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Nubian arts
In retrospect, the steady rising of Nile waters due to the
building of the Aswan Dam -- and its controversial sequel, the
High Dam -- are a bittersweet victory for Nubians. Rescue
missions dispatched to save artefacts and Nubia's cultural
heritage have enshrined Nubian culture in museum collections
that would probably never have been given the prominence or
urgency they subsequently garnered.{ Jill Kamil in "East meets
west " } Drawn by tales of remarkable treasures, I set out for
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which houses the most
extensive collection of Nubian art outside of Africa. The Nubia
gallery was opened at the Museum of Fine Arts in May 1992 and
contains monuments and artefacts from regions of the Upper Nile,
where Nubia dips into present-day Sudan. However, the collection
is in no way redundant of the new Nubia Museum in Aswan. Some
objects at the two museums, like the pottery collections,
complement one another; others are missing links that together
would enable a better understanding of Nubian culture.
In ancient texts, Egyptians always distinguished Lower
(Egyptian) Nubia -- which they called Wawat -- from Upper
(Sudanese) Nubia. Artefacts from Lower Nubia gathered by UNESCO
salvage operations in the 1960s during the construction of the
High Dam are now displayed in the Aswan Museum. The Boston
collection is from the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine
Arts archaeological expeditions that date from the turn of the
20th century, when the first Aswan Dam was built, and heightened
on two successive occasions. Familiar though I am with the
history of Upper Nubia, it was not until I walked through the
galleries in Boston that I realised the wealth of objects that
had been found there. They form a truly remarkable and inspiring
collection.
Thanks to worldwide interest in Nubia following the decision to
build the High Dam, more is known today about Nubia even than
many archaeological sites in Egypt. That might be surprising,
but true. The area now called Nubia extends along the Nile from
Aswan, where the First Cataract now lies beneath Lake Nasser, to
the town of Dabba, near the Fourth Cataract, in Kush
(present-day Sudan). The construction of the Nubia Museum at
Aswan two years ago was a great step forward in making Nubian
culture known, offering artefacts largely from the area between
Aswan and Abu Simbel. The display of Nubian objects in the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston carried me further south, beyond
the Second Cataract to the Nubian kingdom of Kush.
Five mighty mud-brick fortresses were built by Egyptians at the
Second Cataract between 1971 and 1928 BC, when the Middle
Kingdom Pharaohs annexed Lower Nubia (Wawat). They formed a
front-line defence and also a centre for trade. When Egypt
extended its influence further south, a mighty temple complex on
lines similar to Luxor Temple was built at the Holy Mountain
known as Gabal Barkal. Egyptian campaigns eventually resulted in
all Nubia becoming part of Egyptian territory, with the city of
Napata becoming the most important frontier settlement.
My knowledge of Nubian centres such as Napata and the royal
cemeteries at Al-Kurru and Nuri, not to mention the burial
grounds of the city of Meroe, was mainly derived from some
scholarly references and faded photographs. I really had no idea
of the material remains from the excavations that were taken
abroad. Imagine my surprise, and pleasure, when I walked through
the galleries in Boston and saw the dazzling gold jewellery of
ancient Nubian kings and ceramics of unequalled craftsmanship.
The excellent standard of craftsmanship in Upper Nubia -- and
also an indication of Egyptian influence there -- is apparent
from a gold Nubian earring on display portraying the head of the
ram-headed Egyptian god Amun, crowned with the double uraeus
(which represents kingship) and the sun disk. A rock-crystal
base dating to the eighth century BC topped with a gold head of
Hathor is unquestionably one of the finest examples of Nubian
craftsmanship.
I lingered over a bronze quiver with a selection of the original
73 reed arrows, tipped with bone, slate, bronze and iron points
excavated from Meroe, and marvelled at a stunning spouted silver
vessel and gold and alabaster objects from the tombs of Kushite
kings. The museum has one of the largest granite sarcophagi ever
excavated, as well as a bronze offering stand from the eighth
century BC.
My vision of Lower Nubia was, naturally, based on Egyptian tomb
reliefs. Nubian aristocracy, for example, are represented in
tomb wall paintings as one of the four branches of mankind; they
are elegantly clad in richly-woven sashes and belts. Nubian
princes depicted in the tomb of Huy, on the Theban necropolis,
make offerings of rings and bags of gold to Egypt. The sons of
the Nubian aristocracy, incidentally, came to Egypt to study at
court alongside Egyptian royalty. But I gained a wider
perspective of the Nubian culture from the Boston collection,
which casts light on aspects of the indigenous African
population of the Upper Nile.
In a rich and fertile bend of the Nile south of the Third
Cataract, a Nubian group known as the Kerma culture (ruins of
its capital lie within the modern Sudanese town of Kerma) became
one of the most powerful states in the history of Nubia between
2000-1550 BC. Kings were buried in splendour beneath huge mounds
of earth. The unmummified bodies of the kings lay on
gold-covered beds in the central chambers surrounded by
treasures of gold and other precious objects.
The people of Meroe were probably influenced by Egyptian
culture, but remained African in spirit and dress. Meroitic
temple reliefs show the elaborate styles of royal clothing: for
the women, quality cotton and silk was imported from China.
Leather skirts, often made from many narrow panes stitched
together and adorned with a variety of beads, were stained
(often red) and pierced in patterns. Men wore leather loincloths
with frontal panels also decorated with beads arranged in lines
or diamond-shaped designs.
Yet we still know very little about the beginnings of kingship
in ancient Nubia and whether the concept of "divine kingship"
(in which the king ruled as a god) originally came from central
Africa and spread to Egypt of the Pharaohs -- a question that
may be investigated in the wake of growing interest in Nubian
culture. The museums in Aswan and the United States do a great
service to both the Nubian heritage and the archaeological
missions on which they depended for their collections.
While the opening of a Nubian museum in Upper Egypt was long
overdue, it is encouraging to see an appreciation of Nubian
history so well maintained in a place where interest in Nubia is
probably confined to the small groups of scholars to which the
collection is linked, and those who have travelled in the area
-- or want to. But perhaps this assessment is unfair, as the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has put on a daring show, and the
interest it is gathering is more than gratifying.
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