settement conte ts, are ncsed smpe, somewhat
schemat ed near fgures of humans, brds, catte, and
other anmas. These are sometmes arranged n
forma decoratve patterns but aso occur n rather
hapha ardy organ ed scenes. mar fgures n the
same stye but on a arger scae are ncsed, pecked,
and occasonay even panted upon bouder or cff
faces or n rock sheters aong the vaey edges ( o. II,
gs. 3,5-7), and sometmes catte are ncsed upon
ta, carefuy shaped sandstone steae set up n the
earest C-group (phase 1/ a) cemeteres.
Ths varety of form and conte t suggests that
the naturastc tradton was not purey decoratve and
mght have provded the bass for further deveopments
n art. It s worth notng that n prehstorc gypt
a tradton of schematc but vgorous naturastc art
found prmary on pottery aso occurred on rock faces
and at east once, at erakonpos, was transated
nto the medum of a arge-scae mura on mud paster.
The factors that tended to have somewhat
negatve effects upon the deveopng ower Nuban
cutures, and partcuary on ther art, were party
nherent n the oca stuaton and party due to
gyptan contact. ower Nuban resources were too
mted to produce any substanta surpus food suppy.
The possby strong pastora orentaton of the
A-group aso dscouraged sedentary fe to a degree,
but the greater s e and densty of the C-group
popuaton suggests that by then envronmenta
change had made agrcuture more mportant and
had had a stab ng effect upon settement patterns.
Ths may be reated to the ndgenous potca
deveopments dscussed beow.
The absence of technoogy and the ack of materas
were other nhbtve factors. bvousy, metaurgy
s not essenta to the deveopment of art forms, but
t can and n gypt dd have a stmuatve
effect. The ower Nubans, however, knew how to
make ony stone, bone, and wooden toos, and contact
wth gypt was not of a type to factate the spread
of ether metaurgca knowedge or meta mpements.
The Nuban archtectura tradton, unke the
gyptan, dd not favor the cose nterreatonshp
between deveopng art forms and ther changng
monumenta settngs. In gypt, for e ampe, funerary
scenes and te ts were orgnay fary smpe and
restrcted to memora steae. They graduay became
more e tensve and compe as funerary chapes
deveoped and enarged, offerng e panses of smooth
protected wa surfaces sutabe for carvng or
pantng. The most substanta structures n the A-
53
Chapter 4 Nuba before the New ngdom
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56 I, but t s not assocated wth any strkng deveopments
n the archaeoogca record. gyptan aton was
amost none stent, party because there were no
mechansms key to brng t about. Nubans entered
gypt as enforced eves and vountary mmgrants and
n both cases setted and were assmated rather than
returnng home. nce the d ngdom centers of ower
Nuba had been abandoned, there was no gyptan
popuaton for the ndgenes to nteract wth. The
typca mported ob ects stmuated no artstc ntatves,
beng mosty uttaran (pottery, beads, meta weapons),
e cept for sma sea amuets, whch the Nubans
dd not attempt to emuate.
The occupaton of ower Nuba n the Mdde
ngdom, despte the estabshment of a number of
gyptan centers, effectvey decreased Nuban access to
gyptan technoogy and concepts and nhbted
ndgenous potca deveopment. The C-group peope,
e cuded from trade and from vng n the fortress towns,
smpy mantaned ther tradtona matera cuture
nterestngy, even the naturastc fgures on pottery
began to be repaced by abstract desgns drawn from the
st vgorous geometrc tradton. In ynasty III,
the gyptan garrsons ceased to rotate and became
permanent communtes, ncreasngy unabe to rey on
support from a weakenng gypt and compeed therefore
to a coser reatonshp wth the surroundng C-group
popuaton. gyptan artfacts agan appear amongst
the C-group, and the e tremey arge tombs of
cheftans refect the emergence of an ndgenous ete.
Parado cay, however, the ntensty and ntmacy of the
nteracton ed to the dsappearance of the ndgenous
cuture, whch yeded rapdy to gyptan customs and
technoogy. By the end of the econd Intermedate
Perod, the C-group had ost most of ts dstnctve
. features, and n the eary New ngdom we fnd the
decorated tombs of chefs of awat ndstngushabe
from those of contemporary gypt.
Upper Nuba ush had a dfferent hstory. Its
human and natura resources were greater, and gyptan
contact was ess dsruptve and ntense. urng the
Mdde ngdom, ushtes were permtted to enter
ower Nuba for tradng purposes, but penetrated
northward ony a sght dstance and for a mted perod
conversey, the occasona gyptan rads nto ush were
not apparenty succeeded by any permanent or uas-
permanent posts. The beef that a Mdde ngdom
tradng post e sted at erma tsef depends bascay
upon a snge stea from that ste, whch, ke much other
Mdde ngdom matera there, may n fact have been
pundered from awat.
It s not possbe to comment n deta upon the
arer erma cuture unt t s fuy pubshed but the
ater phase reveas e tremey mportant deveopments.
ne of these, a strkng growth of potca centra aton,
s essentay an ndgenous deveopment athough
enhanced by the accdent of gypt s contemporary
g. 32. Pan of erma bura no. 48, Cemetery M at erma.
weakness. By the ate econd Intermedate Perod (1785-
1551 B. c.), a substanta part of Upper Nuba and
eventuay most of ower Nuba were under the contro
of a snge, heredtary ushte dynasty, the status and
power of ts members beng symbo ed by ther enormous
bura tumu at erma. The matera cuture of ths
ushte state was dstnctvey Nuban and drecty-
descended from the earer phase. Bura customs ncuded
bed buras and human and anma sacrfce graves were
typcay open pts surmounted by earthen tumu ( g.
32) and the domnant pottery was a back-topped red
poshed ware found n a the Nuban cutures but
of e ceptona fneness of fabrc and form n the
erma cuture.
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#
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At the very dawn of Pharaonc hstory, a tte before
3100 B.C., the ruers of gypt turned ther eyes toward the
terrtores to the south. Ths was the regon beyond the
confnes of Gebe seh and the frst nome of Upper
gypt, whch sgnfcanty enough was caed Ta-sety,
meanng Nuba. It was the terrtory beyond Aswan and
ephantne, the sand where the barter for coveted vory
had ong taken pace. It was beyond the barrer of the
rst Cataract of the Ne. Into ths nhosptabe regon
the earest pharaohs carred ther trade and nfuence to
the northernmost part of Nuba, whch was then
nhabted by a trba socety known today as the A-group.
In buras between the rst and econd Cataracts,
e cavated n modern tmes, have been found vesses
and copper weapons mported from gypt, whch
ndcate the e stence of commerca reatons between
gypt and her southern neghbors. It seems, however,
that these reatons were not aways peacefu, for
a pa ue of or-Aha, who rued gypt at the very
begnnng of ynasty I, records a vctory over Ta-sety,
and under hs successor, er, a hard-to-read rock
drawng at Gebe hekh uman, opposte ad
afa, seems to ndcate that gyptan radng partes
may have advanced as far as the econd Cataract ( g.
38). houd we perhaps attrbute to these rads the
weakenng and fna e tncton of the A-group cuture
e must wat unt the d ngdom (ca. 2650-2150
B.C.) to fnd gyptan e pedtons nto Nuba on a arge
scae. Among the great deeds of nofru, the founder of
ynasty I , whch were recorded on the Paermo tone,
was a campagn n Nuba, durng whch the kng took
seven thousand prsoners and brought back to gypt a
consderabe booty n catte. At Buhen, near ad afa,
e cavaton has uncovered the remans of an nstaaton
that can be dated to the d ngdom on the bass of
pottery fragments and of sea mpressons bearng the
names of eary gyptan ruers. That ths ste was
mportant to the eary pharaohs s ndcated by the
presence of a copper foundry.
Cheops and hs successors aso penetrated to the
dorte uarres of the Nuban desert west of Toshka,
whch supped the hard, fne-graned stone for the
pharaohs eterna kenesses. Certan grafft at Tomas
and three new nscrptons at ub, ust south of the
econd Cataract, are perhaps attrbutabe to uarryng
e pedtons n the servce of d ngdom ruers the
grafft at ub are the southernmost records yet found of
gyptan presence n Nuba durng the d ngdom.
In ynasty I, the gyptan hod on ower Nuba
tghtened. In the army that Pepy I sent to Asa under the
eadershp of Genera eny were contngents from
severa Nuban prncpates, and durng the foowng
regn of Merenra, eny ed an gyptan e pedton
southward to obtan from the Nuban uarres fne stone
for the sarcophagus and the pyramdon destned for the
tomb of hs gyptan ruer. At that tme, eny supervsed
the constructon of navgabe channes through the rst
Cataract, and the pharaoh hmsef made a ourney to
ephantne to receve the homage of Nuban cheftans.
Nevertheess, the nscrptons at Tomas and those n
the tombs of the nobes at ephantne ndcate that a
was not easy n Nuba. It was necessary to open the road
across the country and sometmes, as Pepynakht reports
n hs tomb, to engage n combat wth the Nubans. The
nscrptons of erkhuf record ong e pedtons astng
severa months, whch penetrated as far as Yam, perhaps
the regon n the pan of ongoa ater known as Irm. In
order to avod hoste prncpates ocated n the Ne
aey, erkhuf traveed aong the sandy tras borderng
the byan esert. e sts the goods ac ured by hs
caravan three hundred donkey-oads of ncense,
ebony, os, eopard skns, and vory a surey ac ured
from nner Afrca by barter and passed from hand to hand
to a pont of contact wth the outer word.
After the death of Merenra, erkhuf made a
fourth and ast e pedton to the south, whence he
brought back the dwarf, probaby a pygmy, who has
become famous n gyptan annas. Ths dwarf
was offered as a gft to Pepy II, then st a chd, and
erkhuf proudy had the tte kng s etter of thanks
for the gft reproduced on the was of hs tomb at
ephantne. In t, the youthfu soveregn commanded
hs servant to take care of hs future paymate and to
make sure that the sma Afrcan arrved n good
heath at the roya court far down the rver.
After the very ong regn of Pepy II, whch was
marked by recurrent troube n the south, the d
ngdom coapsed. urng the rst Intermedate
Perod, when gypt e perenced a grave soca crss and
potca fragmentaton, there deveoped n ower Nuba
the pastora cuture of the peope who are now desgnated
as the C-group. f that dm perod tte s known. A
ceebrated mode found at Asyut whch represents a troop
of soders from the south ndcates that Nuban
mercenares payed a part n the strugge for supremacy
between the nomes of Upper gypt ( g. 10). These
strugges fnay ended wth the Theban nomarchs of
ynasty I, the Antefs and the Mentuhoteps (2134-1991
b.c), reestabshng a frm rue n Upper gypt.
Accordng to the graffto of a soder found at Absko,
south of the rst Cataract, these new ruers even
undertook an e pedton nto Nuba. Athough a
trumpha nscrpton at Gebeen can have been ony a
tradtona statement of genera sgnfcance, a number of
other documents testfy to the effectve actvty of the
gyptans n Nuba. ear of the peopes from the south
aways remaned ave n gypt. In the e ecraton te ts
and on magca fgurnes, the names of Nuban prnces
and trbes appear, together wth those of Asatc enemes
and sometmes even of subversve gyptans the
e upment of one of the numerous magcans occuped
wth con urng aganst possbe enemes of gypt has
recenty been found at Mrgssa n the mmedate vcnty
of ad afa.
63
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#
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c
-
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y
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n
c
-I I 10cm
g. 42. ng esostrs III (1878-1842 B.C.) smtng an enemy,
from Gebe Agg, Toshka ast (after mpson 1963).
C-group peope adopted certan gyptan customs
and fnay, after ong resstance, e perenced an
ethnc accuturaton.
Meanwhe, n the Theban regon, there were sgns of
gyptan reawakenng. ekenenra-Taa and after hm
amose began a strugge for beraton. In order to take
the Thebans n a pncer movement, the yksos ng Aa-
userre-apophs sought an aance wth the ushtes. The
Carnarvon Tabet (Gardner 1916b), wth ts te t
resembng a mnstre s romance, has recenty ac ured a
se ue of purey hstorca content nscrbed on a arge
stea that emerged from the earth at arnak n 1954
( abach 1972). n t we read that the foowers of
amose ntercepted an emssary of the yksos kng en
route to the ases, wth the resut that the urgent message
he bore never reached ts destnaton. amose, wth the
ad of the Med ay, successfuy routed the enemy, pavng
the way for hs successor, Ahmose, who fnay took
possesson of the yksos capta at Avars and drove the
nvaders back nto Asa.
It was Ahmose who founded ynasty III and
gorousy naugurated the New ngdom(1551-1080
B.C.). ardy had the gyptans drven out the yksos
when they undertook the recon uest of the south. e are
we nformed about the campagns of Ahmose and hs
successors n Nuba, thanks to one Ahmes, son of Ibana,
whose bography s nscrbed on the was of hs tomb at
kab. Ahmes was, so-to-speak, a marne, who
recorded fathfuy the successve stages of hs ong
mtary career. rom the autobography he eft and from
other sources, we earn how ower Nuba came once
more under gyptan contro. Cartouches of amose and
Ahmose are promnent n rock nscrptons at Armnna.
Ahmose but a tempe at Buhen, north of the great
Mdde ngdom fortress hs son Amenhotep I eft hs
name at emna. scoveres on the Isand of a a
statue of Ahmose, a bock wth the name of hs wfe
Nefertary, and a statue of Amenhotep I suggest that
the frst kngs of ynasty III occuped that sand
beyond the econd Cataract. owever that may be,
Amenhotep I decded upon the coon aton of a Nuba
under a vceroy to be known as ng s on of ush
and verseer of the outhern ands. The frst
hoder of ths offce was, t seems, a certan Tur, who
had formery been commandant of the fortress of Buhen.
Progress was acceerated under Tuthmoss I. At
Tangur, an nscrpton among the rocks of the Batn e
agar shows a scrbe countng the boats that went
upstream (a shpwreck was aways possbe), and a
comparabe document has recenty been dscovered at
Akasha est. In hs drve to the south, Tuthmoss I
succeeded n passng the Thrd Cataract, thus openng the
gateway to the pans of ongoa, and suddeny the
resstance of erma coapsed. e beyond ths pont, a
stea was erected at urgus, about ffty kometers south
of Abu amed, and thus, for the frst tme n gyptan
hstory, there was opened a drect route toward the
67
Chapter gypt n Nuba durng the
d, Mdde and New ngdoms
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#
c
c
-
b
y
-
n
c
The Napatan Perod
ar- en Prese
75
In the frst decades of gyptan ynasty I, at
appro matey 1050 B.C., gypt s domnon over Nuba
came to an end. It was not unt around 900 B.C. that
a new power sub ugated the former gyptan terrtory, a
power that was to determne the hstory of the Ne
aey from the rst Cataract to beyond hartoum for
no ess than a thousand years. Ths power, caed the
ngdom of Napata and Meroe, s aso known as the
ngdom of ush, the name orgnay gven by the
gyptans to ther Nuban terrtores and ater adopted,
aong wth other tradtona gyptan desgnatons, by the
kngs of ush.
The hstory of the ngdom of ush s dvded
nto two perods, the Napatan Perod, astng unt
about 270-B.c, and the Merotc Perod, e stng
unt the fa of the kngdom toward the year a.d. 320.
Ths dvson s based upon changes n the soco-economc
and potca structure of the kngdom, for whch we
have as yet ony the foowng evdence:
1. The transfer of the roya cemetery from the regon
of Napata, near the ourth Cataract, to Meroe, above
the Atbara estuary.
2. The repacement of gyptan as the ony wrtten
anguage by Merotc, the anguage of the peope who had
acheved potca domnance from the begnnng.
3. The gradua advance of ndgenous cutura
tradtons and modes of percepton whch n the past had
found practcay no e presson n offca regon and art.
U C
The sources for the hstory of the Napatan Perod are
very one-sded. The roya cemeteres near Napata (
urru and Nur, g. 49), the cemetery for members of the
rung famy and the upper cass at Meroe ( outh and
est Begrawya cemeteres), and the cemetery of the cty
of anam, on the other sde of Napata, have been
e cavated. In addton, tempe stes at Napata (Gebe
Barka), anam, awa, and Tebo, on the Isand of Argo
to name ony the most mportant of them have aso
been e pored. In the course of these e cavatons, a seres
of roya nscrptons of a hstorca nature wrtten n
gyptan have come to ght. These fnds together wth
a seres of smaer nscrptons, from tempe reefs and
buras have enabed us to determne the probabe
successon of ruers, the crcumstances of ther ascent to
the throne, and famy reatonshps wthn the dynasty.
Ths matera has aso yeded nformaton regardng
mtary campagns, tempe constructons, and
endowments made to the gods. In short, t has enabed us
to form a pcture of the competey gyptan ed
cuture of the court and the offca regon. n the other
hand, the matera yeds amost no nformaton
concernng the ethnc and soca structure of the ordnary
popuaton we know tte about property rghts or
government admnstraton. e have earned amost
nothng of the soco-economc foundatons of the state,
whch we may regard as the odest organ ed Afrcan
state now known to us. Moreover, we know hardy
anythng about the matera and sprtua cuture of arge
segments of the popuaton. e are ac uanted wth
nether the regous vews nor the artstc productvty of
the masses, for none of ther settements or cemeteres
have yet been e cavated.
gyptan sources for study of ths perod are not very
numerous. he the temporary rue of the kngs of
ush over the and of the pharaohs n the eghth and
seventh centures B.C. resuted n numerous constructons
and nscrptons, they te us very tte about condtons
n ush. The same hods true for Assyran and d
Testament te ts that report on the potcs of the
ushte kngs n the Near ast and ther battes wth
the Assyrans.
or the fna phase of the Napatan Perod, we can
draw upon reports of Cassca geographers and
hstorans. f course, most of them were not wrtten unt
the tme of the frst Ptoemac kngs, that s, the thrd
century B.C., and some were transmtted ony n works
of st ater wrters ( trabo, odorus, Pny), but
much of ths reported matera s appcabe to the
Napatan Perod.
Today we can state wth certanty that the rung cass
n the ngdom of ush was not made up of gyptan or
byan mmgrants, as was fre uenty assumed n the
past. Most names of members of the roya famy, as we
as those of offcas and prests, prove that they beonged
to the peope whose anguage became the wrtten
anguage of the Merotc Perod. These peope retaned
possesson of the hghest ranks unt the fa of the
ngdom of ush, though certan of them bore gyptan
names. e ca them Merotes. Among the dentfabe
Merotc words found n the names of Napatan persons,
we may note wth certanty: mak, God, mao, good,
and mate, chd, sma. In addton, the custom of
matrnear successon (see pp. 84-85) and the deveopment
of roya tomb nstaatons revea that the soca and
cutura tradtons of the rung cass were derved not
from the gyptans but from the peopes of the Upper
Ne aey.
UN ATI N T ING M U
The Ne aey between the Thrd and ourth
Cataracts and between the fth and th Cataracts
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80 n the subse uent strugges of the great Medterranean
powers. After Tanwetaman s report of hs gyptan
campagn on hs stea n Napata, the nscrptons of the
ushte kngs mantan absoute sence on the sub ect of
ush s reatonshp wth gypt or, ndeed, wth any other
state. Ths sence s a the more regrettabe, snce t
woud be hepfu to know the e tent to whch contnung
drect nfuences from the north shoud be taken nto
consderaton n evauatng the cutura and artstc
deveopment of Nuba durng the three centures
that foowed.
afa century after ushte rue n gypt ended, the
gyptans made an attempt to bansh a memory of ts
e stence. The names of the pharaohs of ynasty
were hacked away from the monuments and generay
repaced by the name of Psamtk II (595-589 b.c), and
one or both of the urae were removed from the heads of
roya statues and reefs. The mmedate cause for ths
reacton was a war that broke out n the year 591 b.C.
Accordng to the gyptan verson, Psamtk II sent an
army up the Ne to thwart the mtary pans of the
ushtes. The best-known testmony regardng ths
campagn s provded by the grafft of Greek, Caran,
and Phoencan mercenares on the eg of one of the
cooss of Abu mbe. More nformaton s provded by
two nscrptons of the gyptan kng. Accordng to one
of these nscrptons, whch, unfortunatey, s very
fragmentary ( tea of Tans, Caro 67095: auneron
Yoyotte 1952), a batte occurred near a sma
pace caed the resdence of the ore who was there
( ore s the Merotc tte of the ushte kng). The
gyptans were vctorous n ths batte, and the ore
probaby wthdrew to Meroe. It remans uncertan
whether or not the gyptan army advanced as far as
Napata on that occason and was responsbe for the
eradcaton of the names of ushte kngs and for the
destructon of ther statues n the tempes at that pace.
Accordng to the te t of a second nscrpton (steae n
arnak and New aabsha: auneron Yoyotte
1952 Bakry 1967), Tebo, whch s ocated to
the south of the Thrd Cataract, was reached by the
gyptans and here, too, a batte ensued. The steae ca
speca attenton to the unfavorabe condtons of the
batteground and to the courage of the ushtes, of whom
4,200 were taken prsoner. Presumaby the ushtes were
defendng the entrance to the pans of ongoa.
There were doubtess other causes that contrbuted
to tense reatons between gypt and ush. Accordng to
Greek tradton ( erodotus 2. 30), a mutnous gyptan
garrson wthdrew from ephantne to thopa
and setted south of Meroe at the tme of Psamtk 1
(664-610 B.C.). Greek traveers of Ptoemac tmes cam
to have come across the descendants of ths garrson
at the Bue Ne and even farther to the southeast.
Accordng to Greek reports, whch are both
uncear and contradctory, the Persan ng Cambyses
(529-521 B.C.) undertook a campagn aganst thopa
after the con uest of gypt n 525 B.C. erodotus
(3. 25) says that the army was n great part destroyed
because of a ack of provsons, and that therefore
Cambyses had to retreat. trabo (17. 1. 54) mentons the
desert areas near asr Ibrm as the regon where the
Persans were overwhemed by a sandstorm. ther Greek
sources aege that Cambyses was the founder of
Meroe. Ths aegaton s competey mpossbe.
Athough ater Greek traveers assocated ndvdua
ocates n the Nuban Ne aey wth Cambyses,
referrng n ther reports to storehouses of Cambyses
and so forth, ony ower Nuba can have faen nto a
state of more or ess oose dependence upon the Persan
mpre and even so ony unt the end of the ffth century.
If thopan contngents dd actuay fght n the
army of er es (485-465 b.c), they can ony have been
mercenares. The fact that arus (521-486 B.C.) and
er es st ushya among the dependent peopes has
nothng more than symboc sgnfcance. pomatc
reatons certany e sted ushtes are represented, for
e ampe, as envoys n Persepos. Accordng to erodotus
(3.97), the thopans above gypt sent gfts to
the Persans every three years (god, vory, ebony, fve
boys) but pad no trbute. In hs budng nscrpton
found n usa, arus mentons that the vory used n
budng the Paace of usa came from ushya.
The gyptan ruers of the fourth century ( ynastes
II- , 404-342 B.C.) presumaby found potca
support n ush. The ast pharaoh of ynasty ,
Nectanebo II (360-342 B.C.), s sad to have fed to
thopa after the Persan vctory n 342 B.C. ower
/Nuba was evdenty once agan more cosey aed to the
ngdom of ush n these decades. In the eeventh year of
hs regn (393 B.C.), ng arsyotef sent an army to Akn
n ower Nuba n order to punsh hs rebeous saves
whose names were Barag and a-Amans. Aswan was
reached. It the kng s army fought wth them. It ked
Barag and a-Amans and a those who beonged to
them ( tea Caro 48864).
In the year 342 B.C., gypt was recon uered by the
Persans, but by 332 B.C. t was n the hands of Ae ander
the Great. Into ths perod fas the short regn of one
hababash n gypt. In nt e s vew (1959,17-20), ths
ruer s the same hoste prnce aganst whom the ushte
ng Nastasen had to defend hmsef n the frst year of hs
regn (335 B.C.), for hs enemy had shps and certany
came down from the north. Nastasen ordered hs army to
set out from err ( ) to defeat hs opponent, from
whom he took terrtores whch must have been ocated
n ower Nuba but whch, unfortunatey, cannot be
more precsey desgnated (Cat. 72). hababash does
not have an gyptan name, but hs orgn s debatabe.
e has been vewed both as an thopan and as
a Persan satrap. In any case, the potca background,
as we as the entre se uence of events that occurred
at ths tme, remans obscure.
n the other hand, reports of confcts wth nomadc
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82 anmas, sma anmas, peope, and a ther goods,
more numerous than the sands. Peope and catte
beongng to the oca popuaton fe nto ther hands.
hen they were subse uenty defeated, a the chdren
and a the women n the vcnty of Meroe heped to
brng n the booty (Inscrpton awa I ). arsyotef
(Gen. 23) fought the Adadas n the second, eghteenth,
and twenty-thrd years of hs regn: twce they had
advanced wth a ther goods nto the nteror of
Meroe. At the tme of Nastasen (Gen. 27), they took a
cty caed Masa, whch had st beonged to ush under
arsyotef. The prnce of ths town was captured the Be a
word fo s recogn abe n hs name, Ubasho.
It s prmary n Nastasen s report (Cat. 72), whch
has repeatedy been mentoned, that we can read of
further campagns aganst other peopes who are
unknown to us. In these forays, huge uanttes of catte,
peope, and god were ostensby taken as booty,
and one has the mpresson that the ushte army
undertook rads n order to brng n the weath that the
kng passed on wth a generous hand to the gods. If
statements regardng the anma weath of the trbes
concerned are not greaty e aggerated, we are probaby
deang wth the nhabtants of areas to the south
and southwest of the Merotc heartand: the Nuba,
who ved west of the Ne and who are mentoned by
ratosthenes, and the Noba, who setted n the ower
reaches of the Bue Ne and occuped the Merotc
area some centures ater (see p. 107).
T NAPATAN C N MY
or the most part, the great masses of peope
ndgenous to the Ne aey were engaged n agrcuture
and catte breedng. The arabe ands on the banks of
the Ne were, n contrast to those of gypt, generay
very narrow and dscontnuous. The shaduf, a type
of overs ed ade, was certany sometmes used for
rrgaton but the saka (water whee) was not ntroduced
unt the Merotc Perod, and e tensve cana budng
was undertaken n ony a very few paces, such as the
erma basn. After the annua summer rans, the pans of
the great wads of the Isand of Meroe coud be cutvated,
as they st are today by the nhabtants of the vages
aong the Ne. e do not know whether or not the h fr, a
reservor typca of ths regon (see p. 89), was aready n
use durng the Napatan Perod.
Besdes barey and spet, durra (met) was aso
cutvated by the end of the Napatan Perod at the atest.
oowng oder sources, Agatharchdes, whose wrtngs
date from about 150 B.C., character ed the thopans
as panters of durra and of sesame, whch s aso
mentoned n the nscrpton of Nastasen. Greek traveers
were not favoraby mpressed by oca achevements n
agrcuture and catte breedng they reported that the
breedng stock s sma n s e: sheep, goats, o en the
dogs are aso sma but vcous and snappsh . . . The
thopans ve on met and barey from whch they aso
prepare a beverage. They have no o but they do have
butter and suet they have no fruts e cept for some dates
found n the roya gardens ( trabo 17. 2. 2). Thus,
arsyotef (Gen. 23) consders t mportant to menton n
the annas of hs regn that s date pams were panted n
Napata and s n Meroe on behaf of the god Amun
( tea Caro 48864). It was ony n tempe and paace
gardens that the cutvaton of vneyards was attempted
for the tendng of the vnes Tahar o (Gen. 5) mported
specasts from yra ( tea hartoum 2679).
The breedng of horses consttuted a speca branch
of anma husbandry. The horse, used prmary for
mtary purposes, en oyed the speca favor of the kngs.
The horses of a kng were sacrfced after hs death and
bured n ther master s cemetery n the cemetery of
urru aone, san horses have been found n the
buras of four kngs. Pye (Gen. 2) appears to have been
partcuary fond of horses. In the report of hs war wth
gyptan prnces, the greatest reproach he coud make to
the knget Nemarut was that the atter had aowed hs
horses to starve durng the sege of hs cty ( tea Caro
48862 see p. 78).
It s probabe that agrcutura producton was
prmary the concern of the vage communty. e never
hear of a confrontaton between oca or regona
representatves, on the one hand, and the centra
admnstraton and ts oca representatves, on the other.
But t s nterestng to note that trba communtes were n
some nstances attached to tempes. Thus, the tempes at
awa and Tebo demanded of ng Irke-Amanote (Gen.
21) the return of such communtes for the performance of
regous servces of the cut (Inscrpton awa I ).
Among these communtes were the frame, one of the
most mportant trbes of Upper Nuba, whch can
be traced back to the d ngdom (Prese 1974).
or the most part, the hgher presty offces appear to
have been n the hands of fames, or, more precsey,
knshp unts.
It s certan that the tempes and the roya courts
possessed and, peope, and catte. Most of the peope and
herds of catte captured as war booty fowed drecty
nto ther hands. ny once do we hear that the genera
popuaton was permtted drect access to the possessons
of a defeated enemy. It s perhaps no mere
matter of chance that ths event occurred n the regon of
Meroe. ow the kng and the tempes managed ther
possessons s unknown. Moreover, and perhaps most
mportant, t remans uncear whether or not such
possessons were suffcenty e tensve to warrant
the deveopment of arge-scae producton on the bass
of savery. The prmary form of e potaton n the
ngdom of ush was probaby the re uston of
surpus products from the rura popuaton for the
use of court and tempes.
The artsans attached to court and tempes produced
works fashoned n a competey gyptan stye, and at the
tme of ynasty they were no doubt themseves
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ny because brother-sster marrage was customary, as t
was n gypt, coud the sons of a kng ac ure a egtmate
cam to the throne. The matrnear order of successon
makes t possbe for us to understand certan te ts,
such as two nscrptons of Tahar o whch cam that ng
Aara had begged the god Amun to confer soveregnty
upon the offsprng of hs ssters (among them, Tahar o s
mother) and not upon Aara s own chdren ( teae
hartoum 2678 Copenhagen NCG 1712). Anaman
utters the same pea on behaf of hs mother s descendants
( tea Copenhagen NCG 1709). In hs coronaton report
( tea Caro 48866 g. 57), Aspeta renders an
account of hs materna ancestors through seven
generatons.
There was aso an eecton of the kng, n whch the
persona uates of the canddate payed a part. Ths fact
s reported by Greek wrters ( erodotus, trabo,
odorus), who aso note that the successor to the throne
had to be the greatest and most powerfu man, the rchest
and the most e perenced n anma husbandry. e earn
nothng about ths practce from the ushte nscrptons
themseves, but they do revea that ascenson to the
throne was a pubc occason at whch a convocaton of
the mtary forces ad cam to what was at east a forma
rght to vote. The fre uenty mentoned nscrpton of
ng Irke-Amanote at awa, whch unfortunatey s
very fragmentary, descrbes the procedure n deta. At
the death of the kng, the army convenes and proceeds to
the paace. There, the absence of a eader s amented to
the court offcas. At the same tme, a successor s named
and the wsh e pressed to pace hm on the throne. The
paace offcas concur, and the new kng, who as an
e ceent youth sat among the kng s brothers, s ed nto
the roya paace. hat we see here s ute ceary a
heredtary kngdom, but one n whch the successor st
re ured confrmaton by the army, evdenty a
convocaton of a conscrptabe members of the
rung trbe.
In one nstance, the army abdcated ts rght to vote
n favor of the oracuar decson of the god Amun of
Napata ( tea of Aspeta, Caro 48866). f course, ths
s at east at frst sght ony another form of
procamaton, whch must have had nothng to do wth
any fundamenta roe of the presthood as kngmaker.
Greek wrters, however, report that n ancent tmes
prests chose the kng and on severa occasons even
forced hm to end hs regn through sucde ( trabo
17.2.3). Accordng to odorus 3.5, the prests frst seected
among themseves a seres of sutabe canddates and then
aowed the orace to endow one of them wth soveregn
power. nce the nfuence of the prests s sad to have
been forcby ended at a tme whch concded wth
the begnnng of the Merotc Perod (see pp. 94-95), a
supremacy of the prests must have e sted wthn the
Napatan Perod. It s possbe that a move toward endng
that supremacy, n the fna phase of the Napatan Perod,
mght perhaps be documented n the temporary transfer
of the roya cemeteres drecty to Gebe Barka (see p.
94). The nscrptons themseves yed ony vague
statements Nastasen says, for e ampe, that he had been
caed by the Amun of Napata (Cat. 72).
After hs ascenson to the throne n Meroe, the kng
woud customary set out on a coronaton ourney. e
woud go frst to Napata and proceed from there to awa
and Tebo. In each ocaty on hs route, he woud present
hmsef to the gods and be furnshed by them wth
symbos of soveregnty and power. The coronaton
ourney was generay an occason on whch commssons
were granted for the restoraton of paces of worshp. It
was aso a tme when the processon route, for nstance,
was ceared of sand, new presty offces were created, and
property prevousy removed from tempes was restored
to them. In genera, the coronaton ourney had as ts
purpose the creaton of order n a the provnces.
urng the perod of ushte rue n gypt, the kng
hmsef ed hs army n mtary campagns, as dd Pye
(Gen. 2), Tahar o (Gen. 5), and Tanwetaman (Gen. 6).
ater on, ths custom no onger appears to have been the
rue. In Nastasen s (Gen. 27) nscrpton, t s sad of hm:
e w have hs seat n Meroe and w dwe there.
The Greeks notced that the kng rarey appeared n
pubc. As n gypt and n many Afrcan kngdoms of
ater date, the ruer was certany an unapproachabe and
remote personaty. Ths fact ed the Greeks to speak
of the worshp of the kng as a god. owever, the
nscrptons do not speak of the kng s havng been
endowed wth attrbutes sgnfyng ether sacred
ordnaton or dvne functons. e merey possessed
certan mythca uates that had been adopted
from gypt.
It s more or ess sef-evdent that, gven the roe they
payed n determnng successon to the throne, the femae
members of the dynasty hed a preemnent poston n
socety. The mother of the kng and the ssters of the
kng appear n offca representatons and nscrptons
to an e tent unknown n gypt. n the tea of Aspeta
(Caro 48866 g. 57), t s hs mother who appears
before the god to pead for soveregn power on behaf of
her son. A memora stea erected by Aspeta for haut,
a son of Pye, n the Great Tempe of Amun at Gebe
Barka (Tempe B 500), has haut beg for a ong regn
for Aspeta together wth Nasasa, the mother of the
kng. The god orus and hs mother, Iss, were seen
refected n the kng and hs mother. The mother of the
kng and the mstress of ush, desgnated by the
Merotc tte kandake, was vewed wthn the Graeco-
oman word as the actua soveregn.
ur nformaton wth regard to the s e and structure
of the court s nsuffcent, snce the courters n
contrast to those of the Merotc Perod dd not eave
ther own nscrptons on sacrfca tabets or on tomb
steae. The same ack of nscrptons s true of cv
servants and prests. oya nscrptons menton the
frends, ater known n Merotc te ts as saakhas.
85
Chapter 6 The ngdom of ush:
The Napatan Perod
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86 These frends aded the kng n cut functons and were
aso entrusted wth mtary eadershp. ther ttes of
rank aso e sted at ths tme among them were Prnce of
Nuba and Great ne of s Ma esty or Great Man
of the oya ouse. Then there were aso whoe seres of
offcas such as the ead ea-Bearer of the oya
ouse, the Chef crbe of ush, the oya crbe
and ead Barn and Granary uperntendent, and so
forth. A few cv servants of ths type had gyptan names
at the tme of Aspeta( tea ouvre C 257).
e know nothng of the admnstratve organ aton
of ndvdua sectons of the country. The nscrptons
speak of provnces, but t remans a matter of debate
whether or not ths word carred the same meanng as t
dd n gypt. e know that a son of Pye had been a
Prnce/Governor of anda (a pace whose precse
ocaton s unknown). f the two rebeous saves n
ower Nuba who were fought by arsyotef (see p. 80),
at east one bore a Merotc name. e may assume that
they hed postons correspondng to that of hgh-eve
cv servants of ths area n ater Merotc tmes
(see p. 102).
f the prests, we know ony those groups actve n
the great centers of the offca cuts. They were dvded
nto those ranks that were customary n gypt. A te t
from the Tempe of anam ( tea ouvre C 257) mentons
a second, thrd, and fourth servant of god (hgh prest).
The offce of the frst servant of god s not mentoned, and
perhaps the kng hmsef was regarded as the hoder of
ths offce. A scrbe of the word of god, seven waft-
prests (who saw to the everyday cut observances), three
superntendents (who were perhaps entrusted wth the
admnstraton of tempe property), and a tempe scrbe
are aso sted n the ouvre te t.
Many women beonged to the tempe personne. In
each of the tempes of Napata, anam, awa, and Tebo,
Anaman (Gen. 9) created the poston of sstrum
payer, an offce whch he dspensed to hs ssters ( tea
Copenhagen NCG 1709). ne of these ssters became the
wfe of Aspeta, and when Aspeta ater became kng, he
transferred her offce by decree to another sster ( tea
ouvre C 257). In genera, the soveregn appears to have
had the freedom and the power to estabsh and dspose of
presty offces. It s reported on the stea of an unknown
kng, probaby st beongng to ynasty (Caro
48865), that he removed two presty fames from ther
offces because they had made a murderous attempt on
the fe of a person who had not commtted a crme. If the
kng was present at a tempe, especay durng hs
coronaton ourney, t was he who conducted the regous
festvas and carred the cut mage of the dety n
processon (Inscrpton of Irke-Amanote, awa I ).
n the bass of the nscrptons, no subordnaton of
the kng to the presthood can be estabshed. As n gypt,
the soveregn hmsef was consdered to be the hghest
and, theoretcay, the ony prest and partner of the gods.
The temporary ascendancy of the presthood, whch has
been mentoned above, was probaby a resut of the cose
tes that e sted between the Napatan monarchy and the
state regon. It was probaby prests aone who possessed
knowedge of and provded counse n an deoogy that
was not necessary rooted n the peope tsef. nce
mastery of the gyptan anguage and, therefore, aso of
the regous terature was probaby mted to the prests,
t seems ust to assume that gyptans were members of
the presthood for a very ong tme. f the ffteen persons
sted as beongng to the Tempe of anam, four
possessed gyptan names.
e have aready noted the potca functon of the
army n the eecton of the kng. Ths functon s ony
comprehensbe, however, f we assume that the army was
not conscrpted from the entre kngdom but conssted,
rather, of abe-boded members of the trbe to whch the
dynasty tsef beonged. In other words, the mtary
force conssted of a trba army of Merotes. urng
ma or wars, ths army was doubtess suppemented by
contngents drawn from the rest of the popuaton,
partcuary durng the perod of ushte rue n gypt.
or e ampe, among the troops used by Pye durng hs
campagn were men who understood the new techn ue of
ayng sege and hs troops statoned n gypt were
subordnate to a Merotc as we as to an gyptan
genera (the atter, ncdentay, of byan descent). In the
nscrpton of ng Irke-Amanote at awa, we fnd the
roya army appearng as an entourage that accompanes
the kng on hs coronaton ourney and ons hm n
ceebratng the sacred festvas. There are severa
references to ths army as the partner of the kng t s
gven ths desgnaton n front of the frends, that s,
the courters.
The troops were dvded nto two groups, foot
soders and cavary. Ther weapons conssted of ances,
a es, and short swords. The bow, however, was the
typca Nuban weapon. Before the Mdde ngdom,
Nuban mercenares n gyptan servce were armed wth
bows ( scher 1961) and even much ater, n the
Mdde Ages, the archers of the centra Ne aey were
much feared because of ther marksmanshp. The
kng was endowed by Amun of awa wth bows and
arrows. ound or obong sheds served as protecton.
The thopans who fought n the armes of er es
wore panther or on skns and durng batte coored
ther bodes haf wth chak and haf wth red ead,
accordng to erodotus. ead protecton was evdenty
not customary.
urng the New ngdom, the ma orty of gyptan
tempes n Nuba were consecrated to the natona god
Amun. or ths reason, Amun aso occuped a
preemnent poston n the offca regon of the
ngdom of ush from ts very begnnng. The ushte
monarchy had conscousy attached tsef to the tradtons
of the gyptan kngs and had at frst restored former
gyptan centers of worshp. Amun was the god of the
kngs of ush ( tea of Aspeta, Caro 48866), and the
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The Merotc Perod
rt nt e
89
1 he second ma or perod of the ngdom of ush s
caed the Merotc Perod. It spans the years from about
300 B.C. to about a.d. 350 and s character ed by severa
dstnctve features.
Around 300 B.C. a seres of decsve changes took
pace. Among these, the transfer of the roya cemetery
from ts tradtona ste near Napata to a ste n the vcnty
of the capta, Meroe, shoud be mentoned frst because
of ts great hstorca sgnfcance, athough further
research s re ured to e pan the crcumstances that
underay ths event. oowng ths transfer, the Merotes
turned ther potca nterests more to the southern part
of the kngdom, partcuary to the regon of the sand of
Meroe, known today as the Butana. As a resut of
ths turn, Merotc eements entered the markedy
gyptan ed offca cuture of the state and court, n
other words, of the rung cass. n the bass of our
present knowedge, we are unabe to determne whether
or not any fundamenta changes n soca structure took
pace n eary Merotc tmes whch woud dstngush ths
perod from the Napatan Perod. The roe of the rung
famy, together wth the transmsson of offces through
the materna ne, becomes ceary vsbe ony at a ater
date, above a n ower Nuba. That these phenomena
appear at a ater date, however, may be due merey to the
fact that there are more ater sources avaabe to us.
th regard to agrcuture, catte breedng becomes
ncreasngy mportant. cavatons n the cty of Meroe
have shown that sma anmas, such as sheep and
goats, were graduay repaced by catte as the bass of
nourshment. The many representatons of catte,
for e ampe those n the Tempe of Apedemak at
Musawwarat es- ufra ( g. 60), pcture a powerfu and
we-cared-for breed such as permts us to surmse that a
form of actua catte breedng had taken the pace of mere
catte herdng. The anmas are pctured wearng wde
neckaces, probaby made of eather, from whch bes are
hung. They evdenty en oyed great prestge and must
have payed an mportant roe n the tempe cut.
It can scarcey be doubted that the Merotes were
famar wth the art of tamng Afrcan eephants and that
they used these anmas n mtary campagns ( g. 61).
hether or not ths custom can be traced back to the
Ptoemes and therefore ndrecty to Indan nfuence s a
matter of debate. The eephant had great sgnfcance n
Meroe, partcuary n Musawwarat es- ufra, where t
was fre uenty represented n reef and scupture. It was
aso featured as an archtectura eement n tempe desgn,
scuptured eephants functonng as coumn bases ( o.
II, g. 38). That the eephant payed a part n cut
ceremones s cear, but the orgn of ths roe and ts
sgnfcance are st argey unknown. In any event, we see
here an mportant Merotc characterstc that dd not
appear unt after 300 B.C.
To cope wth the speca cmatc condtons of the
area, an e tensve system of reservors (hafrs) was
deveoped to factate both catte herdng and, to a
certan e tent, the cutvaton of feds away from the Ne
aey n the Butana. These basn-shaped hafrs were
constructed by e cavatng the earth and png t up n an
amost crcuar embankment wth an ntake, so that
durng the seasona rans the waters coud stream nto the
reservor from the greatest possbe dranage area. ome
of the hafrs were ute arge and certany re ured the
organ aton of a consderabe number of workers for
ther constructon and mantenance. The arge hafr of
Musawwarat es- ufra, for e ampe, has a dameter of
about 250 meters and a depth at the center of about 15
meters. urng ts constructon, appro matey 250,000
cubc meters of earth were rased ( g. 62).
The vcnty of Meroe was suted to ron producton.
Iron ore n the form of an ron-rch sandstone was
abundant, and there was evdenty suffcent wood
avaabe durng the Merotc Perod to keep the forges
operatng. Iron producton on a arge scae may go as far
back as eary Merotc tmes. Impements made of ron
may have been empoyed n agrcuture, and ron toos
were certany used n the uarres and n constructon,
for many chses of wdey varyng shapes have been
found. Iron nas as we as fttngs for doors and
chests aso occur and weapons, too, were made of
ron, partcuary spearheads and swords, athough
tradtona bron e and carnean were st used to
fashon arrowheads.
Mnor arts, especay the art of the godsmth,
contnued to deveop and reached a hgh eve of
achevement (Cats. 163-188 gs. 63,64). In ceramcs,
however, a sgnfcant change took pace at the begnnng
of the Merotc Perod: typca Napatan (brght red)
ceramcs dsappeared competey. In ther pace, there
appeared n roya buras at Meroe at about 300 B.C. a new
back poshed ware whch can be regarded as typca of
the Merotc south.
The ngdom of ush partcpated ony ndrecty n
the great word trade that deveoped n gypt durng
Ptoemac tmes. Internatona trade dd not pass through
Meroe, whch ay to the sde of the two man trade routes
connectng gypt wth the ar ast: the overand
route that traversed Araba, and the overseas route,
ncreasngy used n ater tmes, that ed across the ed
ea. owever, drect trade wth Meroe was mportant for
gypt, and so was the trade wth centra Afrcan states
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94 Athough t has been argued that Merotc wrtng
mtated a Greek mode, t s precsey n ts method of
vowe notaton that Merotc dffers fundamentay from
Greek. Merotc scrpt s a syabc system, n whch every
symbo represents a consonant pus the vowe a, e cept
when foowed by another symbo ndcatng the vowe / , o,
or e. A symbo for the vowe a tsef appears ony at the
begnnng of a word. or the syabes ne, se, te, and to,
there are separate symbos. If a consonant acks a vowe
atogether, ths ack s represented by an e the sgn e
therefore has a dua usage. In ts use of a symbo to
separate words, Merotc scrpt s not ony dstngushed
from but superor to the Greek. The Merotc system of
wrtng s strkngy smar to the od Persan cuneform
scrpt, both n ts manner of notatng vowes and n ts
method of word separaton. e do not know whether
these smartes are merey concdenta.
rom the second century B.C. on, the Merotc
anguage, whch had formery been ony a spoken tongue
n ush, was empoyed amost e cusvey as the wrtten
anguage as we. nce there are, unfortunatey, no
bngua nscrptons to provde us wth access to
Merotc, we understand very tte of the anguage. e
have been abe to read the Merotc scrpt wthout
dffcuty ever snce t was frst decphered by . I. Grffth
(1911a), but we do not know the meanng of what we read,
e cept n the case of a very few words and phrases. As a
resut, the numerous Merotc nscrptons n our
possesson can be used ony to a mted e tent n makng
hstorca nterpretatons. Merotc s not a amto-
emtc ( Afro-Asatc ) anguage and therefore s not
reated to d gyptan. arous attempts have been
made to nk Merotc wth one of the other we-known
groups of Afrcan anguages, for f such knshp coud be
proved t woud be of sgnfcant ad n decodng the
ancent anguage. Unfortunatey, these efforts have not
yet produced acceptabe resuts.
The hstory of the Merotc Perod of the ngdom of
ush can be dvded nto the foowng man stages: A
transtona stage (from 310 to 270 B.C.) between the
Napatan Perod and the Merotc Perod s foowed by
the eary Merotc Perod (from 270 to 90 B.C.) the mdde
Merotc Perod (from 90 B.C. to the threshod of the
Chrstan ra) and the ate Merotc Perod (from the
threshod of the Chrstan ra to appro matey a.d. 350).
T T AN ITI NA TAG
ng Nastasen (335-315 B.C., Gen 27) was the ast
ruer to be bured at Nur. After hs nterment, the roya
cemetery was transferred to the opposte bank of the Ne,
at Gebe Barka, whch the gyptans as we as the
ushtes caed the oy Mountan, and at the foot of
whch ay the Great Tempe of Amun. or at east three
generatons, the roya cemetery remaned at Gebe
Barka, n the vcnty of the Great Tempe. Athough
roya pyramds (Bar. 11,14,15) that are defntey of ths
perod have been ocated there, nscrptons of severa
ruers datng from appro matey the same tme
have aso been found at awa. These nscrptons are
poory preserved, however, and therefore argey
ncomprehensbe. Nevertheess, we do know that they
refer to tempe constructon and be uests for sacrfces.
The ruers who were nterred n the pyramd group at
Gebe Barka were prevousy cassfed by schoars as
beongng to a rst Merotc Co- ynasty n Napata. It
was assumed that the ngdom of ush was at ths tme
dvded nto a northern (Napatan) terrtory wth ts
capta at Napata and a southern (Merotc) terrtory wth
ts captaat Meroe. Macadam(n unham 1957) was the
frst to oppose ths vew, whch dates back to esner
(1923d). Macadam s beef that a rst Merotc Co-
ynasty n Napata dd not e st but that the ruers bured
at Gebe Barka are to be paced wthn the man ne
of the kngs of ush s graduay begnnng to gan
genera acceptance.
e shoud probaby consder the era of these eary
ruers to be a perod of transton between the Napatan
and the Merotc Perods n the hstory of ush for, n
spte of the paucty of materas avaabe to us, a few
dstnctve features ndcatng a tme of transton are
ceary dscernbe. Among these features s a greater
emphass upon Amun of Napata as a tradtona state
god. In addton, there s an unmstakabe mtaton of the
gyptan amessde Perod, durng whch the theocracy
of Amun had ndeed payed a speca roe n Upper gypt.
The throne names of the kngs, whch fre uenty e press
a potca program, were modeed upon those of
amessde ruers, or made reference to Napata. Thus
abrakaman (Gen. 32), for e ampe, cas hmsef the
one who (as kng) has appeared n Napata, as dd Pye
(Gen. 2) and arsyotef (Gen. 23) before hm. The
desgnaton on of Amun s used nstead of the usua
roya tte on of a. In ther cartouches, a the ruers
of ths perod add to ther own names the epthet Beoved
of Amun. The festve garments of Aryaman (Gen. 29),
as represented on hs stea from Tempe A at awa
(Copenhagen NCG 1708), are very remnscent of the
roya robes of the amessde Perod. Therefore,
Macadam (1955,21) caed ths transtona tme the
Neo- amessde Perod.
e are probaby correct n assumng a common
cause for the strkng return to amessde tradtons, the
ncreased mportance of the god Amun, and the transfer
of the roya cemetery to the mmedate vcnty of the
Great Tempe of Amun at Gebe Barka (Tempe B 500).
Ths cause was the ncreased nfuence of the Amun
presthood, whose power base was probaby the orace.
T A Y M ITIC P I (270-90 B.C.)
The phase durng whch the nfuence of the prests of
Amun was ostensby strengthened came to an end wth
an mportant and decsve event: the transfer of the roya
cemetery southward to the capta, Meroe, whch aready
n the Napatan Perod had been the pace of resdence of
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96
I 1 I
0 10 20cm
g. 69. rawng of ng Arnekhaman (235-218 B.c.), from
the outsde south wa of the Apedemak Tempe at Musawwarat
es- ufra.
decorated wth frnges, and the scepter are not gyptan
but Merotc ( g. 69 Cats. 135, 137). The prncpa gods
of ths tempe are aso Merotc gods: the on-headed
Apedemak. a war god and protectve dety ( g. 70 Cat.
121), and the human-headed ebumeker, a god of peace
and of creaton.
Under Arnekhaman s son ( ) and successor,
Ar aman ( rgamenes II, 218-200 B.C., Gen. 37), who
was bured n Pyramd Beg. N. 7, good reatons wth
Ptoemac gypt evdenty perssted. Ar aman oned
wth Ptoemy I n budng tempes n Phae and n the
Tweve-Me trp ( odekashonos). At Phae, bocks
beongng to rgamenes II form part of the southern
encosure of the Tempe of Arensnuphs but by Ptoemy
I at akka, a chape begun by rgamenes II was
e tended by Ptoemy I , and bocks bearng hs name
were aso found at aabsha.
The reefs and nscrptons of these constructons n
ower Nuba are competey gyptan n stye. ng
Adkhaaman (200-190 B.C., Gen. 38), who was probaby
the successor of rgamenes II, caused a chape of Iss to
be erected at abod. In one of ts nscrptons, he terms
hmsef Beoved of Apedemak.
The terrtory ust referred to as the odekashonos
e tended 120 kometers south from yene (Aswan) to
era ycamnos (Maharra a). It had been sub ect
to gyptan admnstraton snce at east the s th
century B.C. and was oned to what was then gypt s
southernmost provnce as a border one. Phae, wth ts
cut of Iss, was the regous center of ths terrtory. The
Tweve-Me trp had great commerca mportance, for
t guarded the access to the mportant god mnes of ad
e Aa n the astern esert. The fact that Merotc
ruers undertook budng programs n ths border area
can ony be nterpreted as an e presson of the markedy
frendy reatons that e sted between the Merotes and
the Ptoemes.
These frendy reatons, however, suffered a serous
decne under Ptoemy (205-180 B.C.). Ths kng had
been compeed to put down rebeons n Upper gypt
unt the twenty-frst year of hs regn, and t s atogether
possbe that the rebes were supported by the
Merotes. In any event, Ptoemy , after suppressng
these rebeons, panned a campagn aganst ush,
athough hs undertakng never came to fruton. The
varous names of rgamenes II nscrbed at Phae were
nevertheess chseed away n accordance wth a common
practce n gypt, and utmatey the Ptoemac sphere of
nfuence was e tended past the Tweve-Me trp nto a
regon caed the Thrty-Me trp (Trakontashonos)
and reached the northern end of the econd Cataract.
Ptoemy I (180-145 B.C.) estabshed permanent
settements near akka and probaby aso near Buhen.
Ptoemy III (145-116 B.C.) embarked upon ntensve
constructon pro ects at aabsha. The name of ueen
hanakdakhete (170-150 B.C., Gen. 41, bured n Pyramd
Beg. N. 11) appears n Merotc herogyphs on a tempe
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100 eft to the Merotes, t was nevertheess decared a oman
protectorate, whch thus secured oman access to the
god mnes of ad e Aa . After the sucde of hs
predecessor n the year 26/25 B.C., Aeus Gaus, the
second oman prefect, was gven the speca msson of
con uerng Araba and thopa (that s, the ngdom
of ush), n order to brng the trade routes from Inda and
centra Afrca under oman contro. But whe the
prefect was carryng out the frst of these mssons, a
mtary campagn aganst Araba n 25 B.C., the Merotes
advanced northward and con uered Phae, Aswan, and
ephantne n the year 24 b.C. They defeated the three
oman cohorts statoned n ths dstrct, pundered
Aswan, and carred off the statues of Augustus that had
been paced there. A bron e head of Augustus
( ondon BM 1911.9-1.1 g. 73), found n Meroe, s
generay regarded as booty taken durng ths campagn.
Nevertheess, the Merotes were drven out of Aswan
n the same year by C. Petronus, who now hed the offce
of oman prefect n gypt. Accordng to a detaed report
made by the Greek geographer trabo (17. 53-54), the
oman troops advanced far to the south and fnay
reached Napata. Athough they wthdrew agan to the
north, they eft behnd a garrson n asr Ibrm (Prms),
where the southern border of the oman mpre now ay.
hen the Merotes made a renewed attempt to se e
Prms, Petronus was abe to foresta ther efforts.
oowng ths event, negotatons were begun between
the omans and the Merotes. The atter sent medators
to Augustus, who was then n amos, and n the year
21/20 B.C. a peace treaty was concuded whch was
strkngy favorabe to the Merotes: the southern part of
the Thrty-Me trp, ncudng Prms, was evacuated by
the omans, and the Merotes were e empted from
havng to pay trbute. n the other hand, the omans
contnued to occupy the odekashonos as a mtary
border one, so the fronter now ay near ere
ycamnos (Maharra a). Ths arrangement contnued
unt the end of the thrd century a.d., the reatons
between Meroe and oman gypt remanng generay
peacefu durng ths tme. ny the mperor Nero (a.d.
54-68) n around a.d. 64 panned a campagn aganst
Meroe, but hs pans were never e ecuted. In order to
reconnoter the and, Nero had sent out two e pedtons
to nvestgate the sources of the Ne e tracts from ther
reports have been preserved by eneca (Nat. uaest. 6.8.3)
and Pny (Nat. st. 6. 29 see aso nt e 1959, 28).
The kandake aganst whom Petronus was
compeed to fght s generay assumed to have been
ueen Amanrenas. he and Prnce Akndad eft behnd
n Meroe two arge steae bearng Merotc nscrptons,
one of whch s now n ondon (BM 1550). They aso eft
some nscrptons at akka, as mentoned above.
Another stea bearng Akndad s name was recenty
e cavated at asr Ibrm ( ondon BM ). It names
Akndad together wth ueen Amanshakheto (Gen.
52), who was probaby the successor of Amanrenas.
Athough we are unabe to comprehend the content of
these nscrptons n deta, ther e stence nevertheess
provdes us wth new evdence to prove that Prnce
Akndad was ntmatey connected wth ower
Nuba. e s the ony person known to have borne
smutaneousy the two hgh ttes of pa or, prnce, and
pesato, vceroy (of ower Nuba).
T AT M ITIC P I
( M T B GINNING T C I TIAN A T
APP IMAT Y a.d. 320)
The ate Merotc Perod asted appro matey three
and one haf centures and began wth ng Natakaman
(0-a.d. 20, Gen 53, Beg. N. 22), who was probaby the
successor of ueen Amanshakheto. ery few decsve
changes are observabe wthn ths perod tsef. n
the bass of ther archaeoogca characterstcs, we are
ute famar wth the se uenta order of the kngs
pyramds, whch provde us wth what nformaton we
have concernng the reatve chronoogy of the perod.
Unfortunatey, however, there are very few dates of
absoute certanty.
Natakaman ntroduced a new, smaer-s e pyramd
as we as a new knd of chape decoraton, and both of hs
nnovatons became modes for the entre perod. s
regn saw radca changes aso n other areas, especay n
the ream of art ( eng 1964 1973a). It s partcuary
strkng that Natakaman once agan empoyed gyptan
herogyphc wrtng, n addton to Merotc scrpt.
urng hs regn, many state-sponsored budng pro ects
were undertaken. New tempes or e tensve renovatons
of aready e stng tempes, whch were carred out n
Natakaman s name, have been dentfed as Na a ( o.
II, gs. 49-50), ad Ban Na a, Meroe, Napata, Tebo,
and Amara. A stand for the sacred bark whch the kng
be ueathed or donated to the Tempe of Iss n ad Ban
Na a (Bern/ 7261 g. 74) contans hs name and
that of andake Amantore n gyptan and aso n
Merotc herogyphs. Ths bngua nscrpton has
served as a pont of departure for the decpherment of
Merotc scrpt.
horkaror (Gen. 54), a son of Natakaman, eft
behnd a monument at Gebe e whch s noteworthy
both for the hstory of art and for the hstory of cutura
deveopment. Ths monument, a representaton of vctory
carved nto the grante cffs ( o. II, g. 58), shows
the god eos, depcted n the eenstc manner,
presentng a bunde of durra to the kng. Ths s the odest
representaton of durra known to us.
Gven the sparsty of survvng monuments, we are
forced to concude that the summt of power acheved by
Natakaman coud not be mantaned n the perod that
foowed hs regn. Under hs successors, there were
nether e tensve budng programs nor much actvty n
foregn pocy. e know amost nothng about the
hstorca events of hs era, whch s generay regarded as
markng the decne and fa of the Merotc kngdom. o
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The numerous prests were Merotes, but the hghest
presty tte was annata, a term derved from gyptan.
There are, however, many other presty ttes whch are
Merotc. The most fre uenty mentoned groups are the
prests of Amun and the prests of the god Amanapa, who
was perhaps the Amun of Napata. Prests of the god
Mash are aso mentoned. The name of ths god, who s
known ony n ower Nuba, has been assocated wth the
Nuban words masha or mas, whch means sun. It s
strkng that the prests of Iss are hardy ever mentoned.
There s, moreover, ony a snge reference to the god
Apedemak, whose mportance n Meroe was very great.
The one menton of a prest of ths dvnty s found on a
stea from Armnna (Trgger 1970,27).
Both tempora and sacred offces were hed by
members of a few great Merotc fames and nherted
through the materna ne. Indeed, the entre
admnstraton appears to have rested n the hands of a
reatvey sma number of Merotc fames, who
possessed ancestra seats n a very mted number of
ocates. The masses of the peope, however, seem to
have been of non-Merotc, perhaps Nuban, descent and
had no share n the admnstraton of the country.
ow strong the tes were between the great fames
of prests and offcas and ther Merotc homeand n the
south remans a debatabe pont. owever, t woud be
gong too far to regard the ower Nuban north, de facto,
as an ndependent regon. In ther funerary nscrptons,
the members of the great fames of ower Nuba pace
partcuar stress upon ther reatonshp to hgh offcas
or prests n Napata and Meroe, especay to the pa ar
(prnce). The atter resded e cusvey n Meroe and
was hgher n rank than the pesato (vceroy). Moreover,
Napata and Meroe are mentoned ust as fre uenty n
ower Nuban grave nscrptons as are such ower
Nuban ocates as aras, Prms, or Akn.
e have no nformaton regardng any speca roe
payed by the cut of the goddess Iss n Merotc ower
Nuba. n the other hand, we possess consderabe
evdence for the mportance of that cut on the Isand of
Phae, near Aswan. There, gyptans, omans, Nubans,
Bemmyes, and Merotes oned n worshppng the
goddess Iss, whose cut had become a word regon.
Phae thus became an mportant meetng pace for
peopes and cutures, and numerous nscrptons eft by
pgrms and egatons provde a good dea of the
sgnfcance of the cut. evera nscrptons of Merotc
pgrms are composed n the gyptan (demotc)
anguage. These nscrptons ceary revea that Merotc
partcpaton n the cut of Iss on Phae was sponsored
by the kngs of Meroe. The foowng e tract taken from
one of these nscrptons may hep to carfy ths pont:
The obesance of Pasan ... the oren-akrore
Merotc tte for a court offca of the kng, the great
envoy of ome, here before Iss of Phae ... the
great goddess . . . the mstress of the south, the
north, the east, and the west, hearer of pettons of
them that are far off. Year 2,1 came to gypt havng
sung a song of trumph upon ths desert, through the
work of Iss, the great goddess, for she heard our
prayers and brought us safe to gypt. I came to
gypt and performed the udgments ( ) whch my
master had commanded me ... e commanded the
kng s son and the orens of Iss to come to gypt
wth me unt we performed the festvas and the
ban uets whch were hed n the tempe of Iss and
the entre ct y ... Pharmuthy day 1 ebruary 25 ,
Abrato the kng s son came to Phae and we made
hoday wth hm n the tempe of Iss. e brought a
vase of god whch Te erdeaman sent to the tempe
of Iss, amountng to 314 pounds . . , Iss ... my
mstress . . . hearken thou unto us ... my heart
hangeth upon thee n gypt, n Meroe, and n the
deserts . . . Conduct us safe to Meroe the beautfu
cty of thy beoved son Te erdeaman, the kng our
master . . . rtten n Year 3 of Autocrator Caesar
Gaus bus Trebonanus Caus . . . Pharmuthy
day 15 Apr 10, a. d. 253 .
As yet we know of no tempe constructons n ower
Nuba author ed by Merotc kngs after rgamenes II
(Gen. 37) and Adkhaaman (Gen. 38). owever,
state-sponsored constructons seem to have been
few durng ths perod, even n the centra Merotc
terrtores of the south. A statue of a on bearng the
name of Yesbokheaman (Gen. 74), wrtten n Merotc
herogyphs and datng from the end of the Merotc
Perod, was found at asr Ibrm. Ths same kng aso
eft two nscrptons at Phae, and may ndeed have
partcpated n a pgrmage to that pace. A arge
deegaton of Merotc dgntares, who are represented n
the so-caed Merotc Chamber at Phae, had been
commssoned by one of the ast of the Merotc kngs
to trave to Phae bearng gfts for Iss. A of ths
demonstrates that the kngs of Meroe had mantaned
ther nterest n ower Nuba and asserted ther rghts
there unt the end of the Merotc kngdom. Trade as we
as agrcuture was an mportant economc eement n the
fe of ower Nuba. The trade wth Inda, whch was vta
to Ptoemac and oman gypt and reached ts hgh pont
under the mperor Commodus (a.d. 180-192), had
probaby not passed through Meroe, for, as mentoned
above, the trade routes from the ast ncreasngy ed
across Araba and the ed ea drecty to gypt. But
trade wth centra Afrca, athough somewhat ess
mportant, dd nvove Nuba and Meroe to a great
degree. ven though we may assume that foregn trade
was a roya monopoy n the Merotc kngdom, t s
certan that the genera popuaton of ower Nuba aso
profted from t. It s possbe that those Merotc offcas
bearng the tte apote, who were so numerous n ower
Nuba, had tte to do wth dpomatc servce but rather
represented the kng n actvtes reatng to trade. It was
precsey the cose trade reatons between Meroe and
gypt, va ower Nuba, that ed to the consderabe
103
Chapter 6 The ngdom of ush:
The Merotc Perod
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Graeco- oman nfuence, especay apparent n
the northern part of the kngdom. uch nfuence s
partcuary evdent n ceramcs (Cat. 231). That t aso
affected the roya court of Meroe s ceary demonstrated
by numerous fnds from roya tombs and from the cty of
Meroe tsef (Cats. 161,215 o. II, gs. 61,62,66-68).
T N T M ITIC P I
The causes of the decne of the Merotc kngdom
are st argey unknown. Among the varous factors that
have been put forth are ncreasng so eroson caused by
overgra ng, whch brought catte breedng to a hat
e cessve consumpton of wood for the e pandng
producton of ron and the abandonment of trade routes
aong the Ne n favor of coasta routes aong the ed
ea, whch ed to the economc soaton of Meroe. ne
can aso assume that the strength of the Merotc kngdom
was graduay e hausted by constant battes wth nomads
on both sdes of the Ne aey, and partcuary wth
the nomads of the eastern steppes and the ed ea
mountans. e are st not competey cear about the
roe payed n Meroe and ower Nuba by the Bemmyes,
the ancestors of today s Be a, who ved between the Ne
and the ed ea. It has been hstorcay verfed,
however, that Upper gypt was constanty and serousy
threatened by ths trbe.
Perhaps a of these crcumstances, together wth
other unknown soco-economc changes, ed to the end of
the ngdom of Meroe n the frst haf of the fourth
century a. d. It has been assumed that ana, kng of the
e pandng ream of A um n northern Abyssna,
con uered the capta of Meroe around a.d. 350 and
thereby brought about the fna destructon of the
Merotc kngdom. owever, no such concuson can be
drawn from the now famous nscrpton of A um, n
whch ana gves an account of hs campagn ( nt e
1967), athough that nscrpton provdes mportant cues
to ethnc and potca condtons n the Ne aey
around the mdde of the fourth century.
Gven the nformaton that we have, we can probaby
pace the date of the end of the Merotc kngdom at some
tme n the frst haf of the fourth century. Ths by no
means sgnfes the end of Merotc cuture, whose
nfuence ved on n manfod forms. Nor does the end of
the kngdom sgnfy the end of the Merotc peope, for
they, too, contnued to e st, abet under new and
changed crcumstances.
105
Chapter 6
The ngdom of ush:
The Merotc Perod
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Tor over two centures, the Merotc kngdom
remaned outsde the borders of the oman mpre
but economcay ted to t. The decne of the two states
was partay nterreated, athough (as so often happens)
the weaker and more perphera state was affected
sooner and more severey. By a.d. 350, the Merotc
heartand had faen nto a proonged dark age ( rwan
1963 mery 1965,232-47 Trgger 1965,131-46 Adams
1977, chaps. 13-14).
T C IN M
Because of ack of nformaton, one can ony
specuate about any nterna dsruptons or deoogca
chaenges that may have contrbuted to the
dsntegraton of the Merotc state. The deveopment of
trade routes aong the ed ea seems, n part, to account
for the economc and cutura decne of the core of the
Merotc kngdom, whch began n the frst century of the
Chrstan ra. Merotc trade wth the oman mpre
was dsrupted further by the Bemmyes, ancestors of the
modern Cushtc-speakng Be a of the astern esert
of the udan. Pror to the second century a.d., the
Bemmyes were noffensve catte herders, restrcted to the
moster and more southery parts of the astern esert.
hen they obtaned cames, perhaps from traders who
used them to py the desert routes between Upper gypt
and the ed ea harbors of Berence and Myus ormus
n Ptoemac tmes, they were abe to range more wdey
and evoved as bedoun-stye raders (Trgger 1965,131
euner 1963,353). As oman power ebbed, these raders
began to attack Upper gypt and the northern part of
ower Nuba. It was ther ncursons that prompted the
oman mperor ocetan, near the end of the thrd
century a.d., to wthdraw the oman fronter northward
from Maharra a, n centra ower Nuba, to Aswan,
thereby apparenty surrenderng a of ower Nuba to
nomna Merotc contro.
ar more serous for the Merotes was the growng
menace of the ngdom of A um, whch arose from a
cv aton of southwest Araban affnty that had
estabshed tsef n the thopan hghands durng the
frst mennum B.C. By the frst century a. ., the
A umtes were payng a key roe n the vory trade, and n
ater centures they obtaned emerads and god from
what probaby had once been a Merotc sphere of
nfuence. The gra ng and of the Butana, whch es
between the Atbara ver and the Bue Ne, seems to
have been a theater of confct between these two Afrcan
powers. A fragmentary Greek nscrpton from Meroe
may document an A umte capture of the cty pror to the
better documented campagn of the A umte ng ana
n that regon about a.d. 350 ( rwan 1960 nt e 1967).
T TAN A I CU TU
Pror to ana s campagn, a Nuban-speakng
peope caed the Noba had nvaded and partay
occuped some portons of the Ne aey n the northern

udan. These peope are not to be confused wth the

modern Nuba of the southwestern udan, whose
anguages beong to the Nger- ordofanan stock. The
orgna homeand of the Noba was n the savanna
country west of the Ne, where Cassca geographers
reported them to be vng eary n the Chrstan ra. As
catte pastorasts, they must have posed a contnung
threat to the setted peopes of the Ne aey. Ther
rrupton nto the Merotc heartand was probaby the
resut rather than a cause of Merotc decadence. At the
tme of ana s nvason, the Noba were vng n
settements of reed huts and n brck towns that they
probaby had captured from the Merotes. They dd
nothng, however, to mantan these admnstratve
centers, whch soon fe nto runs. Thus, the Noba
nvasons marked the end not ony of Merotc cass-
structured socety but aso of ther monumenta art and
archtecture, state regon, and teracy (cf. T rok 1974).
The Merotc anguage and ethnc dentty were aso to
dsappear n the Nuban aton of the mdde part of the
Ne aey that took pace after a.d. 350. o compete
was the dark age that descended upon the Merotc
heartand between a.d. 350 and 550 that no hstorca
records are avaabe from that perod.
The archaeoogy of Upper Nuba s nade uatey
known for ths perod, athough the Noba are tentatvey
assocated wth the st poory defned Tan as cuture.
Thousands of bura mounds that have been attrbuted to
ths cuture are found n varous cemeteres ocated aong
the edge of the desert from ennar northward to the
vcnty of Gebe Barka. These mounds are of varyng
s es, but the argest occur near hend and at Tan as,
across the rver from urru ( hnne 1954 Chttck
1957b). The argest of the hend tumu are thrty to forty
meters n dameter, and fve of them are ocated wthn
eptca encosures surrounded by rough stone was.
ma mounds of ths type have been found n the
post-Merotc cemeteres at Meroe (Garstang 1911).
The dstrbuton of these mound graves corresponds
appro matey wth that of Aoa ware, a ceramc
product that resembes earer handmade pottery from
Nuba and has cose affntes wth pottery that s
st beng manufactured n the centra udan (Bentey
Crowfoot 1924).
Athough the argest mounds ndcate the power of
Noba eaders to command abor servces, the contents of
the few that have been e cavated suggest soaton and
poverty. Under one of the argest tumu at Tan as,
hnne found ony a sma grave contanng a snge
skeeton, four Aoa ware pots, a number of beads, and
two sver rngs. As Adams (1977, chap. 13) has ponted
out, the vaue of these goods compares unfavoraby wth
those occurrng n ute ordnary buras of the same
perod n ower Nuba. The graves suggest that for some
tme foowng the coapse of the Merotc kngdom, ts
heartand was occuped by sef-suffcent trba socetes
that had few, f any, tradng nks wth the north.
107
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110 become rare whe nche graves were far more fre uent
( gs. 79,80). A new ethnc stran may account for the
fe ed postures of some buras, whch now occurred n
cemeteres aongsde the e tended Merotc stye of
bura, and for the southward, as opposed to westward,
orentaton of some bodes (Adams 1977, chap. 13).
Aternatvey, the contracted buras may smpy have
been an adaptaton to the constrcted space avaabe n
nche graves. he funerary offerngs contnued, they
were reduced n number and varety. Pottery and
weapons were common, but e cept for beads mported
goods were rare.
The mud-brck pyramds or mastabas and chapes
that had consttuted the superstructures of upper-cass
Merotc graves were o onger constructed, nor were
buras e upped wth steae, offerng tabes, Aa-statues,
or funerary te ts. hen graves of the Baana cuture
were dstngushed by superstructures, these nvaraby
took the form of an earth mound, sometmes covered wth
pebbes ( g. 81). Yet domestcated anmas and human
retaners were now nterred n upper-cass graves on a
more avsh scae than n Merotc tmes.
The Baana cuture was not unformy one of
mpovershment and deepenng barbarsm. ome arge-
scae ndustry and regona trade contnued. At the
begnnng of the Baana Perod, the Merotc potteres
went out of use and, for a tme, Nuba appears to have
been swamped by gyptan mports. ventuay, red ware
of ate oman desgn began to be manufactured at
ebera ast, a short dstance north of ad afa. Much
of ths pottery was an mtaton of oman terra sgata
ware, often dupcatng types that had been present n
Nuba as eary as the thrd century a.d. (Trgger
1965,133). Adams (1977, chap. 13) suggests that the
ebera kns may have been estabshed by mmgrant
potters from gypt and that they produced a of the fner
wares of the perod found throughout Nuba. uch
pottery crcuated n huge uanttes and was one of the
few uaty goods to be found n the average househod.
The handmade pottery that was manufactured n each
househod or vage contnued to adhere to the tradtons
of the Merotc Perod.
or the frst tme, heavy ob ects, such as spears,
swords, knves, saws, cookng utenss, and furnture,
were made of ron, athough the use of such tems
apparenty was restrcted many to the upper casses.
Backsmths too kts ndcate that ron was forged
ocay. Technoogca nnovatons, such as socketed
attachments, copy gyptan modes.
T BA ANA TAT
The archaeoogca evdence aso testfes to
marked varatons n soca status wthn the Baana
cuture. A few cemeteres contan much arger and
rcher tumu than are found esewhere. Most of these
cemeteres appear to be assocated wth centers of
regona admnstraton, whch may have been the seats
g. 78. Tentatve reconstructon of the estern Bu/dng at
Armnna est, but of mud, mud-brck, and rough stones,
Chrstan Perod, probaby s th to nnth century a. d.
(after Trgger 1967).
0 mettrs
g. 79. Prncpa tomb types from ustu and Baana.
Ca cave Co court Bp bura pt heavy ne brck
constructon snge-barbed arrow N ndcates north and
shows orentaton of each tomb doube-barbed arrow shows
sope of ramp eadng to tomb (after Trgger 1969a).
w Befr
ofnf
0 5 0 m
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r
f I
am MTII
g. 83. rawng of Tomb 3 at ustu, Baana Perod,
fourth to s th century a.d. (after mery rwan 1938).
Chapter 7 The Baana Cuture
and the Comng of Chrstanty
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and nether ostraca nor papyr are found n ordnary
house stes. The one monumenta nscrpton that can be
attrbuted to the ate Baana Perod, that of the Nuban
ng ko, was composed n barbarous Greek.
It has been camed that Merotc state budngs
at Gebe Adda, Menart, and perhaps Buhen were
destroyed deberatey durng the Baana Perod (Adams
1977, chap. 13). tone bocks removed from Merotc
monuments provded occasona budng eements for
the roya tombs at Baana and ustu. Athough both the
Nubans and the Bemmyes venerated the goddess Iss
suffcenty to take up arms to prevent the rededcaton of
her tempes at Phae as churches n the ffth century a.d.,
there s no evdence that the Baana monarchs reed
upon a specfc state regon to boster ther regme. he
they acknowedged the Merotc detes, they do not
appear to have sponsored avsh cuts for them (Adams
1977, chap. 13). Chrstan conography became
ncreasngy common throughout Nuba durng the ,
Baana Perod, not ony on ob ects mported from gypt
(Cat. 277), but aso on those that were manufactured
ocay. These ob ects may have been popuar merey as
tasmans of the state cut then prevang n gypt and do
not consttute proof that Chrstanty was wdespread n
Nuba at ths tme. Nevertheess, the speed and apparent
ease wth whch Chrstanty became the state regon of
Nuba n the mdde of the s th century suggests that at
east a favorabe predsposton toward t must have
become wdespread durng the Baana Perod (Adams
1965a, 172).
It s far from certan that the kngdom centered on
Baana and ustu was at a tmes coe tensve wth the
Baana cuture. Apparenty n the ffth century, ng
ko recorded severa mtary campagns aganst the
Bemmyes who were vng between asr Ibrm and
Aswan, and other campagns on the southern fronters of
hs kngdom. e compeed the oca ruers n these areas
to acknowedge hm as ther overord. In the tempe at
aabsha, a graffto represents hm n an e uestran pose
transf ng an enemy wth a ance ( rwan 1963, 75). In
oman fashon, he wears a short ma tunc and a cape
fyng from hs shouders. By contrast, the wnged ctory
hoverng above hm crowns hm not wth aure but wth a
Merotc roya dadem ( g. 86). he t s uncertan that
ko was one of the kngs bured at Baana or ustu, or
even that he beonged to the same dynasty, the core
of hs kngdom probaby ay n the formery Merotc
regon of ower Nuba.
The power of these monarchs appears to have
been based argey upon a mtary force that aowed
them to monopo e ucratve trade routes and to
e ert ther power throughout northern Nuba. or a the
e otc uster of the Baana cuture, ts government (or
governments) may have resembed that of the kashef, the
offca who controed ower Nuba n the eghteenth
century. The kashef and hs henchmen traveed through
ower Nuba on horseback, wrngng ta es from
the mpovershed vagers and, by a dspay of force,
assurng the atter s none-too-wng obedence
(Trgger 1965,141).
By the s th century a.d., the Baana state, whch
ko probaby had brought to ts ma mum e tent, was
known as the ngdom of Nobata. Its capta was at
aras, ony a few mes from Baana. Nobata, however,
was ony one of three Nuban kngdoms that by ths tme
had been consodated aong the mdde porton of the
Ne ver. outh of Nobata was Makura. tte s yet
known about the archaeoogy of ths kngdom. Its eary
ruers may have been bured at Tan as, athough, as
Adams (1977, chap. 14) suggests, the begnnngs of the
kngdom may e uay e beneath the runs of d
ongoa, whch was ts capta at a ater date. t farther
south was the ngdom of Awa, whose capta was at
oba, near hartoum.
T C I TIANI ING NUBIA
ary n the s th century, By antum concuded a
mtary and trade aance wth the ngdom of A um,
whch had been Chrstan snce the fourth century.
Aready n a.d. 524, the By antnes had promsed to
provde Bemmye and Nobadae recruts to support an
A umte nvason of the Yemen ( awar 1964). It
therefore seemed desrabe to the By antnes to convert
the Nuban kngdoms n order to confrm ther frendshp
and support. It was By antne pocy to convert pagan
peopes vng beyond the borders of the empre as a
means of promotng mpera securty. The fna cosng of
the Tempe of Iss at Phae about a.d. 540 was accepted by
the Nubans wthout ncdent.
The converson of Nuba was compcated by
the strugge wthn astern Chrstanty between
the yophyste doctrne approved by the mpera
government and the Monophyste doctrne that was the
focus of gyptan and yran opposton to the mpera
admnstraton. By antne chroncers cam that Nobata
was converted to Monophyste Chrstanty about a.d.
543 and Awa about 580, whe the ntervenng state of
Makura was converted to rthodo Chrstanty about
a.d. 570. The dfferng regous optons made by the
ruers of these ad acent Nuban states appear to refect
ther mutua hostty. No doubt each was seekng to forge
advantageous aances wth dfferent groups wthn the
By antne mpre ( rwan 1937).
The converson of Nuba not ony was a consderabe
advantage to ts ruers n ther foregn reatons but aso
strengthened ther nascent potes, much as converson to
Chrstanty strengthened the petty kngs of northern
urope at the same perod. Chrstanty provded these
ruers and ther sub ects wth a hghy dscpned
common bond of fath (Adams 1977, chap. 14). A terate
cergy, traned n church admnstraton, aso provded
the kngs wth more effectve machnery for governng
ther kngdoms than they had prevousy possessed.
teracy seems to have remaned, as n medeva urope,
117
Chapter 7 The Baana Cuture
and the Comng of Chrstanty
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ess than a century after the Chrstan aton of Nuba,
gypt tsef fe to the armes of Isam. The nvaders
prompty turned ther attenton toward the southern
country, but the same force that had subdued By antne
gypt was soundy repused by the Nubans. A second
nvason ten years ater, n a.d. 652, was e uay
unsuccessfu t was foowed by the concuson of a treaty
under whch the Nubans were permtted to retan ther
Chrstan fath and ther potca soveregnty n e change
for the payment of a sma annua trbute to the governor
of gypt. Ths nstrument actuay remaned n force for
more than s hundred years.
The Medeva Perod (often caed the Chrstan
Perod) represents the ast great fowerng of ndgenous -
cv aton n Nuba. Athough the medeva kngdoms
were not ute so far-fung as was the empre of ush n ts
heyday, they nevertheess remaned fmy ndependent of
foregn contro and at tmes e erted a consderabe
nfuence beyond ther own borders. After the Arab
con uest of gypt, the Nuban kngs procamed
themseves offca protectors of the gyptan Chrstan
(Coptc) church, much as the ussan c ars assumed the
protecton of the Greek rthodo church after the fa of
Constantnope. And n archtecture, terature, and the
decoratve arts, the creatve achevements of the medeva
Nubans were a match for those of any earer perod.
At the tme of Chrstan aton there were, accordng
to church hstorans, three ndependent kngdoms n
Nuba: Nobata n the north, Makura n the center, and
Awa n the south (see p. 117). Nobata seems to have
been absorbed by Makura at the begnnng of the eghth
century thereafter, the two formed a snge state
e tendng at east from the rst to the ourth Cataract of
the Ne ( g. 89). Its ruers dweed at ongoa, n the
southern part of the kngdom, whe ower Nuba was
under the speca ursdcton of a roya deputy, the
eparch. The terrtory of Awa ay far to the south of
Makura ts capta was at oba, not far from the
uncton of the Bue and the hte Nes.
The medeva Nuban kngdoms were vsted by an
gyptan envoy, Ibn em e Aswan, at the end of the
tenth century. e was very favoraby mpressed wth both
the peope and the country, whch he descrbed as
peacefu and prosperous, wth many fne churches and
monasteres. e know from other records that the kng of
Makura mantaned a fary eaborate court modeed
more or ess on that of By antum By antne ttes were n
genera use for cv offcas. owever, the ruers of Nuba
retaned one purey ndgenous custom from earer tmes:
the roya successon often passed from the kng to hs
sster s son rather than to hs own son.
egon was a pervasve force n Nuba as t
was throughout the medeva word. Its nfuence
s amost whoy predomnant n the terature, art,
and conography of the age. rgan atonay, the Nuban
church was smpy a part of the gyptan (Coptc)
church, and ts bshops were apponted by the Coptc
patrarch n Ae andra. Most of the bshops and cergy
were, however, Nubans rather than gyptans, and,
nterestngy enough, Greek rather than Coptc (the atest
form of the ancent gyptan anguage) was used n the
Nuban turgy. In the ater Mdde Ages, many regous
te ts aso empoyed the natve Nuban anguage, whch
was wrtten n a modfed verson of the Greek aphabet.
Accordng to eccesastca records, there were
thrteen epscopa sees n Nuba, though the ocaton of
some of them s obscure. e know, however, from
archaeoogca fnds that the bshops at such paces as
asr Ibrm, aras, and ongoa were possessed of
ute mposng cathedras, and that after death they
were bured n reatvey eaborate tombs. In addton to
cathedras, there were vage churches n every ma or
settement, and a consderabe number of monasteres.
ccesastca offcas, ke cv offcas, were desgnated
prmary by Greek ttes.
In archtecture as n turgy, the Nuban church
deveoped canons of ts own whch were ute dfferent
from those of gypt. The typca Nuban church was a
pan rectanguar budng wth a centra nave fanked by
ases of e ua wdth, the nave termnatng at ts eastern
end n a semcrcuar apse ( g. 90). The apse was,
however, conceaed wthn a rectanguar she of
masonry, and behnd t there often ran a narrow passage
connectng the sacrsty wth the baptstry at the eastern
corners of the budng. Ths feature s un ue to Nuban
churches. The earest churches were adorned prmary
wth carvngs n wood and stone (Cat. 289), but after
the eghth century the use of panted muras became
genera ( g. 91).
ragments of pantngs have been observed n over
ffty runed churches n Nuba, but ony n the rarest cases
most notaby n the mracuousy preserved cathedra
of aras have they been found n anythng ke
ntact condton ( g. 92). Those whch have survved are
among the endurng gores of Nuban art. Ther sub ects
ncude conventona scenes such as the Natvty and the
Crucf on, dea ed representatons of the oy
amy, archanges, and sants, and what are apparenty
actua portrats of Nuban kngs, eparchs (Cat. 293), and
bshops ( g. 93 Cat. 292). As wth so many aspects of
Nuban art, the church muras procam an obvous debt
to gyptan and Coptc nfuences, yet they have aso an
unmstakaby Nuban uaty, partcuary n ther use of
brant coors. In ths respect, they are comparabe to
Chrstan Nuban decorated pottery, whch fourshed at
the same perod and whch made use of some of the same
decoratve motfs.
In Nuba, as n many other paces, the regous sprt
of the eary Mdde Ages gave way n ater centures to a
secuar sprt of mtary feudasm. After the twefth
century, caste budng rather than church budng
became the chef preoccupaton of the Nubans churches
became smaer and more prmtve n each generaton
whe castes became arger and more eaborate. Ths
121
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122
G Y PIT
A AN
rst Cataract
NG A
200
300 km
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1 he potter s art has a very ong hstory n the udan, so
ong that one schoar has even suggested ts orgna
deveopment there. he ths dea has not been wdey
accepted by other archaeoogsts, t can at east be sad
that the udan s one of the very few areas of the gobe
where the makng of pottery actuay preceded the tng
of the so, between s and seven thousand years ago.
The earest udanese pottery, known ony from
scattered fragments found n prehstorc camp stes, was
made by Mesothc peopes who ved n the vcnty of
present-day hartoum. Ther vesses seem to have been
mosty arge open bows made from the ordnary red-
brown mud of the Ne food pan. They were not gven
any panted decoraton, but the e terors were usuay
embeshed wth fne wavy nes made wth some sort of
mutpe-toothed comb.
A few centures ater, n the hartoum Neothc
cuture, a number of ceramc nnovatons can be
observed. esses were now often gven a burnshed
fnsh by rubbng the surface wth a smooth pebbe,
and they were adorned wth dotted wavy nes
and other forms of ncsed or stamped decoraton ( o.
II, g. 2). An even more dstnctve nnovaton of the
hartoum Neothc s the frst appearance of back-
topped red poshed ware, whch was to have a very ong
subse uent hstory n Nuba and esewhere. These vesses
(neary a open bows) have a dark red e teror and
a shny back nteror, the back e tendng aso to the
outsde for a haf nch to an nch beow the rm. The red
was acheved by pantng the surface wth red ochre
before frng, whe the back seems to have been
mparted by pacng the vesse, drecty after frng, rm
downward n a mass of densey smokng matera such
as eaves or straw. No one knows when or where
ths techn ue frst deveoped at one tme or another, t
was characterstc of a great dea of the natve pottery of
northeastern Afrca, and was aso known as far away
as Inda. The hartoum Neothc potters aso made a
few vesses that were a back and a few that were
a red. The shapes, ke those of the precedng perod,
were mosty open bows.
Makers of hartoum Neothc pottery ved a over
the centra udan, and aso as far north as ower Nuba.
In ths atter area, they shared domnon wth another
Neothc peope, the Abkans, who made mosty pan red
pottery n ute a wde varety of shapes and s es.
emans of the Abkan peope have been found ony n the
mmedate pro mty of the Ne, and t s surmsed that
they ved prmary by fshng.
The ndgenous pottery ndustry of Nuba reay
came nto ts own n the A-group perod, begnnng
perhaps around 3500 B.C. A-group pottery shows many
resembances to the wares of Predynastc gypt, and n
fact t was once thought that the peope themseves were
mmgrants from gypt. Today we recogn e that A-
group pottery s derved n consderabe part from the
earer oca tradtons of the hartoum and Abkan
Neothc, athough gyptan nfuence s certany
aso recogn abe.
A-group pottery s much more abundant and aso
much more dversfed than are the wares of earer
perods. At ths tme the Nubans frst adopted the
practce of buryng arge uanttes of pottery wth ther
dead, and the archaeoogst may sometmes fnd as many
as a do en ntact vesses n a snge grave. They ncude
back poshed wares, red poshed wares, and back-
topped red poshed wares. The atter often have a
rpped fnsh produced by fney groovng the e teror
surface wth a pebbe ( g. 94) some vesses aso have
ncsed or punched decoraton remnscent of the
hartoum Neothc. owever, the fnest of a A-group
pottery, produced near the end of the perod, has
geometrc panted desgns n dark red on an orange
background (Cats. 6-8). These vesses usuay have a
burnshed back nteror and are character ed by
e tremey thn was. A-group pottery occurs n a varety
of bow and ar shapes, not nfre uenty wth ponted
bottoms and wth gracefuy ncurved rms.
In the thrd mennum B.C., the A-group was
repaced n ower Nuba by the C-group. Athough
there seems to be a hatus of severa hundred years
between the two occupatons (see Chapter 4), a hstorca
connecton between the A-group and the C-group pottery
ndustres s very evdent. A great dea of C-group pottery
conssts of back-topped red poshed bows not markedy
dstnct from those of the A-group. The sgnature
pottery of ths perod s, however, a shny back ware
covered wth ncsed geometrc patterns whch, after
frng, were fed wth chak to produce a whte-on-back
effect (Cats. 28,31, 33,39,40). ccasonay, red vesses
were gven the same treatment (Cats. 29, 30,32). Near the
end of the C-group perod, varous coored chaks were
used to produce mutcoored desgns (Cat. 38).
he the C-group was fourshng n ower Nuba, a
dstnct though probaby reated cuture arose at erma,
near the Thrd Cataract of the Ne. The erma peope dd
not make back ncsed vesses ther most characterstc
pottery s a back-topped red poshed ware whch they
made n dstnctve beaker forms (Cats. 61,67). erma
beakers are notabe for ther e tremey hard, thn was
from a purey technca standpont, they are probaby the
fnest e ampes of handmade pottery ever produced n the
udan. ther erma vesses ncude varous spouted
forms (Cats. 62-65), and a few very unusua vesses wth
poychrome panted decoraton (Cat. 68).
The Neothc, A-group, C-group, and erma
potters a shared a bascay prmtve technoogy,
unaded by the use of the potter s whee or of eaborate
kns. owever, the Nubans became famar wth whee-
made pottery as far back as A-group tmes, when they
began recevng a certan number of gyptan-made
vesses n trade (Cats. 5, 11). Thereafter, gyptan whee-
made vesses became commonpace n A-group, C-group,
and erma settements, though never present n very
127
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, Thrd Catarac
TUMBU
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TAN A I
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c
ub ect Bbography
Adams 1964b
Adams 1965a
Adams 1970
Adams 1977
Arke 1955b
Arke 1961
Beckerath 1971
Bbography 1939
Bbography 1962
Budge 1907
CA 1973
CA 1975
Curto 1965
C urto 1966
avdson 1972
nker 1970
unham 1958
mery 1965
Gadaah 1963
Gerster 1964
Greenberg 1966
nt e 1968a
ofmann 1967
Men 1976
Mchaowsk 1975
Murdock 1959
ave- oderbergh
1941
G N A
Adams, . Post-Pharaonc Nuba n ght of
Archaeoogy, 1. The ourna of gyptan
Archaeoogy 50 (1964), pp. 102-120.
Adams, . Post-Pharaonc Nuba n ght of
Archaeoogy, II. The ourna of gyptan
Archaeoogy 51 (1965), pp. 160-78.
Adams, . The vouton of Chrstan
Nuban Pottery. In: nker, ., ed., unst
unc Geschchte Nubens n chrstcher et,
pp. 111-28. ecknghausen, 1970.
Adams, . Nuba: Corrdor to Afrca.
ondon, 1977.
Arke, A. A story of the udan from the
arest Tmes to 1821. ondon, 1955.
Arke, A. A story of the udan from the
arest Tmes to 1821. 2d ed., rev. ondon,
1961.
Beckerath, . Abrss der Geschchte des aen
Agypten. Munch and enna, 1971.
, ., ed. A Bbography of the Ango-
gyptan udan from the arest Tmes to
1937. ford and ondon, 1939.
Nasr, A., ed. A Bbography of the udan,
1938-1958. ondon, 1962.
Budge, . The gyptan udan, Its story
and Monuments. 2 vos. ondon, 1907.
The story of the Mdde ast and the
Aegean egon c. 1800-1380 B.C. Cambrdge
Ancent story, vo. 2, part 1. Cambrdge,
1973.
The story of the Mdde ast and the
Aegean egon c. 1380-1000 B.C. Cambrdge
Ancent story, vo. 2, part 2. Cambrdge,
1975.
Curto, . Nuba: toradunacvtafavoosa.
Novara, 1965 .
Curto, . Nuben: Geschchte ener
ratsehaften utur. Munch, 1966 .
avdson, B. Afrca: story of a Contnent.
Photographs by . orman. ev. ed.
ondon, 1972.
nker, .,ed. unst undGeschchte Nubens
n chrstcher et. ecknghausen, 1970.
unham, . The gyptan epartment and
Its cavatons. Boston, 1958.
mery, . gypt n Nuba. ondon, 1965.
Gadaah, . Merotc Probems and a
Comprehensve Merotc Bbography. ush
11 (1963), pp. 196-216.
Gerster, G. Nuben: Godand am N. urch
and tuttgart, 1964.
Greenberg, . The anguages of Afrca. New
York, 1966.
nt e, ., and nt e, U. Cv atons of the
d udan: erma, ush, Chrstan Nuba.
Transated by P. Prochnk. ep g, 1968.
ofmann, 1. e uturen des Ntas von
Aswan bs ennar vom Mesothkum bs um
nde der chrstchen poche. amburg,
Museum fur okerkunde und orgeschchte.
Monographten ur okerkunde, 4. amburg,
1967.
The Image of the Back n estern Art. o. 1,
rom the Pharaohs to the a of the oman
mpre. Pubcaton of the Men oundaton,
Inc. New York, 1976.
Mcha/owsk, ., ed. Nuba: ecentes
echerches. arsaw, 1975.
Murdock, G. Afrca: Its Peopes and Ther
Cuture story. New York, 1959.
ave- 8derbergh, T. gypten und Nuben:
n Betrag ur Geschchte atagyptscher
Aussenpotk. und, 1941.
139
G
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2
-
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3
-
0
6

2
3
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7

G
M
T


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w
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.
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a
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#
c
c
-
b
y
-
n
c
Adams 1964a
Adams 1976
Chapman-
unham 1952
140 Trgger 1965
Trgger 1966
Trgger 1976
Arke 1949a
Arke 1949b
Arke 1953
Betak 1968
Graten 1973
Graten 1974
Graten 1975
Graten 1978
nt e 1964
Nordstrom 1972
esner 1923a
esner 1923b
mth 1966
tendorfT1935
tendorfT 1937
Trgger, B. story and ettement n ower
Nuba. Yae Unversty Pubcatons n
Anthropoogy, 69. New aven, 1965.
Trgger, B. The anguages of the Northern
udan: An storca Perspectve. The
ourna of Afrcan story 7 (1966), pp. 19-25.
Trgger, B. Nuba under the Pharaohs.
Bouder, Coorado, 1976.
A Y CU TU
Arke, A. ary hartoum. An Account of the
cavaton of an ary ccupaton te
Carred ut by the udanese Government
Ant utes ervce n 1944-5. ondon, 1949.
Arke, A. The d tone Age n the Ango-
gyptan udan. udan Ant utes ervce.
ccasona Papers, no. 1. hartoum, 1949.
Arke, A. hahenab. An Account of the
cavaton of a Neothc ccupaton te
Carred ut for the udan Ant utes ervce
n 1949-50. ondon, 1953.
Betak, M. tuden ur Chronooge der
nubschen C-Gruppe: n Betrag ur
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c
ecant 1976
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hnne 1967
eng 1975b
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Macver 1910
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hnne, P. Meroe: A Cv aton of the
udan. Ancent Peopes and Paces, 55. New
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ondon, 1948.
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Adams 1962a
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ard 1941
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ard 1942
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ard 1935-57
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Adams, . An Introductory Cassfcaton of
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Adams, . Archtectura vouton of the
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Crawford, . ung ngdom of ennar.
Goucester, 1951.
Mcha/owsk, . aras: Centre artst ue de a
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Mcha/owsk, . aras: e atedrae aus
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crstana. rentaa Chrstana anaecta, 118.
ome, 1938.
Monneret de ard, U. a Nuba romana.
Pubca on de Isttuto per rente.
ome, 1941.
Monneret de ard, U. U cuto de soe a
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pp. 107-42.
Monneret de ard, U. a Nuba medoevae.
ervce des Ant utes de gypte. Msson
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antn, . The cavatons at aras: A
Contrbuton to the story of Chrstan
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et mann, . ome emarks on the
ources of the resco Pantngs of the
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unst und Geschchte Nubens n chrstcher
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141
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Phot Credts After Arke 1950b, g. 38 Bdarchv oto Marburg, 143
gs. 13,48 Trustees of the Brtsh Museum, ondon,
g. 73 Centre de ocumentaton et d tudes sur
Ancenne gypte, Caro, g. 86 gypt poraton
ocety, ondon, g. 81 G. Gerster, urch, gs. 76,77,
82,91,92 Grffth Insttute, ford, g. 20 . .
nke, Bern/ , gs. 3,4, 12, 24, 34 U. and .
nt e, Bern/ , gs. 8,8a, 49,60,61,62,66,67,68,
69 . eatng, UN C , Pars, g. 41 verpoo
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Mcha/owsk, Unversty of arsaw, aras pedton,
g. 88 Museum of ne Arts, Boston, gs. 21, 27,32,36,
37,52, 56, 71 renta Insttute, Unversty of Chcago,
gs. 50,72 . M. Pumey, Cambrdge, g. 85 after
mpson 1963, g. 42 taatche Museen u
Bern/ , gs. 18,65 A. tan an, Boogna, g. 11
aters Art Gaery, Batmore, arry Connoy, cover.
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