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KUSH: Ancient Sudan including Egypt's Nubian and sandstone regions
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by alTakruri: [QB] [QUOTE] Even before [Kerma] kings began taking human escorts with them to eternity, [b]their funerals had still been massive ritual events[/b] in which their imperial power over vast areas of territory was symbolically demonstrated. Indeed, excavations and subsequent scientific investigations over the last few years have revealed that [b]some of the kings had themselves buried alongside the remains of literally thousands of cattle.[/b] In front of one royal grave, the king’s retainers had [b]sacrificed 4,500 of the animals[/b] – arranging their skulls in a huge, horn-shaped crescent in front of the tomb. But of greatest significance was the chemical analysis of the horns, which revealed that the cattle had been reared in different environments and been brought to the funeral [b]from the length and breadth of the kingdom[/b]. What’s clear is that [b]Kerma’s civilisation emerged out of [i]an ancient pastoral culture[/i] that had flourished in that part of Sudan since at least 7000BC[/b] when the first settlements were established. Nearby Kerma archaeologists have discovered one of the two oldest cemeteries ever found in Africa – dating back to [b]7500BC[/b] – and [b]the oldest evidence of cattle domestication ever found in Sudan or, indeed, in the Egyptian Nile Valley.[/b] [b]The economic basis of both of the pre-urban and urban cultures of ancient Kerma was cattle.[/b] David Keys article cited in a previous post. [quote] All the following quotes are from [b]Wendorf & Schild[/b] [i]Nabta Playa and Its Role in Northeastern African Prehistory[/i] Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17, 97–123 (1998) article no. AA980319 [quote] ... [Nabta Playa] site [E-75-8] has yielded the highest frequency of cattle bones of any locality in the Nubian Desert. In this connection it is useful to note that among many African pastoralists today, [b]cattle are frequently sacrificed[/b] and consumed at important ceremonial occasions to celebrate the birth or [b]death of an important personage[/b] and at betrothals and marriages. The suggestion that Site E-75-8 was where people gathered for ceremonial purposes in the late Middle Neolithic anticipates the slightly later emergence of Nabta Playa as a [b]regional ceremonial center[/b] similar to the regional centers that occur even today in Sub-Saharan Africa, where they [b]serve to bind together groups that are often [i]widely separated in space.[/i][/b] . . . . These cattle burials and offerings appear to indicate the presence of a [b]cattle cult[/b]. Both the stratigraphic and radiocarbon evidence place these cattle tumuli at the beginning of the Late Neolithic wet interval, around [b]7500–7400 cal B.P.[/b] [/QUOTE] [QUOTE] Many of these tribes in the Upper Nile build earthen tumuli, some of which are still in use. They serve as deliberately constructed regional centers for groups that are divided into sections or lineages. Because they are the foci of religious, political, and social functions for those groups, these regional centers serve to bond the lineages together. These centers are also associated with themes of sacrifice, death,and burial (Johnson 1990). In some instances they become the focal point of royal rites and the royal capital itself (Howell and Thompson 1946), although most of them seem not to be connected to a particular settlement. [b]In some instances the shrines include mounds built over sacrificed cattle[/b], while other mounds cover burials of prominent leaders (Bedri 1939: 131; Howell 1948: 53). There are historic records that [b]retainers were sometimes buried with these leaders[/b] (Johnson 1990: 49). . . . . Unfortunately for our purposes, the [b]modern cattle pastoralists[/b] living 500 to 800 km south of the Egyptian border, [b]in northern Darfur and Kordofan, such as the Gura’an, Kababish, and Baggara, who might be expected to share many burial and religious features with the Nabta group, are Moslems, and traces of their earlier beliefs are scant[/b] (Asad 1970; Lampen 1933; Seligman and Seligman 1918). Nevertheless, the tribes living in northern Darfur use cattle for bride payments, to settle blood debts, and to determine wealth and prestige; they never kill cattle for their meat except on ceremonial occasions. Although most groups live in the desert throughout the year, the Baggara who live in northern Kordofan have strong ties with the Nubians living along the Nile near Dongola, and during periods of extreme drought they move to the river. ... Almost all of the animastic tribes living farther south, along the Upper Nile, are cattle pastoralists. Cattle dominate their lives: they are their primary wealth; they are used to pay bride-payments and blood fines, and they are the basis for prestige. ... there is a documented case where [b]an unusually powerful Nuer ruler sacrificed numerous cattle[/b] and covered them with an earthen mound to demonstrate his importance and wealth (Herskovits 1926: 28). . . . . Most of the modern Nilotic cattle pastoralists bury their dead in simple, shallow graves with a small decorated stick or pole shrine nearby. [b]Cattle are sometimes sacrificed as part of the ceremony, particularly for their leaders and the wealthy.[/b] Burial among the Nuba and the Moro, however, is in chambers from 2 to 3 m below the surface and about 2.5 m in diameter that are reached by shafts dug from the surface (Seligman and Seligman 1932: 404 and 486). [/QUOTE] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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