The Kingdom of Nubia: Life Along the Upper Nile

For many people, ancient civilization on the Nile River is associated only with the Egyptians. However, there were other key ancient civilizations that grew up along the banks of the Nile. One of the most important is that of ancient Nubia, the region below Aswan, roughly analogous to modern Sudan. Throughout its long and varied history, the Nubians endured one constant: cultural, political, and economic exchange with the Egyptians to the north. For that reason, any study of the land of the pharaohs would be incomplete without also learning about their Nubian neighbors.

Ancient Nubia and the Egyptians

There is evidence of extensive human habitation in Nubia since the Mesolithic Age, but it does not appear that the Nubians came into close contact with their northern neighbors until roughly 3000 BC. It was at that time that the pharaohs of Egypt ventured south and conquered the Nubians at their most northerly reach, near Aswan. For the next several centuries, the Egyptians captured Nubians and used them as slaves. They also pillaged Nubian mines for granite, limestone, gold, and other important resources that were instrumental to Egypt's voracious building traditions.

Although they were clearly in a subordinate position, the Nubians infused Egyptian styles of art and architecture with their own motifs; at the same time, they adopted many of the Egyptian gods, especially those responsible for the flooding of the Nile and the cult of the dead. However, after about 900 years of Egyptian domination, the Nubians took advantage of the weaknesses of the Sixth Dynasty (around 2325-2150 BC) and reasserted their own styles and mores upon their society.

Egypt Asserts its Dominance

The autonomy was not to last, however; by the Twelfth Dynasty, the Egyptians were again strong enough not only to demand tribute from the Nubians, but also to conquer them as far south as Karmah, the earliest recognizable Nubian capital. The driving force behind Egyptian rule was the Egyptian desire to establish trading posts to acquire Nubian raw materials without paying duties. Indeed, the Egyptians took large amounts of stone and gold, as well as ebony, ivory, emeralds, and glass from the Nubians at greatly reduced value, as a mark of their military might.

Despite their martial rule over the Nubians, the Egyptians were not able to break the spirit of their southern neighbors nor to entirely destroy their culture. Although the Nubians imbued their lives with belief in the Egyptian gods, they also maintained their own religious beliefs, including a strong tradition of ancestor worship reminiscent of their sub-Saharan neighbors. Furthermore, they dressed in styles distinct from the Egyptians and practiced very different systems of gender relations than their overlords.

Between the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1640-1550) and the reign of Thutmose I (1493-ca. 1482), Egyptian and Nubian societies were greatly enmeshed; culturally through the infusion of many Nubian mercenaries into the Egyptian Army and politically as Egypt took direct control over Nubia. By the 15th century BC, the Egyptians had divided Nubia into two administrative units, Kush and Wawat. Those regions were ruled by Egyptian viceroys and managed by a class of Nubians who swore allegiance to the pharaoh.

The Nubians Conquer the Conquerors

Kush, with its capital in Napata, became an extremely wealthy region during the next several centuries, for it stood at the crossroads of trade between the Red Sea, the Nile River Valley, and sub-Saharan Africa. The Egyptians loved Nubia for its gold and precious gemstones, as well as its seemingly endless supplies of granite and limestone. However, the Nubians took advantage of declining Egyptian power at the end of the New Kingdom and asserted themselves as a free kingdom based in Kush.

By the eighth century BC, the Nubians of Kush, led by Piye and then his brother, Shabaka, actually became the pharaohs of Egypt; that radical change of the power relation was only possible because of the cultural mixing, or syncretism, that had occurred between the two societies. The Nubian leaders of Kush were devotees of the same deities of the Egyptians, while the Egyptians valued the military discipline of the Nubians, precisely because it was familiar to them. Although the Kushites ruled over Egypt for less than a century, that period marked a high point in Nubian history.

Over the next millennium, the Nubians continued to thrive. Although pushed out of Egypt by the Assyrians, the kingdom of Kush and its successor state, Meroe, remained among the most important trading centers in the Red Sea region. Moreover, the Nubians borrowed and adapted Egyptian mores for their own society. For instance, they built monumental pyramids to bury the dead. Those monuments possessed a distinctly Nubian style only vaguely reminiscent of the original Egyptian designs. They also created their own written language, Meroitic, using the cursive script of the Egyptians, as well as their own versions of hieroglyphics.

The Collapse of Nubian Society

However, the wealth and success of the Nubians would be their undoing. Around AD 350, the king of the Ethiopian culture of Aksum invaded Meroe and conquered the Nubians. This brought an end to the autonomous Nubian culture that was so heavily influenced by the Egyptians. However, there is an increasingly popular interest in the people of Kush today; archaeologists are working hard to decipher the Meroitic language and excavate their ingenious pyramids, temples, and trade structures, all reminiscent of the Egyptians to the north, yet also decisively, uniquely Nubian.

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2001 Africa and Culture, By Rick Johnson