The book “Nubia: lost civilizations” by Sarah M. Schellinger is part of the book series ‘Lost civilizations’ by Reaktion Books Ltd. and focusses on the history of Nubia from the Palaeolithic period to modern times.
After a brief overview of the chronological time frame from c. 1.000,000 BP to 2022 AD, the author presents the comprehensive history of Nubian civilizations with a focus on the Kushite, Napatan and Meroitic periods.
Chapter 1 outlines the general geographical and societal setting of Nubia with references to the environment, toponyms, natural resources, and also research history. Schellinger emphasizes the significance of Nubia in its own right, rather than through the context of the neighbouring Egyptian culture traditionally promoted by early travellers and archaeologists, who mainly investigated Nubia in search of pharaonic and not indigenous cultures. Schellinger aims at bringing “Nubia out of the shadow of Egypt” (p. 14–15). In addition, she rightfully challenges the often imposed desire of Nubians to adapt the pharaonic culture and to assimilate into the “higher” society[1].
The nature of the archaeological evidence and lack of Nubian written sources for most of the Nubian history prohibit insights into the social histories of the commoners, instead highlighting the elites and royal classes. But Schellinger inadvertently repeats outdated gender stereotypes in stating that Nubian men served in the armies or worked in the fields, while Nubian women “maintained the home, participated in craft production, such as pottery and weaving, and raised the children.” (p. 24).
In chapter 2, Schellinger provides the reader with a necessary brief outline of Nubian history covering roughly one million years, starting with the Palaeolithic period and highlighting in particular the distinct A-Group, C-Group and Kerma cultures in Lower and Upper Nubia. Caution must, however, be exercised regarding the supposedly occurring hiatus of c. 600 years in Lower Nubia between the A-Group and C-Group cultures (p. 39). The archaeological evidence—especially the ceramic record—points towards continuity rather than a sudden break, as is evident, e. g., in the context of the settlement at Elephantine Island, where Nubian style pottery is a constant factor in the ceramic assemblages throughout the Old Kingdom and thus covers the period of the supposed hiatus[2].
Furthermore, regarding the classic chronology of the C-Group culture employed in Schellinger’s contribution, a revision was recently proposed, of which the author could not have been aware while preparing her book[3]. Based on investigations of both Nubian and Egyptian style ceramic assemblages from Upper Egyptian and Lower Nubian funerary and settlement contexts, the time span of the C-Group was substantially reduced and it is now evident that the C-Group ceases in the archaeological record already during the advanced 12th Dynasty of contemporaneous pharaonic Egypt and not in the beginning of the New Kingdom as was proposed by M. Bietak[4]. Moving forward, this revised chronology changes our perception of the C-Group considerably.
Also, the concept of communities associated with the C-Group culture as being mainly cattle herders (p. 42) was recently challenged due to the lacking faunal evidence of cattle from C-Group contexts[5]. It appears that these communities depended largely on goat/sheep rather than cattle. At the same time, cattle representations in the material culture of the C-Group, though heavily emphasized in the past, instead form the minority as e. g. incised motifs on coarse ceramic wares.
In chapter 3, Schellinger discusses interactions between Nubia and Egypt from the Old to New Kingdom and rightfully states that Egyptian textual sources dominate the narrative, written from the Egyptian perspective of the elites, and are thus biased. Therefore, only the archaeological evidence shows the unbiased Nubian “side of the story” (p. 54), yet even the archaeological evidence of the Egyptian forts in northern Lower Nubia at Ikkur and Kuban can be interpreted in different ways. According to Vogel, Ikkur and Kuban yield no evidence for a construction during the reign of the early 12th Dynasty ruler Amenemhat I, but architectural similarities appear to be closer to the forts built in the area of the Second cataract during the advanced 12th Dynasty in the reigns of Senwsret III and Amenemhat III[6]. This possibility in addition to the earlier dating of the monumental tombs in the C-Group cemeteries allows for the assumption that the C-Group was less dominated by Egypt than formerly stated and thus changes the dynamics between Egypt and Lower Nubia in the 12th Dynasty.
Following the interactions between Nubia and Egypt during the Middle Kingdom, Schellinger focusses on the Egyptian control over Nubia during the New Kingdom and discusses at length the administrative and religious dynamics as well as the establishment of temple towns such as Sai Island and Amara West.
Chapter 4 addresses the Napatan period in Nubia and the Kushite Dynasty 25 in Egypt, a period of time when Egypt was ruled by Nubian kings. This chapter’s focus is thus on Egyptian elements seen in the Nubian architecture “and integration of Egyptian kingship and religion with the indigenous Nubian ideologies.” (p. 76). The following Meroitic period marks the beginning of a new era with the capital at Meroe. Schellinger discusses the archaeological record and historic sources from Meroe in great detail.[7] At times the reader would benefit from illustrations of certain details concerning the city plan and specific buildings, such as the discussed palace M750 (p. 88).
The Nubian Pantheon is the focus of chapter 5 which examines Nubian religious beliefs in a diachronic approach and offers insights into the adaptation of Egyptian beliefs within the Nubian religious ideology. One of the main religious centres in Upper Nubia is the Jebel Barkal (Napata), where the cult of the ram-headed god Amun was executed; Napata can be understood as the Nubian counterpart to Karnak (p. 103). Schellinger addresses the divine legitimization of the king and again draws parallels to Egyptian religious practices from the New Kingdom to the Napatan period.
Chapter 6 focusses on powerful women in ancient Nubia through the times, foremost the so-called kandakes of the Meroitic period. Kandake was a Nubian title for the king’s sister and mother of future kings and is only attested in the Meroitic period. Schellinger then addresses the differences in artistic representations of “Egyptian” and “Nubian” women. Nubian women were depicted “much more robust” (p. 135) than Egyptian women, which Schellinger interprets as emphasizing powerful positions. However, anthropological evidence is largely lacking in this chapter.
The following chapter 7 deals with the development of Nubia’s economy during the Iron Age in the Napatan and Meroitic periods and the more advanced use of iron tools and weapons, such as arrow heads. Although iron working is certainly an important topic in the transregional African economies, its elaboration in its own chapter (as opposed to either Stone and Bronze Age economies) emphasizes the Iron Age in particular.
The last short chapter highlights the most important facts of the Christian and Islamic periods in Nubia leading up to the recent political events of 2022 in modern Sudan.
To sum up, Schellinger’s book is an important and valuable contribution as an introduction on Nubian civilizations and is useful to the general public as well as students. Although at times generalizing and vague, the book provides a thorough summary of the Nubian civilizations and highlights some significant topics in more detail, particularly the Napatan and Meroitic periods. The illustrations serve the case for Schellinger’s arguments well, but ground plans would have been desirable.
The bibliography is exhaustive and includes the most important contributions in Nubian archaeology while the index at the end of the book assists the reader when looking for specific topics or individuals.
Notes
[1] A still widespread research opinion is that the word Nubia derives from the ancient Egyptian word nbw for gold (p. 15). However, it has been convincingly demonstrated in the past that this cannot be the case etymologically. The word Nubia rather derives from the meroitic nob, which can be translated as “slave”. See exhaustively Francis Breyer, ‘Nubien’ und äg. nb.w ‘Gold’-Eine Gegendarstellung, Der Antike Sudan. Mitteilungen der Sudanarchäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin e. V. 20, 2009, 173–176; Claude Rilly, Enemy Brothers and Relationship between Meroites and Nubians (Noba), Polish Centre 2008, 211–225.
[2] See Dietrich Raue, Elephantine und Nubien vom 4. – 2. Jt. v. Chr., Sonderschriften des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo 40, 2018, 159–169.
[3] Marie-Kristin Schröder, Nachbarschaft im Wandel. Untersuchungen zu keramischen Inventaren aus Siedlungs- und Nekropolenbefunden in Oberägypten und Unternubien (ca. 2300–1700 v. Chr), Sonderschriften des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo 38, in press.
[4] Manfred Bietak, Studien zur Chronologie der unternubischen C-Gruppe: ein Beitrag zur Frühgeschichte Unternubiens zwischen 2200 und 1500 v. Chr., Denkschriften Wien 97, 1968.
[5] Pernille Bangsgaard, Nubian faunal practices-Exploring the C-Group “Pastoral ideal” at nine cemeteries, in: Derek A. Welsby – Julie R. Anderson, The Fourth Cataract and Beyond. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference for Nubian Studies 2014, British Museum publications on Egypt and Sudan 1, 2014, 247–355.
[6] Carola Vogel, Ägyptische Festungen und Garnisonen bis zum Ende des Mittleren Reiches, Heidelberger Ägyptologische Beiträge 46, 2004.
[7] It would have been desirable to include references to the long-term excavations by the German Archaeological Institute and the Humboldt University zu Berlin, see e. g. Simone Wolf – Pawel Wolf – Hans-Ulrich Onasch – Catherine Hof – Ulrike Nowotnick, Meroë und Hamadab – Stadtstrukturen und Lebensformen im afrikanischen Reich von Kusch: Die Arbeiten der Kampagnen 2008 und 2009, Archäologischer Anzeiger 2009, Nr. 2 (2010); Cornelia Kleinitz, Musawwarat es-Sufra, Sudan: the archaeology of a ceremonial center of the Kingdom of Kush, TANA 2022; Fritz Hintze, Musawwarat es Sufra: (Sudan); die Ausgrabungen der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 1960 bis 1970, Vol. 1, Der Löwentempel (Berlin 1992).