Brief Histoy of the Sudan

Nubia was also called - Upper & Lower Nubia, Kush, Land of Kush, Te-Nehesy, Nubadae, Napata, or the Kingdom of Meroei. The region referred to as Lower Egypt is the northernmost portion. Upper Nubia extends south into Sudan and can be subdivided into several separate areas such as Batn El Hajar or "Belly of Rocks", the sands of the Abri-Delgo Reach, or the flat plains of the Dongola Reach. Nubia, the hottest and most arid region of the world, has caused many civilizations to be totally dependent on the Nile for existence. Historically Nubia has been a nucleus of diverse cultures. It has been the only occupied strip of land connecting the Mediterranean world with "tropical" Africa. Thus, this put the people in close and constant contact with its neighbors for long periods of history and Nubia was an important trade route between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. Its rich material culture and tradition of languages are seen in archaeological records. The most prosperous period of Nubian civilization was that of the kingdom of Kush, which endured from about 800 BC to about 320 AD. During this time, the Nubians of Kush would at one point, assume rule over all of Nubia as well as Upper and Lower Egypt. The regions of Nubia, Sudan and Egypt are considered by some to be the cradle of civilization. Today the term Nubian has become inclusive of Africans, African Arabs, African Americans and people of color in general. The history of the Nubians is closely linked with that of ancient Egypt. Images of early Gods are not unlike those found on hieroglyphs of Egyptian Gods - with heads of animals and birds. More than fifty ancient pyramids and royal tombs rise out of the desert sands at Meroe. They are Sudan's best-preserved pyramids, and one of Africa's best-kept secrets. Unlike Egypt's famous pyramids to the north, the Pyramids of Meroe are not floodlit at night. They do not form the backdrop to a dazzling laser-light multimedia extravaganza. They do not cater to the whims of camera-toting, dollar-wielding tourists. The pyramids are a silent and awesome sight, where the intrepid traveler can soak up their ancient atmosphere in solitude. Like the Egyptians, the Kushites believed in a life after death. This was thought to be a continuation of life on earth. For them, the afterlife resembled this one, and they built huge graves as an enduring home for the dead. The unique social position of the pharaoh, as god on earth, was reflected in his tomb. The king was the son of Amun-Pa the sun god and as such embodied the sun on earth. Like the sun, his life followed a cyclical plan. His youth resembled the sun rising, his maturity was like the sun at noon and his old age was comparable with the setting sun. When the king died the sun disappeared below the horizon and darkness fell. Mythology recounted that the dying or setting sun travelled through the underworld in its journey towards the east where it was to be reborn at the dawn of the day. From time immemorial the pyramid represented the rising sun and the resurrection, and people believed that a tomb in this shape would offer the dead king the chance of rising out of death. The pyramid was seen as a ladder up to heaven enabling the dead king's soul to travel and join the gods in the heavens. At night time the king, assuming the shape of Osiris, god of the afterlife and resurrection, descended in the barque of the sun god Ra and, having become one with this god, sailed through the bouts of darkness. Building pyramids ceased towards the end of the Middle Kingdom period. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom constructed their graves in caves with underground rooms and passages symbolizing the nightly sojourn of the sun god. The black pharaohs of the Kushite Dynasty and their descendants readopted the old pyramids for their tombs. The number of pyramids in Nubia, where a total of 223 bas been round, fat exceeds that of Egypt. The pyramids of Nubia have three important sections. These are: 1) an underground burial place symbolizing the underworld, where the mummy lies; 2) a massive steep pyramid above, symbolizing the ladder up to heaven; 3) a small chapel on the eastern side where sacrifices could bc placed, intended to sustain the dead king on his travels. Perhaps the doors to this chapel would be opened by a priest at sunrise so that the light could shine in on the stela that was placed against the rear wall. The chapel thus also functioned as a place of prayer connected with the cult of the dead. The underground graves of the Nubian pyramids were richly decorated. The mummified kings and queens were laid upon beds in accordance with the ancient tradition of Kerma. So that the dead monarch would not have to work in the afterlife, their tombs were filled with shabtis, small statues of people which in a magical manner would come to life when summoned by the gods to perform tasks. Pyramids from the Northern Cemetery at Meroe, 3rd c. B.C. to 4th c. A.D. By the 4th c. B.C., the Kushite kings had moved south to the Sudanese savannah and built a capitol at Meroe.  Here southern cultural traditions slowly prevailed over the cultural heritage of Egypt. Ruins of the Merotic temple at Musawwarat es-Sufra. This temple complex, called the "Great Enclosure", lies south of Meroë near the Sixth Cataract. It may have been a pilgrammage center or a royal palace. A number of towns were located on the banks of the Atbara, Blue Nile and White Nile, in which lived craftsmen who met local needs and exported along the trade route that ran from Red Sea port towns in the East to beyond Lake Chad in the West. This route eventually connected to the major center of iron production in Jenne Jeno. Elephant statue from the "Great Enclosure" at Musawwarat es-Sufra temple. Elephants served a military function, but the cultural influence from the South is apparently the reason for their having a religious significance, now lost to us Elephantine Temples on the eastern bank of the Nile River. The Lion Temple of Naqa. The architectural style is Egyptian. The entrance reliefs show the king and queen striking their enemies. The queen reflects Merotic culture in both her importance being equal to that of the king, but also in her figure style Relief from the Lion Temple at Naga, south of Meroë at the Sixth Cataract. King Natakamani stands before the lion god, Apedemek, and also Horus and Amun. The king's robe and the sash draped over his right shoulder, which is typical of Merotic dress. The Sudanese god Apedemek slowly displaced the divinities of Egypt.  Ancient Nubia The earliest inhabitants of what is now The Sudan can be traced to African (i.e., Negroid) peoples who lived in the vicinity of Khartoum, the Sudan, in Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) times (30,000-20,000 BC). They were hunters and gatherers who made pottery and (later) objects of ground sandstone. Toward the end of the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age; 10,000-3,000 BC) they had domesticated animals. These Africans were clearly in contact with predynastic civilizations (before c. 2925 BC) to the north in Egypt, but the arid uplands separating Egypt from Nubia appear to have discouraged the predynastic Egyptians from settling there. At the end of the 4th millennium BC, kings of Egypt's 1st dynasty conquered upper Nubia south of Aswan , introducing Egyptian cultural influence to the African peoples who were scattered along the riverbank. In subsequent centuries, Nubia was subjected to successive military expeditions from Egypt in search of slaves or building materials for royal tombs, which destroyed much of the Egyptian-Nubian culture that had sprung from the initial conquests of the 1st dynasty. Throughout these few centuries (c. 2925-c. 2575 BC), the descendants of the Nubians continued to eke out an existence along the Nile River , an easy prey to Egyptian military expeditions. Although the Nubians were no match for the armies of Egypt's Old Kingdom, the interactions arising from their enslavement and colonization led to ever-increasing African influence upon the art, culture, and religion of dynastic Egypt . Sometime after about 2181, in the period known to Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period (c. 2130-1938), a new wave of immigrants entered Nubia from Libya, in the west, where the increasing desiccation of the Sahara drove them to settle along the Nile as cattle farmers. Other branches of these people seem to have gone beyond the Nile to the Red Sea Hills, while still others pushed south and west to Wadai and Darfur . These newcomers were able to settle on the Nile and assimilate the existing Nubians without opposition from Egypt . After the fall of the 6th dynasty (c. 2150), Egypt experienced more than a century of weakness and internal strife, giving the immigrants in Nubia time to develop their own distinct civilization with unique crafts, architecture, and social structure, virtually unhindered by the potentially more dynamic civilization to the north. With the advent of the 11th dynasty (2081), however, Egypt recovered its strength and pressed southward into Nubia, at first sending only sporadic expeditions to exact tribute, but by the 12th dynasty (1938-1756) effectively occupying Nubia as far south as Semna. The Nubians resisted the Egyptian occupation, which was maintained only by a chain of forts erected along the Nile . Egyptian military and trading expeditions, of course, penetrated beyond Semna, and Egyptian fortified trading posts were actually established to the south at Karmah in order to protect against frequent attacks upon Egyptian trading vessels by Nubian tribesmen beyond the southern frontier. The Kingdom of Kush Despite the Egyptian presence in upper Nubia , the indigenous culture of the region continued to flourish. This culture was deeply influenced by African peoples in the south and was little changed by the proximity of Egyptian garrisons or the imports of luxury articles by Egyptian traders. Indeed, the Egyptianization of Nubia appears to have actually been enhanced during the decline in Egypt's political control over Nubia in the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1630-1540 BC), when Nubians were employed in large numbers as mercenaries against the Asian Hyksos invaders of Egypt. This experience did more to introduce Egyptian culture, which the mercenaries absorbed while fighting in Egyptian armies, than did the preceding centuries of Egyptian military occupation. Conversely, the presence of these mercenaries in Egypt contributed to the growing African influence within Egyptian culture. The defeat of the Hyksos was the result of a national rising of the Egyptians who, once they had expelled the Hyksos from the Nile valley, turned their energies southward to reestablish the military occupation of Nubia that the Hyksos invasion had disrupted. Under Thutmose I (reigned 1493-c. 1482 BC) the Egyptian conquest of the northern Sudan was completed as far as Kurqus, 50 miles south of Abu Hamad, and subsequent Egyptian military expeditions penetrated even farther up the Nile . This third Egyptian occupation was the most complete and the most enduring, for despite sporadic rebellions against Egyptian control Nubia was divided into two administrative units: Wawat in the north, with its provincial capital at Aswan, and Kush (also spelled Cush) in the south, with its headquarters at Napata (Marawi). Nubia as a whole was governed by a viceroy, usually a member of the royal entourage, who was responsible to the Egyptian pharaoh. Under him were two deputies, one for Wawat and one for Kush , and a hierarchy of lesser officials. The bureaucracy was staffed chiefly by Egyptians, but Egyptianized Nubians were not uncommon. Colonies of Egyptian officials, traders, and priests surrounded the administrative centres, but beyond these outposts the Nubians continued to preserve their own distinct traditions, customs, and crafts. A syncretistic culture thus arose in Kush, fashioned by that of Egypt to the north and those of African peoples to the south. Kush's position athwart the trade routes from Egypt to the Red Sea, and from the Nile to the south and west, brought considerable wealth from far-off places. Moreover, its cultivated areas along the Nile were rich, and in the hills the gold and emerald mines produced bullion and jewels for Egypt . The Nubians were also highly valued as soldiers. As Egypt slipped once again into decline at the close of the New Kingdom (11th century BC), the viceroys of Kush , supported by their Nubian armies, became virtually independent kings, free of Egyptian control. By the 8th century BC, the kings of Kush came from hereditary ruling families of Egyptianized Nubian chiefs who possessed neither political nor family ties with Egypt . Under one such king, Kashta, Kush acquired control of Upper (i.e., southern) Egypt, and under his son Piankhi (c. 750-c. 719 BC), the whole of Egypt to the shores of the Mediterranean was brought under the administration of Kush . As a world power, however, Kush was not to last. Just when the kings of Kush had established their rule from Abu Hamad to the Nile delta, the Assyrians invaded Egypt (671 BC) and with their superior iron-forged weapons defeated the armies of Kush under the redoubtable Taharqa; by 654 the Kushites had been driven back to Nubia and the safety of their capital, Napata . Although reduced from a great power to an isolated kingdom behind the barren hills that blocked the southward advance from Aswan, Kush continued to rule over the middle Nile for another thousand years. Its unique Egyptian-Nubian culture with its strong African accretions was preserved, while that of Egypt came under Persian, Greek, and Roman influences. Although Egyptianized in many ways, the culture of Kush was not simply Egyptian civilization in a Nubian environment. The Kushites developed their own language, expressed first by Egyptian hieroglyphs, then their own, and finally by a cursive script. They worshiped Egyptian gods but did not abandon their own. They buried their kings in pyramids but not in the Egyptian fashion. Their wealth continued to flow from the mines and to grow with their control of the trade routes. Soon after the retreat from Egypt the capital was moved from Napata southward to Meroe near Shandi, where the kingdom was increasingly exposed to the long-established African cultures farther south at the very time when its ties with Egypt were rapidly disappearing. The subsequent history of Kush is one of gradual decay, ending with inglorious extinction in AD 350 by the king of Aksum, who marched down from the Ethiopian highlands, destroyed Meroe , and sacked the decrepit towns along the river. Medieval Christian Kingdoms The 200 years from the fall of Kush to the middle of the 6th century is an unknown age in the Sudan . Nubia was inhabited by a people called the Nobatae by the ancient geographers and the X-Group by modern archaeologists, who are still at a loss to explain their origins. The X-Group were clearly, however, the heirs of Kush, for their whole cultural life was dominated by Meroitic crafts and customs, and occasionally they even felt themselves sufficiently strong, in alliance with the nomadic Blemmyes (the Beja of the eastern Sudan), to attack the Romans in Upper Egypt. When this happened, the Romans retaliated, defeating the Nobatae and Blemmyes and driving them into obscurity once again. When the Sudan was once more brought into the orbit of the Mediterranean world by the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 6th century, the middle course of the Nile was divided into three kingdoms: Nobatia, with its capital at Pachoras (modern Faras); Maqurrah, with its capital at Dunqulah (Old Dongola); and the kingdom of 'Alwah in the south, with its capital at Subah (Soba) near what is now Khartoum. Between 543 and 575 these three kingdoms were converted to Christianity by the work of Julian, a missionary who proselytized among the Nobatia (543-545), and his successor Longinus, who between 569 and 575 consolidated the work of Julian in Nobatia and even carried Christianity to 'Alwah in the south. The new religion appears to have been adopted with considerable enthusiasm. Christian churches sprang up along the Nile , and ancient temples were refurbished to accommodate Christian worshipers. After the retirement of Longinus, however, the Sudan once again receded into a period about which little is known, and it did not reemerge into the stream of recorded history until the coming of the Arabs in the middle of the 7th century. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in AD 632, the Arabs erupted from the desert steppes of Arabia and overran the lands to the east and west. Egypt was invaded in 639, and small groups of Arab raiders penetrated up the Nile and pillaged along the frontier of the kingdom of Maqurrah , which by the 7th century had absorbed the state of Nobatia. Raid and counterraid between the Arabs and the Nubians followed until a well-equipped Arab expedition under 'Abd Allah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh was sent south to punish the Nubians. The Arabs marched as far as Dunqulah, laid siege to the town, and destroyed the Christian cathedral. They suffered heavy casualties, however, so that when the king of Maqurrah sought an armistice, 'Abd Allah ibn Sa'd agreed to peace, happy to extricate his battered forces from a precarious position. Arab-Nubian relations were subsequently regularized by an annual exchange of gifts, by trade relations, and by the mutual understanding that no Muslims were to settle in Nubia and no Nubians were to take up residence in Egypt . With but few interruptions this peaceful, commercial relationship lasted for nearly six centuries, its very success undoubtedly the result of the mutual advantage that both the Arabs and the Nubians derived from it. The Arabs had a stable frontier; they appear to have had no designs to occupy the Sudan and were probably discouraged from doing so by the arid plains south of Aswan . Peace on the frontier was their object, and this the treaty guaranteed. In return, the kingdom of Maqurrah gained another 600 years of life.

 

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