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posted 12 March 2005 03:27 PM
  
Canadian archaeologists in Sudan, using magnetometers, have found a 2,000-year--old palace in the heart of the ancient black civilization. NATIONAL POST April 22, 2002 Margaret Munro If his partner had not fallen into an ancient tomb and broken both legs, Professor Krzysztof Grzymski would have discovered the ancient Nubian royal palace even sooner. Still, Grzymski, a professor at the University of Toronto and a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, is a happy archaeologist these days. He and his colleague, who is walking again, have found what they believe are the remains of a palace and a colonnade built more than 2,000 years ago by the greatest black civilization ever. "It's quite remarkable, we can see them clearly beneath the sand," says Grzymski. The discovery is in the ancient, and for the most part buried, city of Meroë, which was the royal capital of ancient Nubia. It is located about 200 kilometres northeast of present day Khartoum. Meroë, considered one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in Africa, was at the heart of a powerful black civilization that flourished along the upper Nile River from about 750 BC to 350 AD. Grzymski and his colleagues plan to start excavating the palace and colonnade next winter. But for now Grzymski is content to pour over the grainy images generated by a device that allowed the archaeolgists to "see" the ruins buried beneath the sand without digging them out. Explorers -- and tomb robbers -- have long been aware of Meroë and its riches. But archaeologists were so pre-occupied with Egypt's pyramids and kingdoms to the north -- and deterred by the political conflict in Sudan -- they largely ignored the ancient Nubian culture. Many assumed it was merely an offshoot of a more advanced Egyptian culture. "Here you've got this wonderful civilization that was literate, which extended over 1,000 miles, maybe more, up the Nile, and which built pyramids and palaces and temples and at the same time was a major centre of iron production, and yet it is generally unknown to scholars and the general public," says Grzymski. He has been intrigued with the ruins since the 1970s, when he studied under Professor Peter Shinnie at the University of Calgary. Shinnie worked for years with Sudanese scholars on the ancient iron smelters of Meroë. Grzymski helped keep the Canadian-Sudanese collaboration alive through his ROM work. And in 1999, he and archaeologists at the University of Khartoum were given a licence by Sudan's antiquities officials to explore the 50-hectare site of Meroë. About 10 hectares of the ancient city had been excavated in the early 1900s by British archaeologists. But most remains entombed under sand and shrubs. The archaeologists had a hunch about where the best ruins lay. But they wanted to be sure. "You can spend weeks and weeks digging nothing," he says. To find the most promising areas, Grzymski recruited Tomasz Herbich, a Polish archaeologist and geophysicist who specializes in using magnetometers to find buried ruins. Magnetometers are sophisticated versions of the hand-held devices people use to find coins on beaches and parks. They can differentiate between the magnetic properties of materials -- such as sand, pottery, bricks -- and feed the readings into a computer. The readings then generate maps. Just before the archaeologists were to start scanning the Meroë site in the 2000-2001 season, Herbich, who works on ruins throughout northern Africa, fell into an abandoned ancient tomb in Egypt, breaking both his legs and injuring his spine. "It was a terrible accident," says Grzymski. And it set the Meroë scan back by one year. In February, Hebrich and his magnetometer went to the Sudan site. Within days, Herbich homed in on the palace and colonnade. The palace, about 400 square metres in area, is about a half a metre beneath the surface of the sand. "There are traces of staircases, so it suggests there must have been upper floors," Grzymski says. The street in front of the building also came into view. To their surprise, they found what appears to be a colonnade near one of the gates to the ancient city. "We were absolutely delighted," says Grzymski. "It's really fascinating when you can see the urban design without excavating." In October, Grzymski will return to Meroë to start digging with his Sudanese partners. It remains to be seen what treasure lies beneath the sand, but the materials uncovered in the region over the years have made it clear the Nubian civilization was a powerful, inventive society. The most incredible find was made almost 200 years ago in a pyramid near Meroë. An Italian physician and tomb robber known as Ferlini accompanied an Ottoman invasion of Sudan in 1821 and discovered exquisite gold amulets, signet rings and necklaces by blasting open the pyramid of Queen Amanishakheto, one of Nubia's most powerful rulers. Ferlini tried to sell the treasure when he returned to Europe. But collectors would not believe such treasure could come from black Africa. They thought he was trying to pass off fakes, says Grzymski. "They were jewels of great quality and beauty and often influenced by Greek art, which was really a surprise," he says. "People didn't expect deep in the heart of Africa depictions resembling those of Egyptian or classical Greek art." The ancient Nubians exchanged plenty of ideas and goods with cultures around them. Nubian pyramids, monuments and jewels were clearly influenced by Egyptian, Mediterranean and Arabian cultures. "They worshiped many of the same gods as the Egyptians and the royalty was buried in pyramids," says Grzymski. Some of their pottery and burial talismans predate similar discoveries in Egypt, indicating Nubia may have influenced the Egyptians rather than the other way around. At the height of their culture, Nubian kings are said to have ruled Egypt from 750 to 650 BC. They were driven south by the Syrians, says Grzymski. Ancient trash heaps have revealed many details of daily life for the Nubians. Olive pits suggest the Nubians either imported olives from the Mediterranean or grew them on the banks of the Nile. And the animal bones they left behind reveal much about the climate and environment they lived in. Along with sheep and goats, the Nubians consumed gazelle, antelope, warthogs and other wild animals now seldom seen in Sudan. The bones, and ancient water reservoirs, suggest rainfall patterns have changed in the past 2000 years, shifting 300 to 400 kilometres to the south. "There has been quite a change in environment," says Grzymski. But it is the Nubians' written language that he finds most intriguing. Borrowing 24 signs from Egyptian hieroglyphics and using them as an alphabet, they developed their own writing system, Grzymski says. "It's the second-oldest writing system in Africa, but it has still not been deciphered." So far, 1,500 inscriptions written in the ancient Nubian language have been found, but no one knows what they mean. Grzymski and his colleagues are sure to find more as they continue excavating. While finding more palaces would make Grzymiski happy, what he would most like to find is some manner of bilingual inscription to enable scholars to unlock the messages left by the Nubian people. He says the archaeologists need something like a Rosetta Stone, the famed slab of black basalt inscribed in Greek text and Egyptian hieroglyphs that enabled scholars in the early 1800s to decipher the Egyptian writings. USA
People of northern Sudan and southern Egypt. With a history and traditions which can be traced to the dawn of civilisation the Nubians settled along the banks of the Nile from Aswan in the south of Egypt to the 6th cataract just south of Khartoum (capital of Sudan). Along this great river they developed one of the oldest and greatest civilisations in Africa. Until they lost their last kingdom (Christian Nubia) only 5 centuries back the Nubians remained as the main rivals to the other great African civilisation of Egypt. A great civilisation and great people who deserved equal or even more fame than their rival Egyptian civilisation instead were overlooked and its findings and monuments were attributed to their rivals. Belatedly recognised the Nubian culture and history is one of the main concern of archaeologists, scholars, museums and universities world wide nowadays ..... The Kingdom of Cush Ancient kingdom of Nubia in today's northern Sudan whose rulers conquered southern Egypt in the 8th century BC and established a capital at Napata. From around 730 to 671 BC they ruled over entire Egypt after King Piankhi conquered the rest of Egypt. He had been Cushite ruler since around 751 BC. His son and the second king of the 25th dynasty, Taharka, lost against the Assyrians in 671 but continued to rule until 664 BC. In the 6th century BC the Cushites were forced to move their capital to Meroe where the kingdom flourished until around 350 AD when it was defeated and overrun by the Ethiopians ...... Other Online Links 1. Ancient Nubia (ThinkQuest Team) 2. THE NUBIA SALVAGE PROJECT : Oriental Institute 3. VANISHED KINGDOMS OF THE NILE 4. Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa 5. Nubia: The Land Upriver (Anne Powell)
The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium NUBIA KINGDOMS WENT ON EVEN AFTER THIS. http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Nubia.html
RENOWN By John Woodford "Africa has no history." Hegel’s disdainful remark has come down to us from the 18th century, echoed not only by contemporary scholars but even, according to The Haldeman Diaries, by a US president. Africa has long lain under the charge that no noteworthy ancient civilizations arose among the myriad Black societies that lived below its Mediterranean regions. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology’s current three-month exhibition, "Ancient Nubia: Egypt’s Rival in Africa," will go far toward correcting that misimpression. The exhibition, which opened Sept. 29 and runs through Dec. 15, contains more than 230 objects that span the millennia from 3500 BC to 100 AD from a Black African civilization that arose immediately south of Egypt more than 5,000 years ago. The curator of the exhibition is David O’Connor, who headed the Egyptian section of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and is now at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Nubia’s northern region began at the site of the present-day Aswan Dam, and curled 868 miles down the Nile Valley. By 1700 BC, Nubians lived in sizable cities for those times, forming a class society comprising workers, farmers, priests, soldiers, bureaucrats and an aristocracy, and developing technological and cultural skills on a level with the other advanced civilizations of their day. Nubia was known as the Kingdom of Kush in the Bible, and the Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Nubia was renowned for its fair rulers and "pious and just" citizens. Nubia traded, conducted diplomacy and occasionally battled with Egyptians, Romans, Judeans and Assyrians. Nubia was colonized by Egypt from around 1500 to 1000 BC, but in 750 BC, the era of the Greek poet Homer, the Nubian King Piye turned the tables, conquering a weakened and disunited Egypt and becoming the first of several Nubian pharaohs who ruled a unified Egyptian and Nubian state for the next century. Nubians produced and traded gold, ivory, incense, ebony, animal skins, grains, cattle, cotton and smelted iron. They controlled trade between Mediterranean lands and the African societies to the south and were middle men in the slave trade. Nubia, itself, however, O’Connor says, seems never to have served as any more significant source of slaves to Egypt than did nearby Semitic and West Asian lands. Nubia’s fortunes rose and fell over the millennia, as all civilizations have done. Its last high point in ancient times was the state of Meroe (MAYR-o-way), a great cultural center whose scribes developed an alphabet around 180 BC to better express the Nubian language, which until then had been written with Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Meroitic alphabet is still largely undeciphered, and until linguists crack its code, the sizable number of remaining written records are inaccessible. O’Connor says once the linguistic puzzle has been solved, we’ll know more about the last days of ancient Nubia, which faded around 400 AD. In 500, Nubians turned from their own Egyptian-influenced religion to Christianity, and the region converted heavily to Islam a thousand years later. Scholars began excavating northern Nubia (which in confusing scholarly parlance is called Lower Nubia because it lies on lower lands along the north-flowing Nile) in the first decade of this century. Yet this exhibition-which began in Philadelphia and visited Newark, Rochester and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC before coming to the Kelsey, and is bound next for Baltimore and Minneapolis-is the first major public presentation of Nubian history, culture and artifacts. Why did Nubian history lie in general obscurity despite the consistent interest in it shown by generations of African American scholars? Ethnocentric bias played a big role in the underappreciation of Nubia, O’Connor says. In his catalog for the exhibit, he notes that many Western scholars have conveyed the idea that Nubia was either backward in comparison with Egypt and other societies of the time, or that Nubians borrowed all of their advanced technologies and ideologies from Egyptians. He cites as an example of "scholarly biases" the practice of translating the Egyptian words heka and wer as "ruler" or "king" when they are applied to heads of Near Eastern kingdoms or states, "but as ‘chief’ for the Nubian [leaders], although nothing in the text warrants the differentiation." Peter Lacovera, an Egyptologist at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, told the Washington Post, "What we realize now is that the Nubians weren’t copying the Egyptians; they were innovators in their own right. In fact, they were often more innovative than the Egyptians in their use of different materials and in their artistic styles. Nubian ceramics were well beyond Egypt in technology and decoration." Nubians also built more pyramids than the Egyptians, although the Nubian version is smaller and has a flat rather than pointed top. Reisner had to twist his argument through "a good deal of mental gymnastics," Thomas continues, when he attempted to account for facets of Nubian culture that were distinct from Egypt’s. She cites the following passage from his report: "Thus a race was revealed which had only a political and geographical connection with Egypt. It was racially and culturally descended from the people living in the same place in the Old Kingdom. The Nubian race was negroid, but not negro; it was perhaps a mixture of the proto-Egyptian and a negro or negroid race, possibly related to the Libyan race. It lay outside the cultural influence of Egypt and, seeming to lack power or opportunity of self-culture, developed through several phases of the same quasi-Neolithic state in which we first find it." Thomas, who is "fascinated by such historiography and by the still-growing accumulation of various versions of ancient Nubian history," says that today statements like Reisner "ought to leap out from the page as offensive as well as misguided." Versions of Nubia’s past are concocted not only by those who would belittle Nubia but also by those who seek to glorify it as a Golden Age state that gave birth to Egyptian civilization. Some members of the African American community seize upon utopian depictions of ancient African societies as a corrective, however exaggerated or even erroneous, to the belittling versions of African cultures that arose as ideological justifications of the slave trade. Thomas offers as an example of Afrocentric "popular re-imaginings" a comic book about an ancient Nubian super-hero, Heru, Son of Ausar, whose creator Roger Barnes includes a bibliography of African and African American historical interpretations of Nubia. All over the globe versions of ancient history remain hotly contested by those who excuse or vindicate present policies on the basis of rights they claim through their interpretation of the past. American scholars have reported that some of their Egyptian colleagues think it is ludicrous to devote attention to ancient Nubia, which they have been taught to view as merely a poor country cousin of pharaonic Egypt. It’s more surprising to hear that the Sudanese establishment, too, shows minimal interest in ancient Nubia. Sudanese archaeologists say that some leaders of the current Islamic state see little value in valorizing the achievements of "pagan" originators of their culture. Nonetheless, Thomas emphasizes, African archaeologists and historians, including Egyptians and Sudanese, are now playing major roles in reconstructing and reinterpreting Nubian and other early African civilizations that now present the largest remaining uncharted territory for researchers into ancient life. Attention Expanding Professor O’Connor will give a public lecture on the exhibition Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m., Auditorium C, Angell Hall. For other information, call (313) 747-0441. Initial funding for "Ancient Nubia: Egypt’s Rival in Africa" came from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Financial support was also provided by the University’s International Institute and the Office of the Vice President for Research. All images used in this article are from the exhibition catalog by David O'Connor and may not be reproduced without permission of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Nubian Royalty Featured Book: More Royalty Books World Royalty: Popular Pages Talk About Royalty: Because Nubians were great archers, the Egyptians called Nubia "Ta-Seti," or Land of the Bow. The name Nubia came into use in the Middle Ages. Although it was a hot, dry land, ancient Nubia was a treasure trove of gold, ivory, stone, and other riches, and therefore a tempting target to foreign rulers. At times Egypt ruled Nubia; at other times, various Nubian kingdoms flourished. The great kingdom of Kush (or Cush) was located in south Nubia. The ancient Greeks called it Ethiopia. In the 8th century BC, Kush -- led by King Piankhi (or Piye) and later his brother and successor King Shabaka -- conquered Egypt. These Kushite kings founded Egypt's 25th ruling dynasty. After Shabaka died, Piankhi's son Shebitku became pharaoh; he was succeeded by his brother Taharqa. But the Nubian Dynasty's reign in Egypt proved to be short-lived. In the middle of the 7th century BC, Taharqa was driven out of Egypt by the Assyrians. He and his cousin Tanutamon, who succeeded Taharqa as king of Kush, tried but failed to regain the Egyptian throne. Around 592 BC, Egypt sacked Kush's capital, Napata. After that, the city of Meroe became the capital of Kush. The kingdom lasted for some 900 years more. One notable Kushite ruler was the fierce one-eyed warrior queen Amanirenas, who battled an occupying Roman army in the first century AD. Her ambassadors were conducted into the presence of the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar, and according to the Roman writer Strabo, they "obtained all that they desired, and Caesar even remitted the tribute which he had imposed." Queen Amanirenas had won; the Romans withdrew from most of Nubia. It seems Kush gradually went into decline, and crumbled completely after the armies of Aksum (an kingdom of ancient Ethiopia) conquered Meroe around 350 AD. New kingdoms arose in Nubia, and these kingdoms started converting to Christianity in the 6th century AD. Around 1400, Nubia began falling under the control of Arab rulers, and many Nubians converted to Islam. But much of Nubian culture has survived through the centuries, and the Nubian language is still spoken today in Egypt and Sudan. Back to Top of Page Books About Nubia Book Categories: Nubia, Kush, Funj, Sudan, Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Children's Books Nubia and Egypt The Black Pharaohs: Egypt's Nubian Rulers by Robert G. Morkot. A powerful kingdom arose in northern Sudan (Kush) during the 9th century BC. Conquering Egypt, its kings ruled the Nile Valley from the Mediterranean as far as Khartoum for half a century. From Slave to Pharaoh: The Black Experience of Ancient Egypt by Donald B. Redford. Examines the interactions between Egypt and the Nubian and Sudanese civilizations to the south, focusing on the role of racial identity in the formulation of imperial power in Egypt. Piankhy in Egypt: A Study of the Piankhy Stela by Hans Goedicke. Piankhi or Piye was a king of Kush who invaded Egypt. Kingdom of Kush The Kingdom of Kush: The Napatan and Meroitic Empires by Derek A. Welsby. A scholarly look at the ancient kingdom. Includes illustrations. Egypt and Ethiopia Funj Kings Sudan Historical Dictionary of the Sudan by Robert S. Kramer, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban. Focuses on the Sudan in Islamic times from the 14th century to the present, including info on the sultanates of Sinnar and Dar Fur, the Mahdiya, and the history of Islam in the Sudan. Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile edited by Dietrich Wildung, translated by Peter Der Manuelian. Exhibition catalog with large photographs and illustrations. More Books About Nubia The Land of Gold by Gillian Bradshaw. After the murder of her parents, a Nubian princess is helped to her rightful place on the throne by two friendly Egyptians. For children. Out of print, but available from Alibris. Other Children's Books About Africa Back to Top of Page Related Topics
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Tell us what kind of paper you need! Definition of a civilization According to my definition of a civilization the ancient Nubian qualify in all fields. They have achieved a division of labor, which sparked advanced government, a written language, advanced technology, and a calendar. Division of labor During the Neolithic age, the Nubian people abandoned their hunter-gatherer society and adopted a new way of life, one with farming and raising animals. It created a division of labor. In the early stages there were a few basic occupations one could pursue. Farming, ranching, and medicine making were the most common of the early careers. As the Nubian civilization evolved many other occupations became available to the people. There were need for hotels, markets, bathhouses, artist, priest, and blacksmiths. One could also take a career as a politician, military officer, record keeper or other careers related to the government. Trading was another way to go. Many people made a living by managing the trade with other countries or working on the trade ships. The division of labor required Nubian’s to stay in one area rather than travel the land by seasons, and in turn that spawned all other aspects of their civilization. Advanced government Before the N This paper is the property of NetEssays.Net Copyright © 1999-2004 Tell us what kind of paper you need!
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http://www.netessays.net/viewpaper/4883.html All lessons are designed to appeal to the heart, head and hands Contact: Dr. David L. Mollet tel/fax (619) 463-1270 The ancient civilization of Kush is often a neglected area of the ancient civilization curriculum. However, if students are to have a balanced view of the development of civilizations throughout the world, then they need to learn about this ancient civilization of the interior of Africa. As Kush possessed all the features of a major civilization it should take its place alongside the other major civilizations of the ancient world. Kush was not simply an extension of its northern neighbor Egypt, but a civilization in its own right, with a distinct and separate culture. Influenced by Egypt on some occasions and influencing Egypt on others, Kush nevertheless followed a unique path of development. With this in mind Waldorf Education Resources has produced a teaching pack with three SubUnits on Kush, starting with the Kerma culture and taking students through to the destruction of Meroe by the king of Axum. Unit 4 Kush Each SubUnit (not Unit) costs $19.95 (This price includes permission to photocopy) Click here for Order Form All lessons are designed to appeal to the heart, head and hands Contact: Dr. David L. Mollet tel/fax (619) 463-1270
By Timothy Kendall Greek traditions told of Memnon, a legendary Nubian king who had fought in the Trojan War; they spoke of Nubia's people, who were the "tallest and handsomest on earth," and whose piety was so great that the gods preferred their offerings to those of all other men. They also knew that historical Nubian kings had once conquered Egypt and ruled it for sixty years and that their dynasty was counted as Egypt's Twenty-fifth. The Greeks, however, did not call these people "Nubians" or "Kushites," as we do today; they called them Aithiopes ("Ethiopians"), which in Greek meant "Burnt-Faced Ones." They knew perfectly well that Nubians were black-skinned, as are the Sudanese of the same regions today. During the 1840s, the great German egyptologist, Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) led an expedition to record the monuments of Egypt and Sudan for the King of Prussia. On his return, he asserted confidently that the Greek term "Ethiopian," when referring to the ancient civilized people of Kush, did not apply to "negroes," but was used to describe reddish-skinned people closely related to the Egyptians, who "belonged to the Caucasian race." Again, in 1852, when the American diplomat Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) visited Sudan and gazed upon the temple carvings of sumptuously clad gods and rulers with clearly African features, he also found it inconceivable that they could have been created by black-skinned Africans. Rather, he asserted, echoing Lepsius, they must have been created by Egyptians or by immigrants from India or Arabia, or, in any case, "by an offshoot ... of the race to which we belong." Lepsius and Taylor failed to acknowledge the fact that the Greeks themselves never confused "Ethiopians" with Egyptians, or that they always used the term "Ethiopian" to apply equally to the peoples of Kush and central Africa. Such racist opinions and "scientific" distortions among Western scholars of the 19th century, while not universal, did, unhappily, predominate and shaped the attitudes that for another full century would retard and confuse the discipline of Nubian Studies and African civilization in general. So remote was the northern Sudan that scientific archaeology could not take place there until the British seized control of the country in 1898 and opened it up with the completion the Cairo-Khartoum railway. The first major excavations were undertaken by famed Egyptologist George A. Reisner (1867-1942), whose team, sponsored by Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, would first excavate Kerma in 1913, the Gebel Barkal Temples from 1916-1920, and all the royal pyramids of Kush between 1917-1924. Almost single-handedly, Reisner laid the foundations of Nubian history, reconstructing it from the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Christian era. He also deciphered the names and approximate order and dates of all the Kushite monarchs through some seventy generations, from the 8th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. It was a towering achievement, almost unparalleled in the annals of archaeology. While Reisner's deductions still strike us as astonishing for their brilliance and essential correctness, we are equally appalled to discover his inability to accept that the monuments he excavated were built by bona fide black men. Using entirely specious evidence, he formulated a theory that the founders of the 25th or "Ethiopian" Dynasty of Egypt were not black Sudanese but rather a branch of the "Egypto-Libyan" (by which he meant "fair skinned") ruling class of Dynasty 22, and that they were called "Ethiopians" by the Greeks simply because they dominated a darker-skinned native "negroid" population, which, as he stated, "had never developed either its trade or any industry worthy of mention." Like Taylor and Lepsius, believing absolutely that skin pigmentation was a determinant of intellectual ability and enlightenment, Reisner attributed the apparent cultural decline of the Napatan phase of the Kushite culture (ca. 660-300 B.C.) to the "deadening effects" of racial intermarriage between his imagined light-skinned elite and darker-skinned hoi poloi. The Meroitic cultural renaissance (after ca. 300 B.C.) he explained as simply the result of new influxes of Egyptians. Nubian cultures, he reasoned, were not as developed as the Egyptian because the people were of mixed race, yet by virtue of their relationship to the superior Egyptian race, they were elevated far above the "the inert mass of the black races of Africa." This was Reisner at his worst. Such unabashed racist interpretations, widely published in scholarly journals at the time and accepted as gospel by the popular press, today offend and embarrass all of us. Yet it is interesting to note how such pervasive racism then affected the discipline of Nubian Studies in America. Reisner, very much a product of his time, seems to have had an unconscious need to believe that his Kushite kings were "white" (or "white men" in darker skin, or dark men with "white souls") in order to make them and their culture more worthy of study to himself and more acceptable to the contemporary scholarly and museum-going public -- and perhaps even to his financial backers at the Museum of Fine Arts. Yet whether judged as "white" or "black," Nubian civilization could not have received much popular interest at the time. If it were merely an offshoot of a "white" Egypt in central Africa, as Reisner theorized, then it would inevitably be judged as late, decadent, and "peripheral" (i.e to the Egyptocentered and Eurocentered universe). If it were "black," then in the minds of his contemporaries it would be utterly irrelevant to history. In either case, it seemed to offer few attractions as an area of study for Egypologists of that generation, and almost none pursued it. Contemporary books on Egyptian history virtually ignored it. Even as late as the 1940s and 50s, the racial identity of the Nubians remained problematic for "white" scholars. For example, when the bones of the Kushite royalty, recovered from Reisner's excavations, were sent for analysis to the specialists at the Peabody Museum at Harvard, the latter identified them as belonging to the "basic white stock of Egypt". In this case, the osteologists, like Lepsius, Taylor and Reisner, evidently wished to claim them for their "own race." Yet when the respected University of Chicago Egyptologists Keith Seele and Georg Steindorff, who were not subscribers to Reisner's "Libyan theory," published their own history of Egypt in 1942, When Egypt Ruled the East, they left no doubt about their biases in the two sentences they used to dismiss the 25th Dynasty: "In the place of a native Egyptian pharaoh or of the usurping Libyans, the throne of Egypt was occupied by a Negro king from Ethiopia! But his dominion was not for long." Today, fifty-seven years after the publication of this book, the 25th Dynasty "Negro" kings are now recognized as having sponsored an important renaissance of Egyptian art and culture; they developed an almost scholarly interest in ancient Egyptian traditions and language and have been called "the first Egyptologists." The empire over which they presided was greater in extent than any ever achieved in antiquity along the Nile Valley. Their kings were said never to have condemned prisoners to death; they forgave their enemies and allowed them to retain their offices; they also actually gave public credit for achievement in their inscriptions to individuals other than themselves. Such characteristics among other ancient monarchs of Egypt or the Near East are unheard of, and we can only assume these were native Nubian qualities. Yet for Egyptologists of the first half of the 20th century, the fact that they were "negro" marked this period as the lowest level to which Egyptian civilization had sunk in all its history. When the mass of material from Reisner's excavations in the Sudan was sent back to the Boston Museum in 1924, most of it went into storage and was all but forgotten. When in the late 1970s it was rediscovered by the Museum's curators, they joyously identified it as one of the Museum's most important and unique treasures, assigned it to several national and international touring exhibitions, and finally installed it in a special permanent gallery. "White racism" in scholarly circles disappeared with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but it was replaced with a virulent new "black racism," which many African-Americans adopted as a belated response to the former, even before the rehabilitation of ancient Kush. This spawned the discipline called Afrocentrism, which interpreted ancient African history through the anger of the modern black experience, and which vaunted Egypt as a "black African" culture and even the fountainhead of European civilization. Ironically, like the racism of Reisner's day, this trend also diminished the significance of Kush, since the exponents minimized the ethnic and cultural differences between it and Egypt and still give primary emphasis to the achievements of Egypt. In the 1990s, the future of Nubian Studies in America looks brighter than ever. The "blackness" of Kushite art and culture, which once generally negated its interest for Americans, is now precisely what makes it so interesting for them. It is to be hoped that in the new millennium all Americans will come to grasp -- what neither Reisner and his contemporaries, on the one hand, understood nor the modern Afrocentrists, on the other, understand -- that proper study of the past is not attainable unless we can identify and transcend our own biases. At some point we will all need to recognize that "the race to which we belong" -- to use Bayard Taylor's phrase -- is neither black nor white, but simply human, with all its extraordinary creative abilities and all its eternal failings. | | BLACK KINGDOMS OF THE NILE EPISODE | |
bbc-british radio Contact Us | Help | Text Only Nubia When discussing the civilisations of the Nile Valley, many histories focus almost exclusively on the role of Egypt. But this approach ignores the emergence further south on the Nile of the kingdom known to the Egyptians as Kush, in the region called Nubia - the area now covered by southern Egypt and Northern Sudan. The relationship between Egypt and Kush was a complex one, which changed depending on the political and economic climate of the time. "Nubia was the meeting place of the Mediterranean and African civilisation. The relationship between Egypt and upper Nubia was completely different from time to time and period to period. If the Egyptian king's power is widespread it catches everything under its control and Nubia comes under Egyptian authority, but if it is weak, then upper Nubia is ruled by itself." KERMA AND NAPATA Kerma was an advanced society and archaeological evidence shows that ceramics were being produced by 8,000 BC - earlier than in Egypt. By about 1700 BC, the town had grown into a town of 10,000 people with a complex hierarchical society. Egypt could not ignore its southern neighbour although its interest was predominantly economic. Nubia was rich with minerals such as stones needed for the building of temples and tombs, and gold, needed for jewelry. Indeed Kush was one of the major gold producers of the ancient world. At one stage Nubia, was occupied by Egypt for about 500 years and then the tables turned. From around 850 BC, the Egyptian state fell into such decline that what became known as the twenty-fifth dynasty rose in Nubia, with authority over all of Egypt. This dynasty based at Napata was known as the 'Ethiopian' dynasty. Although it was heavily influenced by Egyptian culture and religion, it was in many ways the first great African power. "They dealt like Egyptians, they dressed like Egyptians, but they were still proud of their black faces." In 713 BC King Shabaka came to power in Kush and brought the Nile Valley as far as the Delta under his control. The name of one of his successors, King Taharqa, is found on inscriptions throughout the Valley. MOVING TO MEROE Listen to a dramatisation of Greek geographer Strabo's description of Meroe This, symbolically, was a move closer to black Africa, and the kingdom that grew up around Meroe was one that very much reflected African influences. The Meroites have been given much less historical attention than the Egyptians but in many ways it was a kingdom that rivaled Egypt in material wealth and distinctive cultural development. "From the graves and from the images painted on tombs we can see that people looked much more African than Mediterranean. The jewelry is really of an African nature - like anklets, bracelets, ear studs and earrings - and you can still find the style of the jewelry used by the Meroites on tribes of the savannah belt south of Khartoum." Listen to Dr Salah El-Din Muhammed Ahmed, Director of Fieldwork at the National Museum, Khartoum, describing Meroite features as African Meroe was a complex, advanced and politically stable society. It relied on elected kingship with elaborate coronation ceremonies in which the Queen mother played an important role. Excavations of the large ancient city have revealed palaces, royal baths and temples. EXPANDING KINGDOMS The kingdom also had the resources needed for the smelting of iron: ore, water from the Nile and wood from acacia trees to make charcoal. Iron gave the Meroites spears, arrows axes and hoes, allowing them to develop a mixed farming economy to exploit to the full the tropical summer rainfall. Although influenced by the Egyptian state gods, such as Amun, Meroe developed its own forms of religious worship. The most important regional deity was the Lion God, Apedemek - often portrayed with a lion's head on a human body. As Meroe became more distanced from Egypt, so too was the Egyptian language replaced as the spoken language of the court. Instead a Meroitic alphabet and script were introduced, which to this day researchers have been unable to decipher. The Kingdom of Meroe began to fade as a power by the first or second century AD, sapped by war with Roman Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries. The iron industry had used up huge quantities of charcoal leading to deforestation and the land began to lose its fertility. In around 350 AD, an army led by Ezana, King of the growing kingdom of Axum in what is now Ethiopia, invaded Meroe - but by then Meroites had already dispersed, replaced by a people described by the Axumites as Noba. Listen to Osama Abdel Meguid, Director of the Nubian Museum in Aswan, discussing the Nubian love of the Nile FOR ABOVE WHEN THE AUTHOR MENTIONS TOWN,HE IS TALKING ABOUT A CITY ,LIKE THE CITY OF KERMA AND NAPATA. Axum only conquered some parts of nubia but they were kick out by the nubians in about 6 months and new nubian kingdoms were form in upper and southern nubia, but upper and lower nubia had new kingdoms first before the southern nubians kick out the axumites in 6 months Correction for 1 above article,kush did not deline or was sap of energy because of war with rome/roman egypt,there were other factors and the deline happen 3 cen. ad,not 2 cen.ad but even in this time kush THESE ARE THE FACTS.NUBIAN CIVILIZATION WAS FIRST, THEN EGYPT CAME AND LATER EGYPT PASSED IT,THAN NUBIA CAUGHT UP AGAIN AND LATER PASS EGYPT AND BECAME MORE ADVANCED AND MORE SO IN MERIOTIC TIMES MEROE WAS MORE ADVANCED THAN ANCIENT EGYPT,AND THE POST MERIOTIC PERIOD ,AND THE CHRISTIAN NUBIAN KINGDOMS MORE SO IN MEDIEVAL TIMES AND THE MUSLIM NUBIAN KINDGOMS- FUNJ KINGDOM(A CONFEDERATION OF NUBIANS AND OTHER AFRICANS WHO'S BASIC CULTURE WAS NUBIAN AND MANY LEADERS WERE PART NUBIAN OR NUBIAN)-AND TWO NEW NUBIAN KINGDOMS LATER OF MUSLIM NUBIA. INTERNET PUPPET THEATERwww.internetpuppets.org This is the story of an empire which, at the height of its power, encompassed both Egypt and the Sudan. Nubia's territory extended 1,200 miles, from the Mediterranean to Khartoum. This was a time when African (Black) Pharaohs ruled Egypt, when African workers built pyramids in the Sudan, when African priests worshipped in Thebes and African princes' dominated the world scene. This is the story of a peoples who withstood the power of Ancient Greece and preserved their freedom by fighting a legion of Rome to a stalemate. This was a civilization which shared military and political power with women. To a modern European, the world would seem as if it was turned upside down. In 716 B.C., Shabako (Piye's uncle) succeeded Piye. Shabako moved his capital to the city of Memphis. He loved to build pyramids and as a result, Nubia had more pyramids than Egypt. Shabako believed he was the restorer of the Egyptian traditions and the ancient glories. In 690 B.C., Shabitko, the son of Piye, ascended to the throne. Shabitko sent arms to Judah (the state of Israel) in defiance of an Assyrian military threat. In 674 B.C., the Assyrian's invaded Egypt. The Nubian's were pushed back into Nubia proper. King Tanutamani was the last Nubian King to attempt to re-take Egypt. By 656 B.C., Nubian dominance of Egypt was at an end. The Nubian Empire had lasted less than a century. In 593 B.C., the names of the Nubian Pharaohs were erased from Egyptian monuments. In 591 B.C., Napata (the Nubian capital) was sacked. Meroe became the third Nubian capital. Meroitic history is filled with powerful Queen mothers. Women ruled with the same authority as men. The Meroitic alphabet has never been deciphered due to the lack of a translation key or Rosetta stone. The Nubians so disliked their Roman neighbors that a bust of Caesar Augustus was buried beneath a doorway to a temple. In this way, all who entered would step on his head. By A.D. 300-350, Meroe was abandoned due to environmental pollution. Meroe suffered the fate of an over industrialized nation. The smelting industry had poisoned the soil. Trees had been cut down and the resulting erosion had washed away the topsoil. The land was unable to grow the crops necessary to feed the population. A new kingdom of Axium became Africa's commercial center. In A.D. 350, the Christian King Ezana of Axium had defeated Meroitic forces. Archeological findings have shown that the founding of Kerma dates back to 5,000 B.C.. The Nubian Empire pre-dates Egyptian civilization and its lifespan outlasted Egypt, Greece and Rome combined. The African army had defeated both Egyptian, Greek and Roman enemies. At the height of its power, Nubia was the center of the ancient world. The Kingdom of Kush, with its alphabet, commerce and architectural triumphs was the equal of its ancient world counterparts. In the modern world, the memory of this once great empire would fade into history. THE arabs never really conqured all of nubia,it was only the upper and northern part,and the christian nubian kingdom of alwa in southern nubia was conqured by the funj with arab help.the funj were a group of black africans from sennar a region that became a part of nubia earlier,and it a part of nubia,the blue nile area up to sennar a great city.THE FUNJ were a confederation of southern nubians and other africans, and they reconqured the rest of nubia from the arabs.later more clear new nubian kingdoms were form until the british conquest of the sudan,but some nubians remain free and the british never could conqure them.nubian civilization still goes on up until today. <playbillframe.html> TABLE OF CONTENTS <playbillframe.html> <global.html> GLOBAL STUDIES <global.html>©COPYRIGHT 2000, THE BERTRON COMPANY, INC. IP: Logged |
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kenndo Member Posts: 450 |
posted 12 March 2005 04:07 PM
the facts are above for all to read. IP: Logged |
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Roy_2k5 Member Posts: 162 |
posted 12 March 2005 05:45 PM
Kennodo, please read the articles correctly, they are not really truthful, just half truths. These articles by these 'liberal' authors do have rather fiendish motives. It is pretty apparent that they are trying to divide Kmt and 'Nubia'. It is true parts of Kush did include 'Nubia', but not all of it. Kmt originated in Upper Egypt and 'Nubia'. This region was also a part of the much older Nile Valley civilization. BTW, look at this statement:
quote: This article still refers to crap like this. It is like referring to the old views that Irish are non-white. Including BS as a proper view is not a sign of neutrality, but rather bias. Another one: quote: Now he backtracks. He cannot believe that Nubia is Black but rather by 'Aryans', since this region is home to a civilization much older than Egypt. IP: Logged |
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Super car Member Posts: 424 |
posted 12 March 2005 06:20 PM
Roy has a point. We've been through this time and again. To effectively learn about the Uppermost Nile Valley regions, Nubia should be treated as a geographic reference, rather than national identity. The Kemetians themselves had various references for the southernmost nome at various timeframes. It is likely that upper "Nubian" (aside from the Kushites and Meroites), and perhaps the lower "Nubian" folks had their own identifications, which we will not fully know unless further evidence is uprooted. Most of the names of these regions had been found from Egyptian texts, meaning from Egyptian perspective. Remember, there is still much under the Aswan dam, and elsewhere that has still evaded historians the full potential of the Uppermost Nile Valley regions. IP: Logged |
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rasol Member Posts: 2349 |
posted 12 March 2005 07:43 PM
Beware "Nubianology." - The most insideous tactic available to the Eurocentrists because it exploits the desire of Africans to be aknolwedged by them. They throw fake praise to Nubia - which is conditional. It is set up to be tactically in exchange for sustained appropriation of Ancient Egypt - the European Egypt. It is the thief who stands by the door and promises not to trespass, if you simply leave him and 'his' territory alone. A land owner who makes that fool bargain will not be a land owner for very much longer. IP: Logged |
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kenndo Member Posts: 450 |
posted 13 March 2005 03:56 AM
quote:
Even up to very late ancient times in egypt most were still unmixed and in modern sudan the same thing as well,so i even said to tim on the phone that he was not clear in one website,and he admitted that,but in other articles or websites he does make it clear,but if i do not comment on a article or certain things in it,you guys are sharp and believe me,you guys will make it known if there is no comment. [This message has been edited by kenndo (edited 13 March 2005).] IP: Logged |
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