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Originally posted by -Just Call Me Jari-:
Alot of the cone shapped structures would have dated from the Islamic era correct..??

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Originally posted by Kenndo:
I am not sure,if any one else knows please post.

I know the funj built something like them,but i am not sure if it is from the christian period or Islamic period of nubia.

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Posts: 535 | From: From the Darkest of the Abyss | Registered: Apr 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Troll Patrol:
Thanks for these awesome pictures.

There is a way to make them smaller. But I like tem the way they are.

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Thanks everyone.
Oh,i had a funny feeling there was a way ,but i just never had time to find out about making them smaller.
I guess i will have to make the time to sooner or later.

Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by -Just Call Me Jari-:
Thanks Kenndo for these Images, I really with there were some reconstructions of the Nubian Cathedrals.

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Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by kenndo:
Edited-

IF there was a way to make the pictures smaller i would but i guess this is the way they are.I got them from another website.
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That's how that should have been written.

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Originally posted by Troll Patrol:
Thanks for these awesome pictures.

There is a way to make them smaller. But I like tem the way they are.

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Thanks everyone.
Oh,i had a funny feeling there was a way ,but i just never had time to find out about making them smaller.
I guess i will have to make the time to sooner or later.

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Posts: 22249 | From: Omni | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Troll Patrol:

quote:

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Originally posted by kenndo:
Edited-

IF there was a way to make the pictures smaller i would but i guess this is the way they are.I got them from another website.
____________________________________________
That's how that should have been written.

quote:

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Originally posted by Troll Patrol:
Thanks for these awesome pictures.

There is a way to make them smaller. But I like tem the way they are.

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Thanks everyone.
Oh,i had a funny feeling there was a way ,but i just never had time to find out about making them smaller.
I guess i will have to make the time to sooner or later.

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http://www.picresize.com/

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Posts: 2688 | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Latrines were a common sight in Nubian domestic buildings. In Dongola all houses had ceramic toilets. Some houses in Cerra Matto (Serra East) featured privies with ceramic toilets, which were connected to a small chamber with a stone-lined clean out window to the outside and a brick ventilation flue. Biconical pieces of clay served as the equivalent of toilet paper.

One house in Dongola featured a vaulted bathroom, fed by a system of pipes attached to a water tank. A furnace heated up both the water and the air, which was circulated into the richly decorated bathroom via flues in the walls. The monastic complex of Hambukol is thought to have had a room serving as a steam bath. The Ghazali monastery in Wadi Abu Dom also might have featured several bathrooms.

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Makuria was a monarchy ruled by a king based in Dongola. The king was also considered a priest and could perform mass. How succession was decided is not clear. Early writers indicate it was from father to son. After the 11th century, however, it seems clear that Makuria was using the uncle-to-sister's-son system favoured for millennia in Kush. Shinnie speculates that the later form may have actually been used throughout, and that the early Arab writers merely misunderstood the situation and incorrectly described Makurian succession as similar to what they were used to. A Coptic source from the mid 8th century refers to king Cyriacos as "orthodox Abyssinian king of Makuria" as well as "Greek king", with "Abyssinian" probably reflecting the Miaphysite Coptic church and "Greek" the Byzantine Orthodox one.In 1186 king Moses Georgios called himself "king of Alodia, Makuria, Nobadia, Dalmatia and Axioma.

Little is known about government below the king. A wide array of officials, generally using Byzantine titles, are mentioned, but their roles are never explained. One figure who is well-known, thanks to the documents found at Qasr Ibrim, is the Eparch of Nobatia, who seems to have been the viceroy in that region after it was annexed to Makuria. The Eparch's records make clear that he was also responsible for trade and diplomacy with the Egyptians. Early records make it seem like the Eparch was appointed by the king, but later ones indicate that the position had become hereditary.This office would eventually become that of the "Lord of the Horses" ruling the autonomous and then Egyptian-controlled al-Maris.

The bishops might have played a role in the governance of the state. Ibn Selim el-Aswani noted that before the king responded to his mission he met with a council of bishops. El-Aswani described a highly centralized state, but other writers state that Makuria was a federation of thirteen kingdoms presided over by the great king at Dongola. It is unclear what the reality was, but the Kingdom of Dotawo, prominently mentioned in the Qasr Ibrim documents, might be one of these sub-kingdoms.

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

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The kingdom of al-Abwab was a medieval Nubian monarchy in what is now central Sudan. Initially the most northerly province of Alodia, it appeared as an independent kingdom from 1276. Henceforth it was repeatedly recorded by Arabic sources in relation to the wars between its northern neighbour Makuria and the Egyptian Mamluk sultanate, where it generally sided with the latter. In 1367 it is mentioned for the last time, but based on pottery finds it has been suggested that the kingdom continued to exist until the 15th, perhaps even the 16th, century. During the reign of Funj king Amara Dunqas (r. 1504–1533/4) the region is known to have become part of the Funj sultanate.

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Al-Abwab still has not been precisely located. Al-Aswani wrote in the 10th century that the Atbara was located within al-Abwab, but also implied that its northern border was further north, at the great Nile bend. In 1317 al-Abwab was located around the confluence of the Atbara and the Nile, while in 1289 it was recorded that it could be reached after travelling three days from Mograt Island, suggesting that its northern border was in the proximity of Abu Hamad. In the early 20th century it was noted that Sudanese used the term al-Abwab to describe a region in the proximity of Meroe. Archaeologist David Edwards states that the material culture of the Nile Valley between Abu Hamad, where the Nile bends westwards, and the Atbara was affiliated with Makuria rather than Alodia.

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

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There is evidence that at certain periods there were close relations between the Alodian and the Makurian royal families. It is possible that the throne frequently passed to a king whose father was of the royal family of the other state. Nubiologist Włodzimierz Godlewski states that it was under the Makurian king Merkurios (early 8th century) that the two kingdoms began to approach each other. In 943 al Masudi wrote that the Makurian king ruled over Alodia, while Ibn Hawqal wrote that it was the other way around.The 11th century saw the appearance of a new royal crown in Makurian art; it has been suggested that this derived from the Alodian court. King Mouses Georgios, who is known to have ruled in Makuria in the second half of the 12th century, most likely ruled both kingdoms via a personal union. Considering that in his royal title ("king of the Arouades and Makuritai") Alodia is mentioned before Makuria, he might have initially been an Alodian king.

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It is unclear if the kingdom of Alodia was destroyed by the Arabs under Abdallah Jammah or by the Funj, an African group from the south led by their king Amara Dunqas. Most modern scholars agree now that it fell due to the Arabs.

Abdallah Jammah ("Abdallah the gatherer"), the eponymous ancestor of the Sudanese Abdallab tribe, was a Rufa'a Arab who, according to Sudanese traditions, settled in the Nile Valley after coming from the east. He consolidated his power and established his capital at Qerri, just north of the confluence of the two Niles. In the late 15th century he gathered the Arab tribes to act against the Alodian "tyranny", as it is called, which has been interpreted as having a religious-economic motive. The Muslim Arabs no longer accepted the rule of, nor taxation by, a Christian ruler. Under Abdallah's leadership Alodia and its capital Soba were destroyed, resulting in rich booty such as a "bejeweled crown" and a "famous necklace of pearls and rubies".

According to another tradition recorded in old documents from Shendi, Soba was destroyed by Abdallah Jammah in 1509 having already been attacked in 1474. The idea of uniting the Arabs against Alodia is said to have already been on the mind of an emir who lived between 1439 and 1459. To this end, he migrated from Bara in Kordofan to a mountain near Ed Dueim on the White Nile. Under his grandson, called Emir Humaydan, the White Nile was crossed. There he met other Arab tribes and attacked Alodia. The king of Alodia was killed, but the "patriarch", probably the archbishop of Soba, managed to flee. He soon returned to Soba. A puppet king was crowned and an army of Nubians, Beja and Abyssinians was assembled to fight "for the sake of religion". Meanwhile, the Arab alliance was about to fracture, but Abdallah Jammah reunited them, while also allying with the Funj king Amara Dunqas. Together they finally defeated and killed the patriarch, razing Soba afterwards and enslaving its population.

The Funj Chronicle, a multi-authored history of the Funj Sultanate compiled in the 19th century, ascribes the destruction of Alodia to King Amara Dunqas; he was also allied with Abdallah Jammah. This attack is dated to the 9th century after the Hijra (c. 1396–1494). Afterwards, Soba is said to have served as the capital of the Funj until the foundation of Sennar in 1504. The Tabaqat Dayfallah, a history of Sufism in Sudan (c. 1700), briefly mentions that the Funj attacked and defeated the "kingdom of the Nuba" in 1504–1505.

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Historian Jay Spaulding proposes that the fall of Soba was not necessarily the end of Alodia. According to the Jewish traveler David Reubeni, who visited the country in 1523, there was still a "kingdom of Soba" on the eastern bank of the Blue Nile, although he explicitly noted Soba itself was in ruins. This matches the oral traditions from the Upper Blue Nile, which claim that Alodia survived Soba's fall and still existed along the Blue Nile. It had gradually retreated to the mountains of Fazughli in the Ethiopian-Sudanese borderlands, forming the kingdom of Fazughli.Recent excavations in western Ethiopia seem to confirm the theory of an Alodian migration.The Funj eventually conquered Fazughli in 1685 and its population, known as Hamaj, became a fundamental part of Sennar, eventually seizing power in 1761–1762. As recently as 1930 Hamaj villagers in the southern Gezira would swear by "Soba the home of my grandfathers and grandmothers which can make the stone float and the cotton ball sink".

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

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Kingdom of Fazughli


Tentative estimation of the extent of the kingdom of Fazughli

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The kingdom of Fazughli was a precolonial state in what is now southeastern Sudan and western Ethiopia. Oral traditions assert its establishment to refugees from the Nubian kingdom of Alodia, after its capital Soba had fallen to Arabs or the Funj in c. 1500. Centered around the mountainous region of Fazughli on the Blue Nile and serving as a buffer between the Funj sultanate and the Ethiopian empire, the kingdom lasted until its incorporation into the Funj sultanate in 1685.

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In the Middle Ages, large parts of central and southern Sudan, including the region of Fazughli on the border with Ethiopia, were controlled by the Christian Nubian kingdom of Alodia.Since the 12th century Alodia had been in decline,a decline which would have been well advanced by c. 1300. In the 14th and 15th century Arab bedouin tribes overran most of Sudan,pushing as far south as Aba Island.By the second half of the 15th century virtually the whole of Alodia had been settled by Arabs except of the area around Soba, the capital of Alodia at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile.Soba was eventually conquered by the Arabs or the African Funj, with Sudanese sources dating that event to the 9th century after the Hijra (c. 1396–1494),the late 15th century, 1504 and 1509.The Funj then established a sultanate with Sennar as its capital, which would extend as far north as the third Nile cataract.

Historian Jay Spaulding suggests that Alodia outlived the fall of Soba. He believes that the "kingdom of Soba" mentioned by the Jewish traveller David Reubeni in 1523 is a reference to Alodia and believes it to be located somewhere on the east bank of the Blue Nile. This "kingdom of Soba" had a territory at a distance of ten days' journey and encompassed the "kingdom of Al Ga'l", which was described as subordinate to Amara Dunqas, sultan of Sennar."Al Ga'l" is probably a reference to the Arab Jaalin tribe.Using oral traditions, Spaulding continues to argue that the Alodians eventually abandoned the territory they still held in the lower Blue Nile valley and retreated to the mountainous region of Fazughli in the south, where they reestablished their kingdom.One tradition collected in the 19th century, for example, recalls that:

the kings of Fazughli, whose dominion extended over a large part of the peninsula of Sennar (the Gezira), and one of whose capitals had been the ancient Soba, had been forced to give way before the new arrivals... the Funj ... and to retire to their mountains... There... they maintained themselves... [Thus] the empire of Fazughli emerged from the debris of the kingdom of Soba.

Local traditions also remember Alodian migrations towards Fazughli.Fazughli as a place of Nubian exile is also mentioned in the Funj Chronicle, compiled around 1870.An archaeological culture named the "Jebel Mahadid tradition",centered around Mahadid in Qwara, western Ethiopia, with monumental architecture and pottery similar to that found in Soba, has very recently been attributed to these Alodian refugees. Considering the archaeological evidence it has been suggested that they had already started arriving in the Ethiopian-Sudanese borderlands by the 14th century. Thus they would have arrived when Alodia was still existing, but was already in severe decline.

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It is recorded that the Funj retained the current ruler of Fazughli instead of replacing him with a new provincial governor.As vassals of Sennar, the governors of Fazughli received the title of manjil.According to Spaulding, the Hamaj remained Christian for at least a generation after the conquest, but by the mid-18th century they had converted to Islam. A Christian princedom, Shaira, was said to have existed in the Ethiopian-Sudanese border area as late as the early 1770s.Integrated into the sultanate of Sennar, the Hamaj would become one of its most dominant ethnic groups and Fazughli, together with the two other southern provinces of Kordofan and Alays, became its most important province,which was mostly due to the significance of its gold for Sennar's economy.In 1761–1762 Muhammad Abu Likaylik, a military commander originating from Fazughli, assembled a "heterogenous collection of neo-Alodian noblemen, warlords, slave soldiers, merchants, and fuqara (religious teachers)" and seized control of the sultanate, initiating the Hamaj Regency, which lasted until the Turko-Egyptian invasion of 1821.

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

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The Midob people are an ethnic group from the Meidob Hills region in Darfur, Sudan. They speak Midob, one of the Nubian languages (part of the larger family of Nilo-Saharan languages). The population of this ethnic group possibly exceeds 50,000.

The Midob's roots are claimed go back to Meroitic Kingdom (Kingdom of Kush) in Northern Sudan. It is not clear if linguistics is in support of this, as the linguistic relationship of Nubian languages with the Meroitic language is still debated. Nevertheless, historians like Brown (The history Of Sudanese Tribes) mention that Midob was the ruling family in the Nubian Civilization and their roots extended to the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.

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The ascension of the Muslim king Abdallah Barshambu and his transformation of the throne hall into a mosque has often been interpreted as the end of Christian Makuria. This conclusion is erroneous, since Christianity evidently remained vital in Nubia. While not much is known about the following decades, it seems that there were both Muslim and Christian kings on the Makurian throne. Both the traveller Ibn Battuta and the Egyptian historian Shihab al-Umari claim that the contemporary Makurian kings were Muslims belonging to the Banu Khanz, while the general population remained Christian. Al-Umari also points out that Makuria was still dependent on the Mamluk Sultan.On the other hand, he also remarks that the Makurian throne was seized in turns by Muslims and Christians.Indeed, an Ethiopian monk who travelled through Nubia in around 1330, Gadla Ewostatewos, states that the Nubian king, who he claims to have met in person, was Christian. In the Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms, which relies on an anonymous traveller from the mid-14th century, it is claimed that the "Kingdom of Dongola" was inhabited by Christians and that its royal banner was a cross on white background (see flag). Epigraphical evidence reveals the names of three Makurian kings: Siti and Abdallah Kanz ad-Dawla, both ruling during the 1330s, and Paper, who is dated to the mid 14th century. The attestations of Siti's reign, all Nubian in nature, show that he still exercised control/influence over a vast territory from Lower Nubia to Kordofan,suggesting that his kingdom entered the second half of the 14th century centralized, powerful and Christian.
It was also in the mid 14th century, more particularly after 1347, when Nubia would have been devastated by the plague. Archaeology confirms a rapid decline of the Christian Nubian civilization since then. Due to their small population the plague might have cleansed entire landscapes from its Nubian inhabitants.

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Both the usurper and the rightful heir, and most likely even the king that was killed during the usurpation, were Christian. Now residing in Gebel Adda, the Makurian kings continued their Christian traditions.They ruled over a reduced rump state with a confirmed north–south extension of around 100 km, albeit it might have been larger in reality.Located in a strategically irrelevant periphery, the Mamluks left the kingdom alone. In the sources this kingdom appears as Dotawo. Until recently it was commonly assumed that Dotawo was, before the Makurian court shifted its seat to Gebel Adda, just a vasal kingdom of Makuria, but it is now accepted that it was merely the Old Nubian self-designation for Makuria.

The last known king is Joel, who is mentioned in a 1463 document and in an inscription from 1484. Perhaps it was under Joel when the kingdom witnessed a last, brief renaissance.After the death or deposition of king Joel the kingdom might have collapsed.The cathedral of Faras came out of use after the 15th century, just as Qasr Ibrim was abandoned by the late 15th century. The palace of Gebel Adda came out of use after the 15th century as well. In 1518, there is one last mention of a Nubian ruler, albeit it is unknown where he resided and if he was Christian or Muslim. There were no traces of an independent Christian kingdom when the Ottomans occupied Lower Nubia in the 1560s,while the Funj had come into possession of Upper Nubia south of the third cataract.

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By the early 15th century, there is mention of a king of Dongola, most likely independent from the influence of the Egyptian sultans. Friday prayers held in Dongola failed to mention them as well. These new kings of Dongola were probably confronted with waves of Arab migrations and thus were too weak to conquer the Makurian splinter state of Lower Nubia.
It is possible that some petty kingdoms that continued the Christian Nubian culture developed in the former Makurian territory, for example on Mograt island, north of Abu Hamed. Another small kingdom was the Kingdom of Kokka, probably founded in the 17th century in the no-mans-land between the Ottoman Empire in the north and the Funj in the south. Its organization and rituals bore clear similarities to those of Christian times.Eventually the kings themselves were Christians until the 18th century.
In 1412, the Awlad Kenz took control of Nubia and part of Egypt above the Thebaid.

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged | 

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Archaeological evidence from Soba suggests a decline of the town, and therefore possibly the Alodian kingdom, from the 12th century.By c. 1300 the decline of Alodia was well advanced. No pottery or glassware postdating the 13th century has been identified at Soba. Two churches were apparently destroyed during the 13th century, although they were rebuilt shortly afterwards. It has been suggested that Alodia was under attack by an African, possibly Nilotic, people called Damadim who originated from the border region of modern Sudan and South Sudan, along the Bahr el Ghazal River. According to geographer Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi, they attacked Nubia in 1220. Soba may have been conquered at this time, suffering occupation and destruction. In the late 13th century, another invasion by an unspecified people from the south occurred.In the same period poet al-Harrani wrote that Alodia's capital was now called Waylula,described as "very large" and "built on the west bank of the Nile".In the early 14th century geographer Shamsaddin al-Dimashqi wrote that the capital was a place named Kusha, located far from the Nile, where water had to be obtained from wells.The contemporary Italian-Mallorcan Dulcert map features both Alodia ("Coale") and Soba ("Sobaa").

Economic factors also seem to have played a part in Alodia's decline. From the 10th to 12th centuries the East African coast saw the rise of new trading cities such as Kilwa. These were direct mercantile competitors since they exported similar goods to Nubia. A period of severe droughts occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1150 and 1500 would have affected the Nubian economy as well.Archeobotanical evidence from Soba suggests the town suffered from overgrazing and overcultivation.

By 1276 al-Abwab, previously described as the northernmost Alodian province, was recorded as an independent splinter kingdom ruling over vast territories. The precise circumstances of its secession and its relations with Alodia thereafter remain unknown. Based on pottery finds it has been suggested that al-Abwab continued to thrive until the 15th and perhaps even the 16th century. In 1286 a Mamluke prince sent messengers to several rulers in central Sudan. It is not clear if they were still subject to the king in Soba or if they were independent, implying a fragmentation of Alodia into multiple petty states by the late 13th century.In 1317 a Mamluk expedition pursued Arab brigands as far south as Kassala in Taka (one of the regions which received a Mamluk messenger in 1286), marching through al-Abwab and Makuria on their return.

During the 14th and 15th centuries much of what is now Sudan was overrun by Arab tribes, while the Adal Sultanate exerted some influence over the area around Suakin.The bedouin may have profited from the plague which has been suggested to have ravaged Nubia in the mid-14th century killing many sedentary Nubians, but not affecting the nomadic Arabs.They would have then intermixed with the remaining local population, gradually taking control over land and people, greatly benefiting from their large population in spreading their culture. The first recorded Arab migration to Nubia dates to 1324. It was the disintegration of Makuria in the late 14th century that, according to archaeologist William Y. Adams, caused the "flood gates" to "burst wide open". Many, initially coming from Egypt, followed the course of the Nile until they reached Al Dabbah. Here they headed west to migrate along the Wadi Al-Malik to reach Darfur or Kordofan.Alodia, in particular the Butana and the Gezira, was the target of those Arabs who had lived among the Beja in the Eastern Desert for centuries.

Initially, the kingdom was able to exercise authority over some of the newly arrived Arab groups, forcing them to pay tribute. The situation grew increasingly precarious as more Arabs arrived. By the second half of the 15th century, Arabs had settled in the entire central Sudanese Nile valley, except for the area around Soba, which was all that was left of Alodia's domain. In 1474 it was recorded that Arabs founded the town of Arbaji on the Blue Nile, which would quickly develop into an important centre of commerce and Islamic learning. In around 1500 the Nubians were recorded to be in a state of total political fragmentation, as they had no king, but 150 independent lordships centered around castles on both sides of the Nile. Archaeology attests that Soba was largely ruined by this time.



Map depicting the migration routes employed by the Arab tribes to push into Sudan

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Posts: 2602 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012  |  IP: Logged |