When we ruled by Robin walker Futuh al Habesha Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin Abd al-Qader bin Salem bin Utman African cities and towns before the european conquest by richard w. hull Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia: Pagans, Christians and Muslims in the middle nile by derek a welsby Islam and Christianity in the horn of africa: somalia, ethiopia, sudan by haggai erlich
Also might get that other book on nubia recommended by firewall at a future date. I'm pretty excited, I'm going to do nothing but read for the next few weeks lol. I'm going to be honest, this is basically porn for me.
Posts: 74 | From: Kanata | Registered: Oct 2013
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The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan. By David N. Edwards.
Book review by Rodolfo Fattovish, Universita`di Napoli ‘l’Orientale’, Napoli
The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan. By David N. Edwards. London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. xii+348.
In this book David Edwards, a distinguished specialist in Sudanese archaeology, provides the readers with a very useful and exhaustive outline of the history of the Sudan during the Holocene (from c. 10,000 BC to the present), mainly on the basis of the archaeological evidence which has been brought to light in the last thirty years. The book is divided into nine chapters about the following topics:
Nubia, the Sudan and Sudanic Africa;
Hunters, fishers and gatherers (c. 10,000–5000 BC);
The Neolithic (c. 5000–3000 BC);
Kerma and Bronze Age Kush;
The Kushite Revival (XXV Dynasty and kingdom of Napata);
Meroitic Kush (c. 300 BC–AD 350);
Post-Meroitic transitions (c. AD 350–550);
Medieval Nubia (c. AD 500–1500); and
Post-medieval Sudan and Islam (c. AD 1500–1900).
The book by David Edwards is the third comprehensive synthesis of the archaeology and history of the Sudan in over forty years, and a comparison with the former ones is particularly interesting as it demonstrates how much the knowledge and perception of the ancient Sudan increased and changed since the 1960s thanks to the relevant contribution of archaeology.
In the first synthesis, A History of the Sudan to 1821 by A. J. Arkell (London 1955, 2nd edn., 1961), an Egyptological approach was dominant, and the ancient history of Sudan was written mainly in the light of the Egyptian sources with a major emphasis on Nubia, i.e. the Nile Valley between the First and the Sixth Cataract. Actually, until the early 1960s only the Nile Valley had been more systematically investigated, particularly Lower Nubia between the First and the Third Cataract, the Dongola Reach between the Third and Fourth Cataract and the Shendi region near the Sixth Cataract. Moreover, most of the first archaeologists working in the Sudan were trained as Egyptologists, and thus more inclined to explain the cultural developments in the country in terms of Egyptian economic, political and cultural expansion and influence, rather than local achievements.
The Great Nubian Campaign in the 1960s was a turning-point in the archaeological investigation of the Nile Valley, as this campaign provided a quite complete archaeological record from prehistoric to Islamic times in Lower Nubia and pointed to a major role of the local people in the cultural development to the south of Egypt. The second synthesis, Nubia: Corridor to Africa by W. Y. Adams (London 1977), largely based on the preliminary results of the Great Nubian Campaign, thus presented Nubia as the core region in the cultural history of the Sudan. In this book the history of the Sudan was practically identified with the history of Nubia, and Egypt was still considered a crucial actor in this history, mainly because of the occurrence of impressive monuments along the valley, as far as the Fourth Cataract.
In the last thirty years, as a consequence of the Nubian campaign, archaeological investigation increased along the Nile Valley to the south of the Third Cataract and in the regions to the west as far as the Libyan Desert and Darfur, to the east as far as Kassala and to the south as far as Equatoria. The results of this investigation are now deeply changing the perception of the history of the Sudan. These results are making more and more evident that the social, economic and cultural development of the country was an indigenous process, the Egyptian influence was just a component of this process and other people outside Nubia contributed since prehistoric times to forge present Sudan. This new perception of the Sudanese past is very well outlined in Edwards’s book, although the title combining ‘Nubian past’ and ‘archaeology of the Sudan’ suggests that the old habit of identifying the Sudan with Nubia has not yet been completely abandoned. This book, however, has other merits deserving attention. First, as much as possible Edwards avoids speculation, and correctly states that there are relevant gaps in our knowledge of ancient Sudan and many of them will never be filled. At the same time, he demonstrates that archaeology can provide a different (and more convincing) picture of the past than most historical narratives – see for example, the problem of Aksum and the end of Meroe – and can thus contribute in a crucial way to a proper reconstruction of ancient societies and their transformations through time also for the historical periods.
Finally, the author sets ancient Sudan in a proper African context, making evident that this was not a peripheral suburb of Egypt; on the contrary the Sudan was a very dynamic country which greatly contributed to the development of the whole continent.
In conclusion, this book is a very good synthesis of the present state of art in Sudanese archaeology, and can be read with much profit by specialists in Sudanese and African archaeology and history as well as educated people curious about the past of a great country.
Posts: 2560 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012
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The Capital of Kush, Volume 2 Rebecca J. Bradley
Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004 - Excavations (Archaeology) - 429 pages
African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective
quote: This major new revised edition of African Civilizations reexamines the physical evidence for developing social complexity in tropical Africa over the past four thousand years and considers possible explanations of the developments that gave rise to it. Graham Connah focuses on urbanism and state formation in seven main areas of Africa: Nubia, Ethiopia, the West African savanna, the West African forest, the East African coast and islands, the Zimbabwe Plateau, and parts of Central Africa. Extensively illustrated and offering an extended bibliography, this book provides essential reading on the topic.
Hellenizing Art in Ancient Nubia 300 B.C. - AD 250 and Its Egyptian Models ... By László Török, Laszlo Torok
quote: Presenting a large body of evidence for the first time, this book offers a comprehensive treatment of Nubian architecture, sculpture, and minor arts in the period between 300 BC-AD 250. It focuses primarily on the Nubian response to the traditional pharaonic, Hellenistic/Roman, Hellenizing, and hybrid elements of Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian culture. The author begins with a history of Nubian art and a critical survey of the literature on Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian art. Special chapters are then devoted to the discussion of the Egyptian-Greek interaction in the arts of Ptolemaic Egypt, the place of Egyptian Hellenistic and Hellenizing art within the oikumene, the pluralistic visual world of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, as well as on the specific genre of terracotta sculpture. Utilizing examples from Meroe City and Musawwarat es Sufra, the author argues that cultural transfer from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to Nubia resulted in an inward-focused adaptation. Therefore, the resulting Nubian art from this period expresses only those aspects of Egyptian and Greek art that are compatible with indigenous Nubian goals.
The Image of the Ordered World in Ancient Nubian Art: The Construction of ... By László Török
quote:
The development of Kushite concepts of order in the state and the cosmos forms the focus of Laszlo Torok's latest volume. Taking a wide variety of textual and iconographical evidence as his points of departure, the author sheds light on the formation of, and interaction between basic concepts such as inhabited space, sacred space, sacred landscape, historical memory and political legitimacy. The author traces this development by discussing the royal and temple texts, urban architecture, the structure of temple iconography, and the relationship between the society and the temples as places of popular worship, archives of historical memory, and centres of cultural identity.This volume presents the first comprehensive study on the subject.
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Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 the Near and Middle East, the Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (Handbuch der Orientalistik. Erste Abteilung, Nahe Und der Mi) [Hardcover]
Kush The story of five boys and their travels up the Nile to the city of Meroe the capital of a country called "Kush." Conspiracies and mystery follow them throughout their trek. Magic and myth surrounds them as they struggle towards their goal. The book is set in the time after Caesar's assassination in about 40 BC when chaos was everywhere, N. J. Matthews, Feb 1, 2009 - Africa - 492 pages
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