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The First Colonial Empire: Egypt in Nubia, 3200–1200 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

William Y. Adams
William Y. Adams*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Extract

A century ago the phrases “darkest Africa” and “the dark continent” were encountered often in European and American literature. The darkness, one would suppose, was in the minds of the writers, signifying their general ignorance of African geography and ethnography. Yet I doubt if many who spoke of darkest Africa thought of it in quite those terms. For most of them, the darkness was in the minds of the Africans themselves; a metaphor for their moral backwardness and for their ignorance of the higher arts of civilization. African darkness thus contrasted with European and American enlighten-ment—and the contrast provided moral justification for Europe's mission civilisatrice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 36 - 71
Copyright
Copyright   Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1984

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References

Parts of this article are based on five chapters from my book, Nubia, Corridor to Africa (Allen Lane and Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. In it I have drawn extensively on earlier work, and particularly Torgny Säve-Söderbergh's Ägypten und Nubien and W. B. Emery's Egypt in Nubia. Since the article was first written, two other important discussions of Egyptian colonialism have appeared: B. J. Kemp, “Imperialism and Empire in New Kingdom Egypt,” in P.D.A. Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker's Imperialism in the Ancient World, and Frandsen, Paul J., “Egyptian Imperialism”, in Power and Propaganda, edited by Larsen, M.T. (Copenhagen, 1979), 167–90. Nevertheless, my own ideas are also expressed here, and some of them are at variance with accepted Egyptological theories.Google Scholar

1 On this, see Kemp, B. J., “Imperialism and Empire in New Kingdom Egypt”, in Imperialism in the Ancient World, Garnsey, P.D.A. and Whittaker, C.R., eds. (Cambridge, 1978), 8–14.Google Scholar

2 Herodotus, 2.29–30; 3.17–25; 4.69–70.Google Scholar

3 Strabo, 7.1–2.Google Scholar

4 For this interpretation, and for the general outline of Egyptian history followed here, I rely heavily on John Wilson; see his The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago, 1951), 125–53.Google Scholar

5 For the sake of clarity, I have described the topography and other features of Lower Nubia throughout this article in the present tense, although they have in fact recently disappeared beneath the waters of the Aswan Reservoir.

6 The term Aethiopian, occurring in a classical text, may refer to any black African. However, since the only Africans of whom the Greeks and Romans had any detailed knowledge were the dwellers to the south of Egypt, it follows that Aethiopian can usually be read as Nubian. The term very seldom has reference to the region known today as Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia), which was largley beyond the ken of the classical world.

7 The name Kush did not, however, come into general use until the period of the New Kingdom. In earlier times there was no single generic name for the southern lands; they were called by a variety of local names.

8 In Joseph Greenberg's classification, the Nubian languages belong to the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan family. The are closely related to certain remnant languages found in the western Sudan, and more distantly to Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer, and other languages of the Nile headwaters. See Greenberg, Joseph, Languages of Africa (The Hauge, 1960), 86—129.Google Scholar

9 Earlier theories of Nubian history laid great stress on periodic “racial migrations”; alternate infusions of Caucasoid and of Negro blood were supposed to account for periods of cultural creativity or of stagnation. For discussion of these racist theories and of the supposed evidence on which they were based, see my “Continuity and Change in Nubian Cultural History”, Sudan Notes and Records, 48 (1967), 15–18Google Scholar; and “Invasion, Diffusion, Evolution?” Antiquity, 42:167 (1968), 205–6Google Scholar. The clearest empirical demonstration of genetic continuity in Nubia from ancient to modern times is to be found in Mukherjee, Ramkrishna, Rao, C. Radhakrishna, and Trevor, J. C., The Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya (Sudan) (Cambridge, 1955), 73–92.Google Scholar

10 For discussion of Egyptian goods in early Nubian graves, see Trigger, Bruce G., History and Settlement in Lower Nubia, Yale University Publications in Anthropology, no. 69 (New Haven, 1965), 70–73Google Scholar; and Emery, W. B., Egypt in Nubia (London, 1965Google Scholar; published in the United States as Lost Land Emerging (New York, 1965), 125.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Trigger, , History and Settlement, 71.Google Scholar

12 See Reisner, G. A., “Ancient Egyptian Forts at Semna and Uronarti”, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), 27:163 (1929), 66.Google Scholar

13 The Djer Inscription. For an illustration, see Arkell, A. J., A History of the Sudan, rev. ed. (London, 1961), 39Google Scholar; for an interpretation, see Trigger, , History and Settlement, 73.Google Scholar

14 Palermo Stone and Inscriptions of Pepinakht and Sebni. For the appropriate translations and discussion, see Sáve-Sóderbergh, Torgny, Ágypten und Nubien (Lund, 1941), 7–10Google Scholar; Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 127–32Google Scholar; and Breasted, James, Ancient Records of Egypt (New York, 1962), vol. IGoogle Scholar, paras. 355, 358–59, 363, 365–66.

15 For the Nubian evidence, see Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 127–30Google Scholar; Trigger, , History and Settlement, 78–79.Google Scholar

16 Cf. Wilson, , Culture, 271Google Scholar; Trigger, , History and Settlement, 79.Google Scholar

17 Victory Stele of Khasekhemui. See Sáve-Sóderbergh, , Ágypten und Nubien, 7–8Google Scholar; and Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 127.Google Scholar

18 Palermo Stone. For discussion, see Sáve-Sóderbergh, , Agypten und Nubien, 9–10.Google Scholar

19 See Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Egyptian Sudan (London, 1907), I, 516.Google Scholar

20 Cf. Kees, Hermann, Ancient Egypt (Chicago, 1961), 311–12.Google Scholar

21 Toynbee, Arnold I., A Study of History (New York, 1962), V, 267–69.Google Scholar

22 For description, see Kees, , Ancient Egypt, 313–14.Google Scholar

23 For description of the site, see Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 111–14.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 114, 129.

25 Inscriptions of Harkhuf. For detailed accounts of his expeditions, see Budge, , Egyptian Sudan, I, 519–23Google Scholar; Sàve-Sòderbergh, , Ágypten und Nubien, 16–30Google Scholar; and Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 130–31.Google Scholar

26 Parry, J. H., The Age of Reconnaissance (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 35.

28 The definitive publications on the Second Cataract Forts are two volumes by Dows Dunham entitled Second Cataract Forts (Boston, 1960 and 1967)Google Scholar, and the much older volumes by Randall-Maclver, D. and Woolley, C. L. entitled Buhen, University of PennsylvaniaGoogle Scholar, Egyptian Department of the University Museum, Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expedition to Nubia, vols. VII, VIII (Philadelphia, 1911). An excellent popular description of the forts is that of Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 143–53.Google Scholar

29 Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 143Google Scholar; Arkell, , History, 59.Google Scholar

30 Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 144–46.Google Scholar

31 See especially Trigger, , History and Settlement, 85.Google Scholar

32 This was apparently due to the much deeper accumulation of wind-blown sand on the west bank—a peculiarity of Nubian geography—which made easier going for beasts of burden.

33 See Vercoutter, Jean, “Excavations at Mirgissa-II”, Kush, 13 (1965), 68–69Google Scholar; and idem, Mirgissa I (Paris, 1970), 204–14.Google Scholar

34 First Semna Stele of Senusret III. Translation quoted from Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 157.Google Scholar

35 The definitive archaeological report on Kerma is Reisner, G. A., Excavations at Kerma, Vols. VGoogle Scholar and VI of Harvard African Studies (Cambridge, 1923)Google Scholar. For brief discussions, see also Säve-Söderbergh, , Ägypten und Nubien, 103–16Google Scholar, and Trigger, , History and Settlement, 101–4.Google Scholar

36 See Bonnet, Charles, “Fouilles archeologiques à Kerma (Soudan)”, Genava, 26 (1978), 107–34Google Scholar, and 28 (1980), 31–72.

37 Cf. Reisner, , Excavations at Kerma, Vol. V, 65Google Scholar. 3” Ibid., 69.

39 Reisner, the original excavator of Kerma, believed that the main period of its florescence was in the Middle Kingdom, and that the smaller and poorer tombs represented a progressive degeneration and impoverishment in later times (ibid., 98–102, 116–21). However, other Egyptologists soon challenged this interpretation, suggesting that the greatest of the royal tombs were probably in fact the latest, and that they date from some time in the Seventeenth Dynasty. See especially Hermann Junker, Die Nubische Ursprung der sogenannten Tell el-Yahudiye Vasen, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften, 63, (Wien, 1921), and Säve-Söderbergh, , Agypten und Nubien, 111–13.Google Scholar

40 Deffufa is a Nubian word which designates any conspicuous standing ruin.

41 Reisner, , Excavations at Kerma, Vol. VI, 268–69.Google Scholar

42 For description, see ibid., Vol. V, 21–29.

43 Ibid., 32.

44 Reisner's identification of the largest tomb at Kerma as that of an Egyptian prince (based on die finding in the tomb of a single piece of statuary) led him to conclude that this was the viceroy of Kush and that Kerma was the viceregal seat; see ibid., Vol. V, 116–21, and Vol. VI, 554–59.

45 Second Semna Stele of Senusret III; Stele of Sebek-khu; Hammamat Inscriptions. See Breasted, , Ancient Records, vol. I, paras. 423, 658, 687, 707.Google Scholar

46 See Lucas, A., Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 3ded. (London, 1948), 240–41.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Piotrovsky, B., “The Early Dynastic Settlement of Khor-Daud and Wadi-Allaki the Ancient Route to the Gold Mines”, in Fouilles en Nubie (1961–1963) (Cairo, 1967), 135.Google Scholar

48 Fieldhouse, D. K., The Colonial Empires (New York, 1967), 139.Google Scholar

49 Boxer, C. R., The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825 (New York, 1969), 52.Google Scholar

30 See Gardiner, Alan, Egypt of the Pharaohs (New York, 1966), 148Google Scholar; and Breasted, J. A., A History of Egypt, 2d ed. (New York, 1909), 213.Google Scholar

51 See especially Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 167.Google Scholar

52 See Vercoutter, “Excavations at Mirgissa”, 72.

53 Vercoutter, , Mirgissa I, 223–306.Google Scholar

54 Randall-Maclver, and Woolley, , Buhen, VII, 134–35.Google Scholar

55 Stele of Sepedher. See Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 167.Google Scholar

56 Fage, J. D., A History of Africa (New York, 1979), 251.Google Scholar

57 Stele of Kamose. Translation quoted from Gardiner, Egypt, 166.Google Scholar

58 Cf. Kemp, “Imperialism and Empire”, 21–23.

59 Biography of Ineni. Quoted from Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 182.Google Scholar

60 Cf. Kemp, “Imperialism and Empire”, 29–30.

61 Emery, , Egypt in Nubia, 173.Google Scholar

62 For extended discussion of the viceroyalty of Kush, see Reisner, G. A., “The Viceroys of Ethiopia”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 6:pt. 1 (1920), 28–55, and 6:pt. 2 (1920), 73–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63 Arkell, , History, 98–100.Google Scholar

64 Cf. Kemp, , “Imperialism and Empire”, 30–33.Google Scholar

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66 Davies, Nina and Gardiner, A. H., The Tomb of Huy, Viceroy of Nubia in the Reign of Tutankhamen (no. 40), Egypt Exploration Fund, Theban Tomb Series, Memoir 40 (London, 1926), 22.Google Scholar

67 Gardiner, , Egypt, 270.Google Scholar

68 Säve-Söderbergh, , Agypten und Nubien, 168.Google Scholar

69 Trigger, , History and Settlement, 111–12.Google Scholar

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71 Cf. Kemp, , “Imperialism and Empire”, 35–39.Google Scholar

72 This useful concept of Arnold Toynbee's (see Study of History, V, 194–318)Google Scholar seems particularly applicable to the Nubians of postpharaonic times. It should be noted, however, that Toynbee himself never applied the term “external proletariat” to the Nubians. Through ignorance of the details of their history, he regarded them as part of Egypt's internal proletariat. See ibid., 268–69.

73 See Davies, and Gardiner, , Tomb of Huy; Thabit, T. H., “Tomb of Djehuty-Hetep (Tehuti Hetep), Prince of Serra”, Kush, 5 (1957), 81–86Google Scholar; Säve-Söderbergh, Torgny, “The Paintings in the Tomb of Djehuty-Hetep at Debeira”, Kush, 8 (1960), 25–44Google Scholar; and idem, “The Tomb of Prince Teh-Khet, Amenemhat”, Kush, 11 (1963), 159–74.Google Scholar

74 Cf. Arkell, , History, 100Google Scholar; Kemp, , “Imperialism and Empire”, 35–37.Google Scholar

75 Cf. Vercoutter, Jean, “The Gold of Kush”, Kush, 7 (1959), 130.Google Scholar

76 Piotrovsky, , “Early Dynastic Settlement”, 136–40.Google Scholar

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79 This hypothesis was first put forth by Firth, C. M., The Archaeological Survey of Nubia, Report for 1909–1910 (Cairo, 1915), 21–23.Google Scholar

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86 Ibid., 204.

87 Cf. Holt, P. M. and Daly, M. W., The History of the Sudan (Boulder, 1979), 123–24.Google Scholar

88 Cf. Arkell, , History, 108–9.Google Scholar

89 For discussion of this theory, see Budge, , Egyptian Sudan, I, 650–52Google Scholar; and Reisner, , “Viceroys of Ethiopia”, 53–55.Google Scholar

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94 For the later history of postcolonial Nubia, see Reisner, G. A., “The Meroitic Kingdom of Ethiopia: A Chronological Outline”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 9: pt. 1–2 (1923)Google Scholar, 34–77, and 9: pt. 3–4 (1923), 157–60; Arkell, , History, 138Google Scholar73; and Shinnie, P. L., Meroe (New York, 1967), 29–61.Google Scholar

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96 See Fieldhouse, , Colonial Empires, 143–44.Google Scholar

97 Sorokin, Pitirim, Social and Cultural Dynamics, 4 vols. (New York, 1937)Google Scholar. See also Cowell, F. R., History, Civilization and Culture (London, 1952).Google Scholar

98 Sorokin, , Social and Cultural Dynamics.Google Scholar

99 See Lewis, William R., ed., Imperialism (New York, 1976), 199.Google Scholar

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102 Fage, , History, 286–88.Google Scholar