|
The Nubians created the world's first
civilization and that civilization was much older than Egypt.The
History of Nubian civilization extends back to abouit 17,000
years and that history included a strong connection with a great
civilization that existed in the Sahara In fact, in 2000,
archeologists discovered many facinating artefacts, including
glasswork of great beauty and excellent craftsmanship. These
were found in Sudan and according to Time Magazine, some
artefacts were dated to about 8000 years B.C. Astronomy was also
well organized in Nubia during the period and an astronomical
observatory dating back to about 7000 B.C. was found in Sudan as
well. It is also in Sudan that a large number of ancient cities
exist.
Excavations in Sudan are revealing that this area, formerly
called Nubia, could have been the cradle of African
civilization.{ Scott macleod in New York Times Magazine }
Teams of archeologists from the US, Europe and Sudan are finding
antiquities that show a sophisticated and original culture that
could have influenced Egypt.
Archaeologist Timothy Kendall was leading an expedition in
northern Sudan earlier this year when one of his diggers came
across a slab of intricately carved stone hidden in rubble. Soon
after, another slab turned up, and then another, until there
were 25 in all, laid out in the sand like an archaeological
jigsaw puzzle. Fitted together, the pieces formed a dazzling
tableau: golden stars set against an azure sky, with crowned
vultures flying off into the distance. Flying where, precisely?
Kendall, an associate curator at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts,
thinks he knows. And if his hunch is correct, he may be a few
tons of rubble away from a major archaeological find.
Kendall's breakthrough, when and if it comes, should be one of
many arising from that corner of Africa. Long considered an
archaeological after thought by scientists exploring the more
famous temples and pyramids of Egypt, just to the north, Sudan
is suddenly the hot place to be--and not just because of the
equatorial temperatures that register as high as 100[degrees]F
even during the prime winter digging season. At least 15 teams
from the U.S., Europe and Sudan are sifting through the same
sands for secrets of ancient Nubia, the world's first black
civilization, which at its height stretched more than 1,000
miles along the Nile River, from what is today the central part
of Sudan to the southern reaches of Egypt.
Everything uncovered thus far supports the conviction that has
been building among scholars during the past 20 years that the
Nubians were not just vassals and trading partners of the
Egyptian Pharaohs but also the creators of an ancient and
impressive civilization of their own, with a homegrown culture
that may have been the most complex and cosmopolitan in all
Africa.
That's why Kendall is particularly interested in the jigsaw
tableau he has laid out on the sand. The newly discovered
blocks, he believes, once made up the vaulted ceiling of a
passageway that led to a temple dug into a 300-ft.-high hill
known today as Jebel Barkal. It was there, Kendall thinks, that
rulers in the ancient Nubian kingdom of Napata and Meroe, which
dated from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350, practiced their coronation
rites, climaxing in a crowning by the god Amun.
The passage Kendall discovered was, he believes, closed by an
earthquake and rockslide sometime between A.D. 100 and A.D. 200.
That's the bad news--and the good news, for the same wall of
rubble that separates Kendall from his temple probably kept out
treasure hunters as well. Once he manages to bore through a few
huge boulders and track the flight of those majestic vultures,
he hopes to find that the temple's interior, and whatever
treasure it holds, has been preserved intact for 18 centuries.
Such findings, according to Dietrich Wildung, curator of the
Egyptian Museum in Berlin, represent "nothing less than the
discovery of a new dimension of the ancient world." The sense of
breaking new ground, and of taking archaeology in a new
direction, has contributed to what Wildung calls "the pioneer
spirit in Sudan."
Archaeologists aren't the only ones who are rediscovering
Sudan's ancient treasures. One of the greatest exhibitions of
Nubian art ever assembled is currently touring France, Germany
and the Netherlands. The show, which will continue into next
year, features statues, pottery, jewelry and other artifacts
that were recovered in excavations dating back to 1842, when
Karl Lepsius, a Prussian archaeologist, first surveyed the
region known in the Old Testament as Cush, in Greek literature
as Aethiopia and by the Romans as Nubia (possibly a corruption
of the Egyptian word for gold).
Although the early surveyors reported that Sudan contained more
pyramids than did Egypt, the country remained what Wildung calls
an archaeological "no-man's-land" until quite recently. The
first excavators from Europe found Egypt to be less backward,
less remote and less prone to yellow fever, and thus far more
pleasant and accessible. Egypt's sites also proved to be so rich
that there was little reason to search farther up the Nile.
Another problem, scholars now firmly believe, was racial
prejudice, which turned many in the field away from cultures
emanating from deeper in Africa. Prominent Egyptologists
--including the noted American George Reisner, who worked in
Sudan--thought they were excavating the remains of an offshoot
of Egyptian culture. "They didn't believe black Africa was
capable of producing high civilization," says Kendall.
The latest crop of discoveries is helping put such ideas to
rest. French archaeologists, for example, have found exquisite
ceramic figurines, bowls and funerary objects at sites that date
from at least 8000 b.c. They are as old as any Neolithic sites
in Africa and predate prehistoric finds in Egypt by a staggering
3,000 years. This strongly suggests to Hassan Hussein Idris,
director of Sudan's National Board for Antiquities and Museums,
that ancient Nubia might have been an important source of
Egypt's civilization, as well as the other way around.
Not all archaeologists are prepared to go that far. But there is
now enough evidence for a scientific consensus that ancient
Nubia, beginning in the Stone Age, developed its own distinct
civilization--or rather, a series of overlapping
civilizations--influenced by Africa, Arabia and the Sahara as
well as by Egypt. Moreover, many scholars believe these Nubian
kingdoms hold even more clues to the origins of African culture
than does Egypt, which, because of its unique position abutting
Asia and the Mediterranean, is regarded by many archaeologists
as having developed independently from the rest of the
continent.
The new perspective owes much to the work of Swiss archaeologist
Charles Bonnet, who has spent the past 24 years excavating
Kerma, the seat of Africa's greatest empire (outside Egypt)
between 2500 B.C. and 1500 B.C. Bonnet acknowledges that he went
to Sudan initially to find Egyptian civilization. "But step by
step," he confesses, "I came to understand that the Nubian
civilizations are really extraordinary. There might be Egyptian
influences, but there is a Nubian originality and a Nubian
identity."
Two years ago, Bonnet excavated a funerary temple in Kerma that
powerfully illustrates Nubia's synthesis of frontier influences.
On one interior wall he found Egyptian motifs, including Nile
fishing boats, bullfights and an enormous crocodile. Another
wall was covered with rows of giraffes and
hippopotamuses--African wildlife rarely seen in ancient Egypt.
At Jebel Barkal, Kendall hopes to shed new light on the
symbiotic relationship of Nubian and Egyptian civilizations. The
first temples there were constructed between 1460 B.C. and 1200
B.C., during the relatively brief period when Egypt ruled Nubia.
Kendall believes the Egyptians chose this particular craggy hill
for a royal sanctuary because, when seen from a distance, Jebel
Barkal's silhouette resembles, even today, a crown adorned with
a cobra, which is a symbol of royal power. The Egyptians
believed Jebel Barkal to be a prime residence of the god Amun,
the bestower of royal authority--a notion that was later taken
up by the Nubians. About 730 B.C., when the Nubians rose up and
conquered Egypt, establishing what became known as Egypt's 25th
dynasty, they drew on the authority granted by Amun at Jebel
Barkal to justify their rule over both lands.
Kendall doesn't know what secrets the temple will yield when he
finally breaks through the pile of rubble separating him from
the interior. Will he find cult goddesses? Jeweled crowns?
Kingly scepters? Or perhaps the remains of a priest or two,
trapped for 18 centuries by that earthquake? Alas, there will be
no answers until the next digging season begins in January. It's
still summer in Sudan, and much too hot for archaeology.
Nubian Monarchy Called Oldest
Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history,
preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several
generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia
in Africa { Boyce Renseberger in New York Times Magazine }
Until now it had been assumed that at that time the ancient
Nubian culture, which existed in what is now northern Sudan and
southern Egypt, had not advanced beyond a collection of
scattered tribal clans and chiefdoms.
The existence of rule by kings indicates a more advanced form of
political organization in which many chiefdoms are united under
a more powerful and wealthier ruler
The discovery is expected to stimulate a new appraisal of the
origins of civilization in Africa, raising the question of to
what extent later Egyptian culture may have derived its advanced
political structure from the Nubians. The various symbols of
Nubian royalty that have been found are the same as those
associated, in later times, with Egyptian kings.
The new findings suggest that the ancient Nubians may have
reached this stage of political development as long ago as 3300
B.C., several generations before the earliest documented
Egyptian king.
The discovery is based on study of artifacts from ancient tombs
excavated 15 years ago in an international effort
Clues to Oldest Monarchy Found in Nubia
To rescue archeological deposits before the rising waters of the
Aswan Dam covered them.
The artifacts, including hundreds of fragments of pottery,
jewelry, stone vessels, and ceremonial objects such as incense
burners, were initially recovered from the Qustul cemetery by
Keith C. Seele, a professor at the University of Chicago. The
cemetery, which contained 33 tombs that were heavily plundered
in ancient times, was on the Nile near the modern boundary
between Egypt and the Sudan.
The significance of the artifacts, which had been in storage at
the university's oriental Institute, was not fully appreciated
until last year, when Bruce Williams, a research associate,
began to study them.
"Keith Seele had suspected the tombs were special, perhaps even
royal," Dr. Williams said in an interview. "It was obvious from
the quantity and quality of the painted pottery and the jewelry
that we were dealing with wealthy people. But it was the picture
on a stone incense burner that indicated we really had the tomb
of a king."
On the incense burner, which was broken and had to be pieced
together, was a depiction of a palace façade, a crowned king
sitting on a throne in a boat, a royal standard before the king
and, hovering above the king, the falcon god Horus. Most of the
images are ones commonly associated with kingship in later
Egyptian traditions.
The portion of the incense burner bearing the body of the king
is missing but, Dr. Williams said, scholars are agreed that the
presence of the crown in a form well known from dynastic Egypt
and the god Horus are irrefutable evidence that the complete
image was that of a king.
Clue on Incense Burner
The majestic figure on the incense burner, Dr. Williams said, is
the earliest known representation of a king in the Nile Valley.
His name is unknown, but he is believed to have lived
approximately three generations before the time of Scorpion, the
earliest-known Egyptian ruler. Scorpion was one of three kings
said to have ruled Egypt before the start of what is called the
first dynasty around 3050 B.C.
Dr. Williams said the dating is based on correlations of
artistic styles in the Nubian pottery with similar styles in
predynastic Egyptian pottery, which is relatively well dated.
He said some of the Nubian artifacts bore disconnected symbols
resembling those of Egyptian hieroglyphics that were not
readable.
"They were on their way to literacy," Dr. Williams said,
"probably quite close to Egypt in this respect."
He said it was not known what the ancient Nubian civilization
was called at the time but that he suspected it was Ta-Seti, a
name known from Egyptian writings that means "Land of the Bow,"
referring to the weapon which, apparently, was deemed
characteristic of peoples in that part of Africa.
Dr. Williams said there were accounts in later Egyptian writings
of the Egyptians attacking Ta-Seti some time around 3000 B.C.
This is just about the time, according to the archeological
record, when a major cultural transformation began in that part
of Nubia. Little is known of what was happening in this region
between 3000 B.C. and 2300 B.C. when inhabitants were
unquestionably governed by separate chiefdoms.
Their descendents, he suggested, may have developed the Sudanese
Kingdom of Kush, based in Kurma, Egyptians for sovereignty and,
in fact, prevailed over them for a while
A detailed monograph on the discoveries is in preparation, but
there is no deadline and publication is expected to be a few
years away.
Early Nubian Culture
Nubian civilization is one of the oldest in the world. Presently
it is being extensively researched
Lying as it does in the western section of the east African
valley often considered to be the cradle of civilization, the
country of Nubia played a key part in human evolution. The
earliest traces of human life go back to three hundred thousand
years ago. The first people were hunters and fishers, who also
gathered berries and fruit. In around 6000 B.C. there was a
change in climate and the region became increasingly dryer. The
population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile
valley where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements.
Animals were domesticated for the first time and hunting grew
less important. Goats, sheep and cattle are descended from the
wild creatures that used to populate the regions lying close to
the Nile valley. People also started farming.
Soon came the development of pottery. The ceramics from this
period, the oldest surviving in the world, are stunningly
beautiful and refined. Ceramic objects were produced not only
for domestic use but also for religions ceremonies.
In around 3500 B.C. a more developed culture can be round in the
region between the first and second cataracte of the Nile.
Archaeologists call it the A-Group culture. The Egyptians called
this region Ta-Sety, 'The Land of the Bow', for the Nubians were
famous archers.
The people of the A-Group were farmers, but they also maintained
a lively trade with surrounding countries. In their kings'
graves costly gifts have been round made in other countries such
as Egypt or the Near East - objects such as gold jewellery,
beautiful ceramics and fine sculpture.
The ceramic work of later people, known as the C-Group who lived
in Lower Nubia (between 2300 and 1600 B.C.) is among the most
beautiful produced in Nubia. Richly decorated, it has much
exuberant ornamentation
|
