posted 27 September 2004 09:13 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kenndo:
TO make this point further,some nubians during the old kingdom were beja types living in the nubian desert AND SOME WERE living in lower nubia but were wipe out but came in much later again and other nubians that were the majority were like the negriod west african and central african types but those types varied too.

southern sudan types vary,but not as much,but they are clearly negriod and most have woolly hair,broad nose and are dark skin,just like most upper ancient egyptians.

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Agree with your basic point, but I think when Africans truly begin writing our own history, we will not be using any of these terminologies anymore. No Egyptians, No Nubians either. For example: the Anu, what were they? Egyptian? Nubian? Both? Neither?

posted 27 September 2004 11:44 AM            

quote:

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THE BEJA BY THE way were really nubians

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posted 27 September 2004 11:52 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kifaru:

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quote:

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I'm not sure about this one friend. Arent't they a different ethnic group? I've got to see some evidence on that one.

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The term is used almost arbitrarily, but with a definite tactic involved, esp. by so called "nubianologists".

We need to be careful about embracing this term just because it has been offered as a 'sop' to acknowledging African "contribution" to the Nile Valley.

posted 27 September 2004 12:07 PM            

Horemheb, you obviously think your poison is a lot more potent than it is. You have to realize that the guys here aren't trapped in the mindset that needs your validation or might be wounded by your scorn, discouragement, brow-beating & faux-skepticism.

There are lots of people of that mindset out in the world (as I'm sure you know), but they're not here.

You can't count on that tact anymore.

posted 27 September 2004 12:09 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kifaru:
[QUOTE] THE BEJA BY THE way were really nubians

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posted 27 September 2004 01:03 PM            

The ancient Egyptian population absorbed Nilotic types,Saharan types,and even Beja types into the pre-dyanstic era. Even in Lower Egypt there was a large pressence of tropical Nilotic Africans,but majority in Lower Egypt were more allinged to Mediterranean types.

My point was that ''black'' Upper Egyptians founded Egypt and it's culture was throughly African despite it's heotrogenous nature.

The Central and Southern Sahara are ancestral to Western african populations and early people of the Nile.

posted 27 September 2004 01:05 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by kenndo:

THE BEJA BY THE way were really nubians in the past tat lived mostly in the desert and they resemble most africans more so in the past,before more of them became more mixed and later in history they became the new group called the beja.

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No my friend, The Beja were really the Beja! The Nubians were those people who lived in Nubia. Nubia lies in both Egypt and the Sudan. It is a distinct country/district and people.
You unfortunately have fallen into the trap of the "Nubian syndrome" where anyone perceived as 'black' is a Nubian. It's an intellectual trap. Trust me...
Also refer to Ausar's explanation above, and that of rasol as well...

posted 27 September 2004 02:08 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Wally:
No my friend, The Beja were really the Beja! The Nubians were those people who lived in Nubia. Nubia lies in both Egypt and the Sudan. It is a distinct country/district and people.
You unfortunately have fallen into the trap of the "Nubian syndrome" where anyone perceived as 'black' is a Nubian. It's an intellectual trap. Trust me...
Also refer to Ausar's explanation above, and that of rasol as well...

[This message has been edited by Wally (edited 27 September 2004).]

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so where did the desert nubians went at and the blemmyes?these groups always lived in the nubian desert i guess david o'conner is incorrect about,them,but going by the evidence of these scholars i would have to agree with them,and beja were not in sudan in ancient time,the beja became more of a different people in later times.look every scholar is not going to agree with this question,and beja are not nubians,but the desert nubians were,that for sure,and the beja are mostly from them.

If you have anymore info on these people and where they been at in new kingdom times of egypt,please let me know,i am open to new info,but so far this is the info i got from a few books on nubia.

posted 27 September 2004 02:12 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Wally:
No my friend, The Beja were really the Beja! The Nubians were those people who lived in Nubia. Nubia lies in both Egypt and the Sudan. It is a distinct country/district and people.
You unfortunately have fallen into the trap of the "Nubian syndrome" where anyone perceived as 'black' is a Nubian. It's an intellectual trap. Trust me...
Also refer to Ausar's explanation above, and that of rasol as well...

[This message has been edited by Wally (edited 27 September 2004).]

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posted 27 September 2004 02:23 PM            

The Beja

The Beja of the deserts of Eastern Sudan are among the country's longest-established peoples. For the four thousand years of their known history they have watched civilisations flourish and decay with their own lives almost unchanging until very recently. They have been referred to as "Blemmyes" in Roman times, as "Bugas" in Axumite inscriptions in Ethiopia, as the "Fuzzy Wuzzy" by Rudyard Kipling, and since Medieval times as "Beja".

During the 1950s the Beja population in Sudan was 285,000, and is probably double that figure today. As well as extending into Egypt and Eritrea, they inhabit some 110,000 square miles of Sudan between the Egyptian border and Eritrea and the river Setit; from the Red Sea coast to the river Atbara and the Nile.

Most of the Beja are regarded as being of Hamitic origin and are sub-divided into three main groups: the Hadendowa, the Amar'ar, and Bisharyyin. There are also groups of Arabic/Semitic origin who gradually adopted the Beja language (To-Bedawei) and culture and have been largely subsumed into the Beja. Another large group, the Beni Amer, who live mostly in Eritrea or around the border town of Kassala, share a common ethnic background with the Beja. Some of the Beni Amer are To-Bedawei speakers while others speak Tigre. Smaller groups in the area include the Helenga of Kassala (supposedly of medieval Arab origin mixed with Beja), Tigre, and other Sudanese tribes, who speak a `pidgin' form of To-Bedawei; and the once powerful tribe of Hamran who reside further south along the basins of the Setit and Atbara rivers. Finally, there are the Rashaidah who migrated in the last century to the Sudan from Arabia and have maintained their distinct identity. Apart from the Rashaidah, all the other tribes and groups may be regarded as part of the `Beja confederation', whilst the Hadendowa, the Bisharyyin and Amar'ar constitute the `Beja proper'. Among the three main groups of the `Beja proper' the Hadendowa are perhaps the most numerous and powerful.

The Beja have traditionally followed a nomadic way of life, mostly as camel herders. The Bisharyyin, and to a lesser extent the Amar'ar, raised only camels, while the Hadendowa additionally tended cattle and sheep. The various Beja sub-groups were also involved in grain cultivation (`dura' sorghum), and caravan services. In the early 20th century under the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, new economic ventures were introduced which partially affected the life-style of the Beja. These included the development of cotton plantation schemes in the `deltas' of the Baraka and Gash rivers, and opening of a new port at Port Sudan. Several of the Amar'ar clan took jobs as workers on the dock, whilst the Hadendowa and some of the Bisharyyin took up seasonal cultivation in the Tokar and al-Gash schemes. Pastoralism, however, continued to be the main Beja livelihood, especially for the Hadendowa, who showed less inclination towards urban life.

In addition to their direct influence on the Beja and their mode of living, the colonial economic ventures attracted various groups from outside the region, particularly from riverain and Western Sudan, as well as from West Africa. The same pattern was repeated decades later when mechanised farming was introduced in Eastern Sudan during the 1940s. Most significantly, as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam (1964-67), the Nubian inhabitants of Wadi Halfa were re-settled around the Khashm al-Girba scheme in the southwestern part of the Beja land. These demographic changes had an inevitable impact both on the social fabric of the Beja country as well as on its ecology.

Beja country is essentially desert and semi-desert across the vast plateau to the west of the Red Sea hills. The land is only sparsely covered with vegetation, a factor that made it suitable only for camel breeding and whatever limited cultivation was permitted by good rainy seasons. Its inhospitable nature had for several centuries prevented the settlement of other ethnic groups in the Beja area, and at the same time provided the basis of the Beja lifestyle. The development of Port Sudan and cotton schemes during the colonial period did not have an immediate effect on the Beja, though they did derive some benefit from these schemes. While they continued to focus on pastoralism they began using their incomes from agriculture and waged employment either to cover periods of need, or better still, to multiply their herds.

Drastic change began with marked ecological degradation and constraints caused by the increased numbers of `intruders' from other groups. A three year drought in the early 1940s seriously affected the animal wealth of the Beja and set it on a declining path. This was particularly evident among the Amar'ar sub-group, who by the 1970s had shifted the emphasis of their livelihood from camel-rearing to breeding smaller animals and working in the port. The bitter drought of the 1980s caused gross depopulation of the Beja herds, with losses estimated at 80% of their animal wealth.

Famine apart, a complex of human and other factors combined to produce a situation wherein the area available for the Beja livestock rearing was rapidly diminishing during the last fifty years. The development of cotton plantation schemes around the Gash and Tokar had ultimately robbed the Hadendowa of their grazing reserves in these areas. The expansion of mechanised farming further south has, according to some assessments, caused a general decrease of humidity in the area which in its turn affected vegetation. The construction of the Aswan Dam had inundated areas that constituted important pastures for the Bisharyyin who used to raise the best riding camels in the Arab world. The result was massive impoverishment for the Bisharyyin Beja. Those who survived were forced to move south, thus imposing further constraints on the grazing areas of their cousins the Hadendowa. The other impact of the Aswan Dam was, as mentioned above, the resettlement of the Nubians in the New Halfa area and the development of the Khashm al-Girba scheme. Though the scheme lay outside the Beja territory it was a zone of population concentration, and eventually a source of pressure on the scarce land resources.

The lengthy civil war in Eritrea drove the Beni Amer, who used to graze near and across the Eritrean border, further north into the Beja heartland. The Rashaidah, who were able to increase their herds as a result of their wealth gained from smuggling and commercial activities between Saudi Arabia, Eastern Sudan, and Ethiopia/Eritrea, also moved in. The arrival of ethnically diverse groups complicated social composition and increased tensions. There was competition over resources: water, and land (both for pasture and cultivation), and potential and actual conflicts arising from the divergent social groups, customs, and cultures, particularly in the rapidly growing urban centres.

The destruction of the animal wealth of the Beja has motivated them to fend for themselves and families in the urban areas. The current urbanisation of the Beja is radically different from the pattern of urbanisation to which they were partially exposed when the dock was first constructed at Port Sudan. Then the choice of reverting to pastoralism, regarded by the Beja as socially superior, was open and viable. The current wave of urbanisation has no apparent alternatives. Socially, the process might take some time to generate substantial changes in culture and tradition, but some of its political manifestations may already be observed.

The Beja were effectively integrated in the political structure of Sudan only during the Condominium era (1898-1956). Then, and throughout most of post-independence history, they were administered indirectly through their tribal structures which continued almost intact. Most of the Beja are regarded as followers of the Khatmiyya sect, having embraced Islam under the guidance of the founder of the sect Mohammed Uthman al-Mirghani and his son, the legendary Hassan al-Mirghani of Kassala. Beja territory became a stronghold of the Khatmiyya, whose current political manifestation is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). After independence, however, the Beja gradually realised that the Khatmiyya loyalty which they shared with other groups in riverain Sudan was not sufficient for the articulation of their interests. For this reason the Beja Congress was formed in 1964 by educated Beja and prominent personalities within their tribal administration such as chief Mohammed Mohammed al-Amin Tirik. In the 1965 elections the Beja Congress returned ten MPs to the Constituent Assembly, and three MPs in the 1968 elections. The high number of seats in 1965 was mostly due to the boycott of those elections by the Khatmiyya.

Colonel Nimeiri's coup in 1969 suppressed the activity of the Beja Congress, as it did with other political organisations, which it attempted to supplant with the Sudan Socialist Union, as the sole legitimate party. The Congress surfaced again after the ousting of Nimeiri in 1985, its re-emergence coinciding with substantial changes in Eastern Sudan, as elsewhere. The most conspicuous changes were the increased urbanisation of the Beja, the numerical rise of non-Beja groups in the region (particularly in Port Sudan and other urban centres), the intensification of the Ethiopian/Eritrean civil war and the resulting influx of refugees in Eastern Sudan, and the arrival of some of the drought-stricken groups from Western Sudan. These radical demographic changes have had a severe impact on the Beja. With their herds mostly lost, the Beja have to compete with these successive waves of "foreigners" and "intruders" for jobs (in towns and on farming schemes) and services. Gone are the days when the extremely proud Beja could contemptuously turn his back on the town to face the endless and comforting desert.

These new economic and social circumstances inevitably affected Beja politics, leading to the emergence of the Beja Congress as a potentially unified political entity in relation to other groups in the region. In practice this may be more uncertain. Since its foundation in the 1960s the Beja Congress has been divided between a leftist tendency associated basically with the Communist Party (CP) and a more traditionalist one that sought alliance with the Khatmiyya's rivals, the Umma Party (on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). After 1985 these two tendencies re-emerged, with new complicating factors. The first of these was the appearance of the NIF in the politics of the region and of the Congress, in competition with both the DUP and CP. The other factor is the appearance of divisions in the Congress on a sub-ethnic basis (the Amar'ar, Bisharyyin, and Hadendowa), probably aggravated by the rapid urbanisation of the Beja. Before the end of the third "democratic" period in 1989, the Beja Congress was split along ideological and sub-ethnic lines.

The politics of the region underwent an important shift after 1985. Whereas in the 1960s the aim of the Beja Congress was to draw the attention of the central government to the problems of Eastern Sudan and its lack of development, the emphasis in the 1980s was on regional changes. Faced with radical demographic changes the Beja worried about the preservation of their identity, and their place in their own land. The central government, in which the DUP was a partner, conceded a compromise in which the Governor of Eastern region was to be from the Beja, while his deputy was to be appointed from the `Northern' groups in the region. Throughout most of the democratic era the Governor of Eastern region was retired Major-General M.O. Karrar, a Beja from the Amar'ar. However, the region remained almost as marginal as the rest of Sudan's periphery.

The NIF coup in June 1989 brought no positive changes for the Beja. On the contrary, once in power the National Islamic Front was no longer interested in courting the Beja Congress as it had done, for electoral gains, during the democratic period. On the contrary, the NIF is alarmed by the Beja's pride in their ancient culture and tradition, which is considered incompatible with the regime's emphasis on an Arab-Islamic identity. This tense situation became potentially explosive when the present regime summarily executed former Governor Karrar on charges of involvement in the "White Coup" plot in April 1990. Afterwards the relationship between the Beja and the regime was characterised by mutual mistrust. Following Karrar's execution some members of his clan attacked NIF elements in Port Sudan, and certain "masked young men" carried out sporadic attacks on security personnel in the town.

Economic pressure on the Beja has accelerated, exemplified by the NIF's privatisation of the Gash delta agricultural scheme, which was sold to Saudi millionaire entrepreneur Usama bin Laden. As a result, organized Beja resistance to the regime is growing. In October 1994 Sudan accused Eritrea of training some 3000 Sudanese `rebels' in camps in Eritrea. Some (mostly pro-government) media reports associate these camps with the DUP, while informed sources from the Beja suggest a Beja Congress connection. Whether the camps are sponsored by the DUP or the Beja Congress or both, there are certainly sufficient economic and political grievances to breed armed insurgence in Eastern Sudan.

In December 1994 Eritrea broke off diplomatic relations with Sudan, after issuing a statement accusing the government of training 400 `terrorists'. At the start of 1994 Eritrea's President Afeworki had complained to the UN that Sudan had assisted an attack by Islamic insurgents. In both cases the fighters are from the Beja. After the decline of the mostly Muslim Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and the victory in Eritrea by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), a large number of Muslim Eritreans, mostly Beni Amer, remained as refugees in Sudan. The government of Sudan has allegedly worked to exploit their dissatisfaction with events in Eritrea by promoting an extremist Islamic element amongst them.

Abdel Salam Sidahmed - MRG 1995

my comments now.it is well known that the blemmyes are from the desert nubian group called the medjay but the blemmyes were not nubian change they had a culture change like the beja, the beja culture people became something eles,so they are not nubians.something like what happen to the black arabs.
http://www.sudanupdate.org/REPORTS/PEOPLES/BEJA.HTM

posted 27 September 2004 02:50 PM            

Copyright (c) 2004 Aramco Services Company. All Rights Reserved.

May/June 1998 Volume 49, Number 3

May/June 1998
Volume 49, Number 3




Nomads and Pharaohs

Written by Robert Berg
Illustrated by Lorraine Berg

It was a time of drought, a time of great hunger. In the chain of forts that guarded the rich river valley against raiders from the desert beyond, army garrisons were under orders: Hire guides from among the starving desert people, and use them to patrol the shriveled landscape to keep refugees from entering the valley.

The story has the ring of a modern news dispatch, but the year was 1847 BC, and this was the southern frontier of the Middle Kingdom empire of Pharaoh Ammenemes III. Beyond that frontier lay Nubia, which the Egyptians regarded as a mysterious, sometimes threatening land, but one from which issued coveted ivories, ebony and animal skins—and the waters of the Nile itself.

In the third year of the reign of Ammenemes III, on day 27 of month three of Proyet, three women and two men of a nomadic desert tribe whom the ancient Egyptians called Medjay Elephantine, in what is today Aswan. They came as ragged vices to the Great House of the Pharaoh. When questioned about conditions in the region they had come from, they offered no information about the movement of peoples—either because they were uninformed or because they feared how the pharaoh might use the information. We do know that they stated simply, "The desert is dying of hunger."

In cold response, they were told there would be no asylum in the Great House, that their labor was not needed. Their despair, and their fate on their return to the desert, we can only imagine.

The plight of these five nomads appears in the Semnah Dispatches, a series of reports by an officer stationed on Egypt's southern frontier to his superior residing in the capital, Thebes. They were discovered by British archeologist J.E. Quibeil in 1896 at the Ramesseum of Thebes on the west bank of the Nile. The accounts of the Medjay preserved in the Semnah Dispatches are the earliest known written record that mentions the desert nomads who have been part of Egypt's human fabric since the dawn of history.

The Medjay are regarded by some authorities as the first pastoral nomads on the African continent, and they are the ancestors of the modern Beja tribes, whose lands lie in southeastern Egypt and northeastern Sudan amid the arid peaks and broad wadis that separate the Nile Valley from the Red Sea. The Medjay were likely the first people in Africa to have relied for their livelihood upon the herding of domesticated cattle, which they moved about seasonally, as necessary, in search of pasture. Medjay history, as we can piece it together through archeological evidence and modern tribal stories, seems much like the desert from which it springs—sparse and often blank, yet interspersed with moments of vivid color.

At midday, leaving the green, shady cool of the Nile Valley and passing into the Eastern Desert, the sun beats down on a seemingly lifeless landscape whose horizon in every direction dissolves in the watery ripples of mirage. But it was not always like this: Some 6000 years ago, when a Hamitic people began their migration into northeastern Africa from Asia by way of Arabia, the sun shone on rolling, grassy land and tree-dotted mountains. Antelope, ibex, ostrich, wild cattle and gazelle abounded alongside smaller populations of lion, giraffe and elephant.

The arrival of these ancestors of the Medjay around 4000 BC is recalled today among the Amarar nomads in Sudan, who speak the Beja language: "The Beja are attributed to Kush, the son of Ham, and emigrated...after the Flood." As they integrated themselves into the region, the Medjay achieved a measure of social interaction with the early Egyptians. Yet the Medjay lived outside the Valley, and mostly hunted and foraged for their sustenance.

As they began to populate the region, two revolutionary technologies were transforming age-old patterns of life: cultivation and animal domestication. Both drew hunters and gatherers into a settled life. Food that had been foraged was increasingly replaced by produce of the field, and meat from the hunt by meat from domestic herds. A natural site for this transformation was the Nile Valley, which between 4500 and 3400 BC became populated as never before.

At the same time, the region's climate was in the early stages of a drying trend whose results we see today in the harshness of the Eastern Desert. As aridity increased, so did the scarcity of grazing land. For herds to survive, mobility became essential.

The development of pastoral nomadism, among the Medjay as everywhere else, was rarely as simple as the telling of it, however, for its forms always responded to differing local conditions, nor were the motives of diverse herders consistent. In addition to the element of personal preference, for example, Medjay herders with close ties to a large settled population in one part of the Nile Valley may have adopted pastoral nomadism primarily to reap the commercial benefits offered by expanding trade networks, while herders in another, more remote and drier area may have been pushed into nomadism primarily by the climatic shift. Still other, relatively weak, tribes may have adopted nomadism as a flight-based defense against aggressive neighbors, or they may have been pushed into it in a last effort to survive after losing lands to them. In most cases, however, settled peoples became increasingly dependent on herders for meat and a supply of draught animals, and the herders became increasingly dependent on farmers and craftsmen for agricultural foods and tools. (See Aramco World, March/April 1995.) The development of specialization made for interdependence, and it laid the groundwork for early regional trade networks.

So also were the forms of nomadism adapted to local conditions. We believe that the early nomads of the Eastern Desert lived in bands varying from 25 or 50 people to more than 100—often depending on the availability of forage and water in a particular region. Among the Beja today, men are generally engaged in herding and milking and, where conditions permit, women cultivate small plots of grain. Where this is not possible, the people must rely on trade to provide for necessary agricultural goods. The degree of mobility can also vary from year to year, depending on resources.

Until more extensive archeological work is done in the Eastern Desert, just when herders there began to live a nomadic life will remain a mystery. At this time, the earliest evidence of nomadic populations—circumstantial evidence—dates to approximately 3200 BC, shortly before the rise of dynastic rule in Egypt. Near the mouth of Wadi Allaqi, a normally dry tributary that originates in the highlands and enters the Nile Valley just north of the present Egyptian-Sudanese border, study of a culture archeologists call "A-Group" shows that its people grew relatively wealthy as middlemen in trade between Egypt and the cultures to the south. The A-Group sites show extensive possession of animal products such as hides, but there are no equivalent signs of domestic stock-raising: no corrals, no evidence of butchering. It appears that the A-Group obtained their animal products through trade with nomads in the Eastern Desert.

Support for this hypothesis comes from petroglyphs, or rock drawings, which the Hamite ancestors of the Medjay executed extensively throughout the region from the earliest times, especially in wadis and along trails. Among the petroglyphs contemporary with the A-Group culture, cattle are the most carefully depicted animal, and many show cattle with artificially deformed horns and amulets dangling from their necks—clear indications of domestication.

Climatic study shows that the region continued to grow drier and drier throughout the third millennium BC. In response, desert herders would have been forced to refine their skills. By the time the Medjay surface in the Semnah Dispatches in the early second millennium (ca. 1991-1783 BC), the Egyptians had evidently developed an appreciation for Medjay's abilities. A frieze in the XIIth-dynasty tomb chapel at Meir, 50 kilometers (30 mi) north of modern Assiut, shows gaunt Medjay tribesmen herding cattle under the eyes of Egyptian overseers. The lean limbs, broad chests and large shocks of hair of these ancient nomads make them almost identical to the modern Beja. Perhaps the five supplicants who failed to find employment at Elephantine merely represented latecomers to an oversupplied labor pool of Medjay refugees who had already found a livelihood in the service of the pharaoh.

At some point—the record is not clear exactly when—the relationship of the Medjay with the Egyptians began to include commercial and military ventures, too. Since at least the Old Kingdom (ca. 2650-2135 BC), the time during which the pyramids were built at Giza, the Egyptians had exploited gold mines in the Eastern Desert. By the time of Thutmose III (ca. 1391-1353 BC), the mines were producing some 1100 kilograms (2400 lbs) annually, a quantity so great that, for a time, silver was more valuable than an equal weight of gold.

Mining resulted in such extensive recruitment of Medjay into the Egyptian army that by the time of the New Kingdom in the late second millennium, some 500 years after the Semnah Dispatches, an entire army corps was called "Medjay." Gold prospecting missions also employed Medjay as mercenaries and guides. One such massive operation, sponsored by Ramses III in 1180 BC, included 5000 soldiers, 2000 state slaves and 800 foreign captives—quite a few people to be supported while they wandered the desert. The services of knowledgeable guides would have been essential. In addition, Medjay soldiers often escorted the donkey caravans that served the mines. (Domesticated camels would not reach the Medjay for another 1000 years.) Southbound trade caravans similarly relied upon the Medjay's knowledge of the lands beyond the Nile Valley.

In 1550 BC, Medjay troops helped drive the Hyksos invaders from Egypt. And Heliodorus, the third-century Greek author of Aethiopica, relates that for their valor in battle against the Persians in about 700 BC, the Medjay were released from tribute payments for 14 years. Other records tell of New Kingdom rulers employing large numbers of Medjay as police amid their largely Egyptian populations—an early example of a tactic that was to become common in our own colonial era: the use of "outsiders" to help control a subject population.

Aside from the military and commercial records, however, there is scant mention of the nomads in the writings of ancient Egypt until after Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and the beginning of the Ptolemaic dynasty that followed. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, the Ptolemaic Greeks easily intermarried with the Medjay and other non-riverine Egyptian tribes. According to Plutarch, Cleopatra spoke the language of the Trogodytes, the largest tribe that inhabited the Red Sea coast. Other sources relate that the Greeks taught the nomads to dig cisterns, and that the Greeks, although hardly assimilating nomadic culture, took such an active—and generally enlightened—role in the life of the tribes that folk legends about their energy and capabilities still circulate among the peoples of the region to this day.

In the Greek texts, the Eastern Desert nomads are no longer called Medjay. They are divided into those living between the Nile and the Red Sea mountains, named the Blemmyes, and those along the Red Sea littoral, the Trogodytes. Herodotus described the latter as fast runners whose language was "like squeaking bats." The geographer Artemidorus, writing around 100 BC in passages passed down to us by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, described them as living "a nomadic life on their flocks, each group with its tyrant. At the time of the Etesian winds, when there are heavy rains, they live on blood and milk, which they mix together. They give the title of parent to no human being but rather to a bull and cow...since they ever secure their daily food from them." Any tribesman who was maimed or incurably ill was "helped out of life." The aged, he wrote, commonly committed suicide rather than become a burden to their progeny: "Consequently one may see every Trogodyte sound in body and of vigorous age, since no one of them lives beyond 60 years." They were expert archers who ran down wild beasts and, when hunting elephant, would hamstring their prey before the kill. This technique was still in use when explorer Sir Samuel Baker visited the southern reaches of the region in the 1860's.

It was also during the Ptolemaic period that the nomads of the Eastern Desert experienced a four-legged—and often bad-tempered—revolution: the camel. The exact date of the domesticated camel's appearance in Egypt is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that it became part of the Blemmyes' and Trogodytes' husbandry during the final centuries BC.

The camel provided a newly dependable means of long-distance travel as well as a new source of nourishment and wealth. After its arrival, the desert tribes increased in size and vigor. Rock drawings—like all art, a product of leisure—reappeared throughout the region after a millennium or more during which little had been created. In addition to depictions of fauna, the abundance of tribal symbols reflects a new level of identity, perhaps derived from the nomads' growing sense of their strength—strength the Blemmyes would use against Rome.

With the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. The Roman attitude toward the nomads was very different from that of the Greeks: Repulsed by their wild-haired appearance, the Romans regarded them as scarcely more than another kind of desert beast, and treated them accordingly. The nomads began raiding Roman territory and trade routes. By the latter half of the third century of our era, the Blemmyes had united sufficiently to present Rome with a challenge. According to the fifth-century Palestinian historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the Blemmyes overran the Nile Valley in 268, from Syene (Aswan) all the way to Ptolemais, near modern Sohag, and it took the Romans years of bitter campaigning to drive them back into the desert.

From the third to the fifth centuries the Blemmyes continued to threaten Roman hegemony in the region. In his De Bello Persico, the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius recorded that in 284, Emperor Diocletian, faced with continuous Blemmyan conflict, formally relinquished to the Blemmyes jointly with the Nobadae, their rivals, a 250-kilometer (155 mi) stretch of the Nile known as the Dodekaschoinus, which stretched from Syene south to near the present Egyptian Sudanese border. In addition, Diocletian arranged to pay annual tribute to the Blemmyes, and he allowed them access to their favored shrine of Isis at Philae (near modern Aswan), as well as the right to have their own priests in residence there.

Although Diocletian's appeasement did not end Blemmyan raids, the Blemmyes did for a time respect the border at Syene. But by the latter half of the fourth century the Blemmyes were de facto rulers of the Nile Valley far beyond that point. In a contemporary letter, Blemmyan ruler Kharachen assured his administrators at Tanare (some 240 kilometers, or 150 miles, north of Syene, near modern Luxor), "If the Romans make difficulties and do not pay the ordinary tribute, neither the phylarch nor the hypotyrannos [Blemmyan authorities—the Blemmyan language of state was Greek] will prevent you from compelling the Romans to pay it." Interestingly, although the Blemmyes controlled much of the Upper Nile for nearly three centuries, they did not become a settled people. They remained desert-based throughout, interested only in dominating their peripotamian subjects.

By the middle of the fifth century, Rome tired of the Blemmyan presence along the Nile. According to Procopius, Emperor Marcianus's campaign in 451 defeated the Blemmyes and won partial control for Rome. Although the Blemmyes did not live up to their end of the resulting treaty, the defeat by the Romans was severe enough to bring southern Egypt relative calm for the better part of a century.

The situation changed dramatically in 536, when Emperor Justinian outlawed pagan worship and ordered the removal of the idols at Philae. Outraged, the Blemmyes resumed their raids. Four years later, their hold on the Dodekaschoinus was broken—but not by Rome. Silko, the newly Christianized king of Nubia, led an army north, and defeated the Blemmyes so thoroughly that they relinquished all of the Nile and retreated to the desert. The end of their hegemony marked the final blow to paganism in Christian Egypt.

Today, the descendents of the ancient Medjay are part of the Muslim Beja nation, including the tribes of Bisharin, Amarar and Hadendowa. Throughout southeastern Egypt and northeastern Sudan, there are an estimated one million speakers of Bejawi, the Beja language, although many of these speak Arabic as well. Most Beja continue to live as pastoral nomads, herding camels and cattle in the harsh region that, long ago and in a more verdant time, was also home to their ancestors.

Some Beja bands are renowned for their reclusiveness while others, such as the expert camel breeders among the Bisharin, have extensive contact with the settled peoples of the Nile Valley. To witness the Bisharin trading with the villagers and townsfolk of the Valley is to see just the kind of exchange that has nurtured both pastoral nomads and settled folk since the dawn of civilization in Egypt.

Robert Berg, an independent scholar, consults for several us companies doing business in Egypt. He lives outside La Luz, New Mexico with his wife Lorraine, an artist working in sculpted tile and mosaic.

See Also: CLIMATE, ECONOMICS, EGYPT, ANCIENT—CLIMATE, EGYPT, ANCIENT—ECOLOGY, EGYPT, ANCIENT—HISTORY, EGYPT, ANCIENT—PREHISTORY, MEDJAY, NILE RIVER, NOMADS, NUBIA, TRADE

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THE medjay of course were not hamites since thier culture was a nubian culture and they lived in the nubian desert,so in that sense the author did not get that right and the blemmyas control parts of the nubian desert and parts of lower nubia and upper egypt for only a short time in history to make that clear.THE term hamite is use only in a bible sense,so you know it is a false term,just like when bible believers think blacks came from ham and that's nonsense.

THE nubian christian king- silko was only king of lower nubia and nubia in 350 a.d. was split into three kingdoms-one in lower nubia and the others in upper and southern nubia but the last two became stronger than kush,and sennar further south later became again a part of nubia.

posted 11 October 2004 06:45 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sneuropa:
Thanks, I almost agree with you. Certainly these terms are over simplified and over used. But there are differences between Afro-Asiatic peoples like Ethiopeans, Tuareg, Hausa, Fulani (and KMT and Libu in ancient times) and more Negroid peoples of Central Africa like those of Southern Nigeria Oribo (spelt that wrong!) compared with the peoples of Northern Nigeria.

sneuropa

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Hi,

the Hausa people of Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad etc are definitely a "negroid" people.

posted 11 October 2004 07:31 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by fatai:
Hi,

the Hausa people of Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad etc are definitely a "negroid" people.

Peace

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Sneuropa is indeed a lost individual. First he tries to paint all West Africans into a homogeneous society of what he considers "Bantu", and therefore the only "negro" race of the entire planet. Then he goes onto divide various West African and central African ethnic groups into the absurd category of "blacks" & "negreos". Who is the teacher of this nonsense...or is this another product of being self-taught?

posted 11 October 2004 11:30 PM            

Problem is that readily avaiable texts on this subject are about 30 years in the past. It's very hard for people to get new developement in reserch due to obscurity and cost of these publications. In case you haven't noticed most books on African history don't sell well and go out of print very quickly.

There were anthropologist even back in the 60's who believed the Bantu people from Central Africa were Hamites. The person who first proposed the Hamitic hypothesis was a German anthropologist named Calr Selgiman. His theories have long been discredited,and are no longer used in academia.

posted 12 October 2004 07:14 AM            

The acceptance of an African origin for humanity was not without a bitter struggle. Raymond Dart, the anthropologist who had discovered the first proto human fossils in Africa, had at one point given up anthropology in the face of bitter hostility from the then reigning anthropological establishment. In an attempt to delay the acceptance of an African origin, an anathema to the prevailing scientific orthodoxy, even a deliberate fraud was committed. The Piltdown Man, a fake fossil “found” in England, was used to deny an African origin.

Soon after the Piltdown man was “discovered”, Raymond Dart in South Africa discovered the Taung skull in 1924. It showed a skull of approximately two million years that had a more human face but with a brain size similar to that of the chimpanzee. This was the precise opposite of the Piltdown skull -- a brain size similar to that of modern man and an ape like face. Dart named his find the Australopithecus Africanus or the southern ape. It was a shocking discovery because it was the oldest proto human fossil found anywhere and showed that intelligence was a later development. Though other finds were reported from South Africa which showed similar features, these were all challenged or disregarded based on the evidence of the Piltdown Man. Raymond Dart was to struggle for decades and even leaving his field of study due to the hostility with which his finding were being received in his peer group.

The interesting issue regarding the Piltdown Man is not why such a fraud was committed, but why the fraud was sustained for 50 years in the face of contrary evidence. That the scientific study of the human evolution was set back by 50 years due to one lone fossil speaks clearly of the ideological underpinnings of science, particularly when it impinges on current structures of power. The evidence for an African origin did not agree with the imperialist vision of superior races. A leisured elite glorifying superior intelligence as their unique hallmark was equally dismissive of the claim of labour in shaping human evolution.

Only after it was exposed as a fake, did the scientists accept the overwhelming evidence for an African origin.....in [Coon's] view, humanity had a parallel evolution in different continents, they did not evolve at the same time -- the white Europeans got “homo sapienised” first, while the black Africans, last. Coon is one of the favourite authors in white supremacists circles and therefore this is by no means an esoteric debate confined to academic circles.

The “Out of Africa” school has used genetic evidence to date the spread of homo sapiens to different continents. The evidence indicates that homo sapiens left Africa only a 100,000 years back: this is what makes their evidence so dangerous to racist ideology. The Out of Africa model is more in tune with general evolutionary history of all other species. In this theory, homo sapiens first evolved 200,000 to 300,000 years back in Africa. They spread to the Eurasian continent only about a 100,000 years back. The native genetic divergence in the African population is much more than in any other. Prabir Purkayastha, Delhi Science Forum

This is why the notion of Supra Caucasian race used to define everything from Dravidian Indians and Australian Aborigines to Hausa West Africans (Hamites?) is completely contrived.

It is like ignoring modern Physics and Astronomy and choosing to continue to regard the Earth as being flat instead of round.

Human population diversity, and the majority of resultant genes and phenotypes simply do not originate among the morphologically cold adapted (white) peoples of Europe and Asia. They originate primarily among the tropically adapted (black) peoples of Africa. And what holds true for the origin of man, is also true for the origins of Nile Valley civilisation, based on the overwhelming amount of bioanthropological evidence.

It is time to face modern facts and stop resorting to outdated pseudoscience to bolster discredited race mythologies.

posted 12 October 2004 12:37 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Wally:
[b]Colossi of Memnon
These are two colossal seated statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III in western Thebes. At dawn, the northern statue emitted a whistling sound. Ancient Greeks who visited the statue called it the 'vocal Memnon', thinking the figure represented the Homeric character Memnon, singing to his mother Eos, the goddess of the dawn.
Memnon was an Ethiopian king who went to troy to help Priam, his uncle, and was killed by Achilles...

[This message has been edited by Wally (edited 22 September 2004).][/B]

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posted 12 October 2004 01:16 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by tremor:
ok

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posted 12 October 2004 06:30 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by ausar:
Problem is that readily avaiable texts on this subject are about 30 years in the past. It's very hard for people to get new developement in reserch due to obscurity and cost of these publications. In case you haven't noticed most books on African history don't sell well and go out of print very quickly.[/B]

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Your comment would be reasonable, if only it were targeting the right person here. I am fully aware of the lack of material on African history in the West, hence no need to inform me about that. I was the one, who mentioned earlier in this thread or another that western knowledge on African history is very minimal, and at best speculations. I don't think it is a wise decision for anyone lacking in-depth knowledge on an issue, to pass off assumptions as truth. It is one thing to get history wrong, but it is quite another when erroneous statements about contemporary Africans is spewed out as fact. Saying that West Africans are one homogeneous tribe or ethnic group, is not only ridiculous historically, but also from a contemporary standpoint. The statement is uncritically disseminated, as though it is implying that the said assumption cannot be proven or disproven. Well, West Africans are very real, and they exist. Therefore, one cannot get away with blatant fallacious assessments of Africans without being corrected by knowledgeable people. If history books on Africa aren't widespread, then it safe to at least seek the assistance of knowledgeable folks, and if necessary, travel to various African nations. One can't come out of traveling without being enlightened to some degree. Saying that there aren’t adequate books on African history, is no excuse for disseminating lies as fact!

posted 15 October 2004 10:53 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sneuropa:
There are similarities and differences between all peoples. Ethiopeans are very different from central African peoples; they are generally much taller, and have facial features that are similar to Arabs. Likewise their language has more similarities with Arabic etc than with Bantu. It would seem that AE were a mix of these Northern types (there are many types here) and more Southern types too- likle the Negroes (of which again there are different types.) I thought that only the Bantu and maybe related people were Negro- the Africans of Western, South-Eastern and Central Africa, like the ones stolen for slavery. Other Africans like Ethiopeans and Khoisan are not Negro.

Yes many peoples of Europe vary much, both in looks and languages. Some European languages like Magyar are Altaic-Turanian and so related to Mongolian. It is a comlpicated subject.

regards,
sneuropa

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I am new to this site. I have followed some of these threads with deep interest. As an African, I think some people need to get some familiarity with different African peoples. When Sneuropa earlier mentioned that Ethiopian languages have similarities with Arabic it was a half-truth. Ethiopia has more than 70 languages and dialects. I am assuming you mean Amharic (the official language); however while it is a semitic language how about the other languages. Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country of which the Amaharans are not the majority.Of course Ethiopians don't look like Central Africans nor do Kenyans look like Central Africans! You seem to think that Bantu equals Negro. And since Ethiopians and Khoisan are not Bantu/Bantu-speaking they therefore are not Negro. What is a negro? It beats me! Are you aware that most West Africans are not Bantu-speaking? So who are these 'Bantu-speaking peoples'? A short definition to help:

BANTU (bãn´too) , ethnic and linguistic group of Africa, numbering about 120 million. The Bantu inhabit most of the continent S of the Congo River except the extreme southwest. The classification is primarily linguistic, and there are almost a hundred Bantu languages, including Luganda, Zulu, and Swahili. Few cultural generalizations concerning the Bantu can be made. Before the European conquest of Africa the Bantu tribes were either pastoral and warlike or agricultural and usually pacific. There were some highly developed Bantu states, including Buganda in present-day Uganda. Possibly under the fear of European encroachment, several additional Bantu states developed in the 19th cent., notably among the Zulu and the Sotho. Other well-known Bantu tribes include the Ndebele (Matabele) and the Shona. In South Africa, the term Bantu is commonly used to refer to the native African population, which was subject to the policies of apartheid .

Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/B/Bantu.asp

Unless you are holding the old South African(apartheid) view of Bantu equals Negro, I don't see how this adds up. And infact you can see that even in their case it means 'native African' which of course would include Ethiopians no doubt.

[This message has been edited by YuhiVII (edited 16 October 2004).]

[This message has been edited by YuhiVII (edited 16 October 2004).]