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 The museum of Nubia
plays vital role not only at the
level of promoting Nubia to the entire world but also at the
level of maintaining monuments and supporting researchers,
interested in Nubia, from around the globe
This, however could be achieved through the museum's study
center and the documentation centers which publish more
information on the "Land of Gold" in Egypt, the past, the
present and the future
Nubia Museum, which hosts 3000 monumental
pieces of several times, ranks tenth in the list of the museums
inaugurated in Egypt over the past three years. An array of
important museums, however, has been inaugurated; Mohamed Nagui
Museum, Modern Egyptian Art
Museum, Museum of Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, Museum of
Ahmed Desouki, Port Said Museum for Modern Arts, Taha Hussein
Museum, and the Mummification Museum in Luxor.
The museum is set on a hill in the cataract region, just beyond
the Cataract Hotel, surrounded by a garden with views of the
surrounding landscape. The building itself is already
spectacular, even beautiful. It was designed by Dr Mahmud
el-Hakim, who was responsible for the design of the Luxor Museum
of Ancient Egyptian Art, which opened in 1975. Its exterior is
decorated in simple forms, entirely executed in the local Nubian
sandstone and suggesting Nubian temple walls. A decorative band
of stones in a zigzag pattern imitates the mudbrick courses of
Nubian house architecture. Different architects were responsible
for the garden and the interior of the building, respectively.
The exhibition inside the museum is arranged in chronological
order, devoting equal space to the different eras of Nubian
history. The museum is devoted to the Egyptian part of Nubia, or
Lower Nubia, which was entirely drowned by the waters of Lake
Nasser, after the building of the Aswan dam. The country no
longer exists, but as a result of systematic archaeological
surveys and excavations, many objects and even entire monuments
were saved. Several museums in foreign countries have in recent
years devoted displays to the history of Nubia, such as the
British Museum and the museums of Boston and Toronto. Now,
finally, Egypt itself has amassed the largest exhibition of all
in Aswan, surrendering to the present-day Nubians their history.
The success of the museum with the local Nubian population is
demonstrated daily by the hundreds of Nubian visitors to the
museum, many of whom now live in the region of Aswan. In fact,
the museum has been designed to be more than just an art
collection and an historical display. On the grounds of the
building, two theatres have been added, and a gallery has been
included for showing contemporary work by Nubian artists. A
library is to be housed in it as well, stimulating the academic
study of the Nubian past.
The display cases of the museum contain over 2000 items, all of
which are well lit and labelled in state-of-the-art show cases.
Efforts have been made to evoke the original surroundings of the
exhibits, which are lost, through the regular insertion of scale
models of buildings from the historical periods represented. At
the start of the exhibition, a large model of the Egyptian Nile
Valley indicates the large number of Egyptian temples which once
stood along the Nubian Nile.
It is entirely fitting that the centrepiece of the entire
display should be a colossal statue of Rameses II, which once
formed part of the rock temple of Gerf Hussein. Many of the
unique Nubian temples were saved during the international
campaign organized by UNESCO in the 1960s, and the remains of
several of these temples were donated by Egypt to the foreign
participants in this campaign. Standing there dwarfed by the
colossal statue of Rameses, one is reminded of the sad fact that
many more monuments have had to be sacrificed. The temple of
Gerf Hussein is one of the pharaonic style temples which could
not be saved, and today only this colossus and some odd
fragments of sculpture and relief remain. These pieces make, to
my mind, a dramatic statement about the scale of the sacrifice
which Egypt made by building the High Dam at Aswan in the
attempt to secure for itself a prosperous future. Likewise, only
a few fragments of the chapel of Horemheb at Abu Oda survive,
and only one of the original four decorated rock chapels from
Qasr Ibrim were included in the museum (the largest shrine, of
Usersatet, from the reign of Amenophis II). The remaining three
chapels had to be abandoned at the base of the cliff, where they
had been carved some 3500 years ago.
The museum presents the history of Nubia in the terms coined for
the history of Egypt. The terms Old, Middle, and New Kingdom are
used throughout, which is rather artificial but it has the
advantage, apart from being familiar terms of reference for the
visitor, of highlighting the intimate association of the Nubian
culture with the Egyptian. The museum displays highlight these
connections specifically. For instance, it includes a copy of
the famous wooden tomb model of a group of Nubian archers in the
Cairo Museum, which was found in Asyut in Middle Egypt, and
which attests to the presence of Nubian soldiers in Middle
Kingdom Egypt.
The history of the town of Aswan itself has also been
incorporated into the museum's displays, and for good reason.
The border town of Aswan has always stood under the influence of
both cultures, as is evidenced, for instance, by the Middle
Kingdom coffin of Heqata (formerly kept in the Egyptian Museum),
who was a Nubian buried in Aswan in the Egyptian fashion. Other,
purely Egyptian artefacts from Aswan are also shown here, such
as the powerful statues from the Heqa-ib chapel and a head of
Nectanebo II found on Elephantine Island.
Another period which is represented in the collection, for
obvious reasons, is the Egyptian Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, during
which the Nubians ruled over Egypt. A number of masterpieces
have been selected dating from this period, both from the
southern capital of Napata (Sudan) and from the area of Luxor.
Thus, we see the 'dream stela' of Tanutamun from Gebel Barkal,
and the beautiful statues of Harwa and of Horemakhet from
Karnak.
As state above, the emphasis in the collection lies on the
region of Lower Nubia. The visitor is first introduced to the
large collection of prehistoric material, with its beautiful
flint tools and rock carvings (petroglyphs). Part of the latter
collection has been effectively displayed inside an artificial
cave in the garden of the museum. Unfortunately, these pieces
have been excluded from the otherwise excellent labelling, and
the numbers and places of origin of the individual pieces are
not clear.
The A-Group and C-Group cultures are introduced mainly through
the effective use of text panels in the display. These cultures
represent the original indigenous way of life of the Nubians
before the Egyptian influence became pervasive. The Egyptians
colonized the region and built massive defence systems during
the Middle Kingdom at its southern border in the Second
Cataract. A model of the fortress of Buhen suggests the large
scale of these structures of mudbrick, of which none could be
saved from inundation. Otherwise, only a small selection of
objects, mainly ceramics, is shown, as well as a reconstructed
A-Group burial.
The most extensive temple building in the region dates to the
New Kingdom, and this remains the best known feature of Lower
Nubia. Recently, a number of cruise ships have started to
traverse Lake Nasser between Aswan and Abu Simbel in order to
allow visits to the temples which have been relocated along the
shores of the lake. In the museum, the subject of temple
building is addressed by the fragments saved from the sites of
Gerf Hussein, Qasr Ibrim, and Abu Oda, already mentioned, as
well as by the contents of a small solar chapel which formed
part of the Great Temple at Abu Simbel. These items, a shrine
with statues, two obelisks, and four baboon statues, were
brought to Cairo after their discovery in 1909.
The labelling is effective, with much additional information
provided in separate text panels on the walls, in both Arabic
and English. For children, the objects themselves will certainly
capture the imagination: for instance, the exotic royal burial
equipment from Ballana, which was formerly kept in the Cairo
Museum. The horse trappings and jewellery from these tombs
continue the tradition of blending the Egyptian and African
artistic styles which already characterises the earlier Meroitic
culture. The Meroitic culture was centred in Sudanese Nubia, and
this important historical phase has, as a consequence, received
only scant attention in the current museum display. Only some of
the famous decorated ceramics from this period are shown and
some of the characteristic funerary statues known as ba-birds.
The Christian and Islamic periods are represented in a small
number of well chosen objects. The delicate church frescos from
Abdallah Nirqi have been transferred here from the Coptic Museum
in Cairo. The Islamic display includes some stunning textiles
from the fourteenth century AD, found at Gebel Adda and Qasr
el-Wizz. These are followed by a lengthy description on a series
of text panels describing the building of the High Dam. Separate
text panels are devoted to the ensuing international rescue
campaign which has yielded so many of the pieces in the museum.
The final section of the museum's tour through Nubian history is
an ethnographic one. The contemporary Nubian folklore is
presented here in a series of life-size dioramas which represent
scenes from village life. During my visits to the museum, the
Nubian visitors were much attracted by this display, which
elicited many remarks of recognition.
The staff of the museum, which is mostly Nubian, numbers about
a hundred people and is under the direction of Dr Sabri Abd
el-Aziz, and the chief conservator Ossama Abd el-Wareth.
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