7 the rising tide of imperialism - earl j. heinrich nubia/_private/adams ch 7 egypt in... · 7 the...

Adams, W Y Nubia, Corridor to Africa

7 THE RISING TIDE OF IMPERIALISM

EGYPT IN NUBIA, 3200-1800 BC

'Miserable Kush', the oft-repeated epithet of Egyptian conquest texts, expresses succinctly the disdain whichcivilized peoples have often felt towards their barbarian neighbours. Something of the same attitude isconveyed in the nineteenth-century term 'Darkest Africa'. African darkness, as the Victorians conceived it,was more than a matter of skin colour; it was a darkness of the mind as well. Implicit therein was thejustification for Europe's 'civilizing mission' - in part genuine, in part an excuse for colonial exploitation.Repeated and gratuitous allusion to Nubian backwardness evidently provided the ancient Egyptians too witha sense of moral justification for the exploitation of their African neighbours.

At first glance the Egyptians' belief in their superiority seems warranted by their material accomplishments.While the pharaoh was surrounded by every kind of luxury, and his subjects raised some of history's mostenduring monuments on his behalf, the conditions of life in Nubia had changed little since the Stone Ages.Nevertheless the attitude of the Egyptians smacks to some extent of the exaggerated haughtiness of thenouveau-riche, for their own rise from savagery to civilization had been recent and rapid. The earlierNeolithic cultures of the Lower Nile - Badarian, Fayyum, and Merimde - were hardly more advanced thanwere those of Nubia and other parts of Africa. The Egyptians may have farmed rather more systematicallythan did the Nubians, but they were equally ignorant of the bustling village life and the growing commerce ofthe contemporary Near East. It was only towards the close of prehistoric times, in the Amratian and Gerzean(or Naqada I and II) periods, that there was a certain quickening of life along the Lower Nile. Settlementsbecame larger and more permanent, mud-brick architecture was introduced, pottery-making and weavingwere developed artistically as well as technically, and copper tools came into use even while stone chippingand carving reached their peaks of artistic excellence. Egypt at last began to outstrip the rest of Africa and to

achieve that pre-eminence in the material sphere which was never to be relinquished. 1

In Egypt, far more than in Nubia, growing wealth and population led to the growth and consolidation ofpolitical power. Petty chieftains became regional warlords, who vied for control over larger and largerterritories. Gradually, perhaps over several generations, the dynasts of Thinis in Upper Egypt overcame theirrivals and extended their hegemony from Aswan to the sea. In that achievement were born the pharaonic stateand the court civilization of Egypt. It was, perhaps, a natural and inevitable development in view of the closecultural (and presumably linguistic) homogeneity which seems to have been characteristic of Egypt since the

earliest times. 2

That Egyptian civilization was influenced by the example of Mesopotamia seems indisputable. Yet even in itsheyday life on the Nile was something far removed from the cosmopolitan hurly-burly of the Near East.Egypt for more than a thousand years remained a land of country estates, without great cities and their

complex social and commercial life?. 3 Over this bucolic scene there presided a kind of tribal superchief andhis personal household. If the proudest of French monarchs could boast that 'l'état, c'est moi', the pharaohcould almost assert that 'la civilisation, c'est moi'. There is hardly an achievement of Egyptian civilization inany field of endeavour which does not bear the stamp of the ruler: soldiers, scholars, artisans, and statesmen

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were alike his personal retainers. Even the abundant and magnificent products of Egyptian craftsmanshipwent, for the most part, not to the marketplace but to adorn the tombs of kings and nobility.

In the beginning the towering edifice of pharaonic pomp did not rest on a complex infrastructure. re.Thewhole panoply of court civilization was sustained not by commerce and industry but by a rigidly managedagrarian economy, of which the pharaoh and the nobility were the chief beneficiaries. According to 'officialsources' (i.e. the biographical texts of kings and nobles) the peasantry also benefited from their incorporationinto a manorial system: they became eligible for grain from the royal storehouses in times of famine, and forwork on the royal monuments and other state enterprises during the agricultural slack season. The provisionof economic security has been a traditional self-justification of totalitarian régimes, however, and we are atliberty to question if the Egyptian fellaheen really appreciated the benefits which they derived from serfdom.At all events their day-to-day standard of living does not seem to have been improved by their subjection topharaonic authority: the ordinary tombs of the Old Kingdom were almost devoid of offerings, even while the

royal and noble tombs were reaching a pinnacle of splendour. 4

For the man in the field, then, the difference between Stone-Age barbarism and civilization was more shadowthan substance - the shadow of a sometimes paternal but more often oppressive and extravagant court. It fellin different ways on Egyptians and on Nubians. For the fellah it brought economic security of a sort, but atthe price of an unending burden of conscription and taxation. For the Nubian it offered widened tradeopportunities, but with them the intermittent disasters of plunder and enslavement. Centuries of subjugationto the pharaoh transformed the two peoples into the internal and the external proletariat of the Egyptian

empire, to use Arnold Toynbee's striking phrase. 5

THE PATTERN OF EGYPTIAN IMPERIALISM

Once the pharaonic rule was firmly established, Egypt's foreign policy was of a piece with her othertotalitarian institutions. While needed raw materials were occasionally obtained through peaceful commerce,more often the pharaoh's armies marched forth and seized what they wanted from neighbouring lands. Exceptfor the wily peoples of the Levant, foreign nations seldom profited for long from traffic with ancient Egypt.

Egyptian imperialism - economic and political - was a continuing factor in Nubian history for more than2,000 years, from the foundation of the pharaonic state until its final centuries of decline. During that time theextent and character of Egyptian influence fluctuated considerably, reflecting the relative strength orweakness of the pharaoh as well as his vacillating interest in various kinds of luxury goods. The three mainphases of imperial power - the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms - each witnessed a different stage of colonialdevelopment in Nubia. To a striking degree these stages parallel the colonial expansion of the Westernpowers between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Egyptian Old Kingdom was an age of exploration, characterized at first by sporadic and uncoordinatedraiding and trading expeditions into the southern lands. With minor exceptions (to be noted below) no effortwas made to extend Egyptian political control or to establish permanent relations with the Nubian peoples,

except perhaps for some frontier chiefs in the immediate vicinity of Aswan. 6

The Middle Kingdom was a period of armed trade monopoly, operating through one or more establishedtrading posts in the interior. Its main concern was not the subjugation of territory or of the native population,and production (except in the case of minerals) was left in Nubian hands. Animal and forest products, whichwere perhaps still more important than minerals at this period, were obtained through subsidization of nativesuppliers, meaning in all probability local rulers. There was no significant movement of Egyptian settlers into


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tile southern lands. However, an enormous military effort was devoted to the protection of the trade routes tothe south, and the assurance of a complete Egyptian monopoly of the trade along them. This type ofeconomic imperialism is strongly reminiscent both of the French fur trade in Canada and of the earlier stagesof the Portuguese and Dutch seaborne empires in the Orient, with their 'factory' ports on the coasts of Africa,India, and the Indies.

Finally, the New Kingdom saw the extension of imperialism from the economic to the political sphere.Outright Egyptian control was extended over the Nubian territory and people, displacing or subordinating thenative rulers with whom the Egyptians had formerly been content to deal. Control of raw material production,and probably also of agriculture, passed directly into Egyptian hands, and the Nubians in their turn becamefellaheen. Here, then, was full-scale colonialism and the establishment of a 'plantation' economy, comparableto the later stages of European colonialism in many parts of the world.

The traditional African products for which the southern continent has been exploited since time immemorialwere gold, ivory, and slaves. The first two of these, however, only serve to head a long list of mineral andanimal products which have figured prominently in the African trade. We can better understand the pattern ofEgyptian colonial expansion in the second millennium BC , as well as that of the European powers in therecent past, if we consider the resources of Africa under three more general headings: animal resources,human resources, and mineral resources. These have traditionally been obtained in rather different ways, thefirst by trading, the second by raiding, and the third by colonization. Fluctuating demand for the differenttypes of commodities therefore played some part in the changing character of Egyptian-Nubian relations. Weshall consider them briefly here in the chronological order of their development.

ANIMAL PRODUCTS

Animal products were probably the earliest commodities which moved from Nubia to Egypt. As we saw inChapter 5, the graves of the early Nubian A Horizon already give evidence of a flourishing trade with Egypteven before the unification of the pharaonic state. In these early and uncomplicated days there was certainlyno organized gold production, and it is unlikely that the society and economy of predynastic Egypt had muchplace for Nubian slaves. We are left to assume, therefore, that wild products which had lately disappearedfrom the Lower Nile Valley were the principal objects of Egypt's early commerce with the south. AmongAfrican products mentioned by Gardiner as possibly figuring in this trade were ivory, ebony, incense,

aromatic oil, and leopard skins. 7 In later days many other kinds of skins, ostrich eggs and feathers, andhippopotamus ivory were also exported from or via Nubia.

The earliest Nubian trade, antedating a strong Egyptian state, was most probably developed by privateentrepreneurs. As Reisner has written: 'The local market went on - that cumbersome process by which goodspassed up and down the river by exchanges between traders who ranged only from one local market to thenext and back again. Market to market exchanges can be inferred even from predynastic times and go ontoday between the Nubian villages. Some present-day traders even range from Aswan to Halfa, stopping at all

the villages.' 8

A good deal of private trade in animal and forest products may have been carried on at all times in Nubianhistory, and particularly during those periods (such as the First and Second Intermediate Periods) when thecentral government was too weak to exercise a monopoly. However, the great southern trading expeditions ofwhich we have record, from the later Old Kingdom onward, were all organized by or on behalf of thepharaoh. With the increasing concentration of wealth in a few hands, the king and his courtiers probablyrepresented the only real market for the more expensive luxury goods from the south. Thus the Nubian trade,


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like most of Egypt's foreign commerce, became largely if not entirely a royal enterprise.

SLAVES

The First Dynasty inscription of King Jer - the oldest document in Nubian history - probably marks

incidentally the beginning of the slave trade. 9 Whether or not it was the prospect of human captives whichattracted this shadowy monarch into the southern lands, they were a part of the spoil of his campaign, for hisinscription at Jebel Sheikh Suleiman shows at least two bound captives alongside the more numerous slain.Captives in increasing numbers figure in most of the subsequent military texts dealing with Nubia down tothe time of the New Kingdom. Evidently they were a major impetus for Egyptian military operations in thesouth. Such operations are recorded from the First, Second, Fourth, Sixth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth,

Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties, 10 or in other words whenever the power of the pharaohwas at its strongest. Whatever the ostensible purpose of these expeditions, every one of them probablyyielded as a by-product a considerable harvest of prisoners.

Some Nubian slaves were undoubtedly obtained through commerce (that is, enslaved by the Nubiansthemselves and traded by them to the Egyptians), but the greater number appear to have been captureddirectly by the pharaoh's armies. We can therefore assume that the slave trade was largely a royal enterprise,if not a monopoly. What its economic and social importance may have been is difficult to estimate. Thenumber of captives claimed in some of the more extravagant conquest texts is surely exaggerated; forexample, Sneferu's purported 7,000 prisoners in the Fourth Dynasty is nearly equal to the total estimated

population of Lower Nubia at that time. 11 It is also true that slave labour was never a significant feature ofthe Egyptian economy. On the other hand possession of a large number of Nubian domestic slaves may havebeen an important status symbol for the Egyptian nobility, as it was in later times for Oriental monarchs andnobles generally. More than anything else, however, Nubian slaves were probably needed to bolster the ranks

of the Egyptian army itself, 12 The same consideration was to lead to the enslavement of Nubia by Egypt asrecently as the nineteenth century (cf. Ch. 18).

MINERAL RESOURCES

The later Egyptian pharaohs developed an insatiable appetite for gold, and it became the most important andmost coveted of all products from the southern lands. The 'Gold of Wawat' (probably Lower Nubia) and 'Gold

of Kush' (Upper Nubia) figure repeatedly in the annals of the New Kingdom. 13 13 However, there is noindication that this industry was extensively developed before the New Kingdom. We now know that goldmining in Nubia was preceded by copper mining and by diorite quarrying, both of which began as early asthe Old Kingdom.

All of the mineral operations in Nubia, whether mining or quarrying, appear to have been Egyptian stateenterprises organized and supervised by Egyptian officials, although Nubians may have provided theunskilled labour force. The inscriptions found at the diorite quarries and in many mining districts leave no

doubt that the supervisory officials were directly responsible to the pharaoh. 14 Here then was an enterpriseinvolving a certain amount of outright colonization: a cadre of supervisors, skilled prospectors andquarrymen, and presumably a military force sufficient to protect them from potentially hostile natives.

To sum up, three different types of extractive industry were developed in ancient Nubia under Egyptianstimulus, and each was exploited in a somewhat different way. Wild animal and forest products were obtainedthrough a genuine two-way trade which was presumably mutually beneficial. It was probably this commerce


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which provided most of the Egyptian goods which came into Nubian hands. Slaves, on the other hand, wereseized by periodic raiding expeditions which brought to the Nubians nothing but suffering and destitution.Mineral resources, finally, were obtained through direct Egyptian enterprise operating on Nubian soil, andagain brought little benefit to the native populace.

Throughout the pharaonic period, the picture of Egyptian-Nubian relations which emerges from thehieroglyphic texts is one of almost unrelieved oppression. The pharaohs often asserted the justness of their

rule in their own land, 15 but none ever boasted of bringing justice to the Nubians. Yet it is necessary torecognize that the royal and official annals do not tell the whole story. In common with most imperialists theEgyptians glorified the conqueror and disdained the merchant; it was their exploits on the battlefield, not inthe marketplace, which they celebrated and probably exaggerated.

When we consider the contents of the Nubian graves of the A and C Horizons, another side of the picture isrevealed to us. Except (perhaps) in the later A Horizon, the abundance of Egyptian-made goods in thesegraves is astonishing. A rapid tally of 1,484 'C-Group' graves investigated by the First and SecondArchaeological Surveys of Nubia (see Ch. 3) reveals that nearly half of them had contained one or moreobjects of foreign origin. Beads, bracelets, and other ornaments were the most common, occurring in 528 outof 1,484 graves, or more than one third of the total. One out of every five graves also contained one or moreEgyptian-made pottery vessels. Ground slate palettes, alabaster vessels, and various objects of copper andbronze were less common, but still conspicuous. Considering that the great majority of'C-Group' graves hadbeen heavily plundered, and that in many cases the investigators cleared only the superstructure and not thegrave shaft, it seems that the original proportion of Egyptian-made goods may have been higher still. Thesegoods assuredly did not come to the Nubians as gifts, nor is it likely that they were often received ascompensation for labour. Much more probably, they are indicative of a continuing flow of peaceful, two-waytrade between Egypt and Nubia throughout most of the pharaonic period, in spite of the fluctuations ofpolitical policy and economic fortune.

In the two previous chapters we have dealt with various aspects of Egyptian trading and raiding, and theireffects on the Nubian society and economy. In this chapter it remains to consider the evidence of outrightEgyptian colonization in Nubia during the A and C Horizons - activities which are not reflected to any extenteither in the hieroglyphic record or in the archaeological remains of the contemporary Nubians. Ourknowledge of them comes from another and unrelated group of archaeological remains, left by the Egyptianswho came to live and work in Nubia.

MINERAL INDUSTRIES OF THE OLD KINGDOM

Diorite, a hard black-to-grey crystalline rock, was the favoured material for statues and stelae in the earlyEgyptian dynasties. It was obtained from several sources, one of which was located in the Nubian desertabout forty miles west of Abu Simbel. According to Kees:

What the ancient prospector could accomplish is demonstrated in the modern rediscovery of theplace from which in Dynasty IV came the diorite used for the statues of Chephren in hismortuary temple and probably also the paving blocks in the mortuary temple of Cheops. Thelabor corps euphemistically called this place 'Place of snaring of Cheops,' as if it were a fertileoasis. It lies in the desolate Libyan desert.., northwest of Abu Simbel and not very far from thecaravan route which led from Aswan by way of the Oasis of Dunkul to Nakhle and the [westernSudan]. The place was marked by cairns. Stelae found there bearing the names of Cheops andDjedefre prove that it was already being exploited at a time when tradition is silent at [Aswan].


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Nearby lay an amethyst mine. The transport route that can still be distinguished reached the Nilein the neighbourhood of Toshka, a little to the north of Abu Simbel [Fig. 23]. From here by river

to Giza was a distance of more than 750 miles. 16

No trace was found of permanent Egyptian settlement either at the quarries or on the riverbank at Toshka,although fragments of a mud jar-sealing and of a stone stele, both of Old Kingdom date, have been found at

the latter place. 17 Given the intermittent nature of the demand for diorite, it seems probable enough thatquarrying activity was carried on only occasionally and for relatively brief periods, by expeditions speciallysent out for the purpose.

Prior to the most recent archaeological campaign it was generally assumed that Egyptian activity in Nubiaduring the Old Kingdom had been limited to intermittent forays, whether for trading, raiding, or quarrying.We now know, however, that at least one Egyptian colony was planted on Nubian soil during the Fourth andFifth Dynasties. At Buhen, on the west bank of the Nile a few miles downstream from the Second Cataract,were found the remains of a sizeable town-site which had been surrounded by a massive though crude stonewall. The buildings were symmetrical, rectangular constructions of stone and mudbrick, recognizablyEgyptian in character and quite unlike anything attempted by the Nubians until centuries later. Some wereapparently residences, while others were unmistakably workshops (Fig. 24). Although extremely denuded,like the contemporaneous remains of the Nubian A Horizon, the Buhen town could be dated to the OldKingdom both by the pottery found in it and by mud jar-stoppers bearing the royal cartouches of severalpharaohs of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties. Excavations below the main level of occupation revealed traces

of even older buildings, possibly dating back as far as the Second Dynasty. 18

While the presence of an Egyptian colony at Buhen in the Old Kingdom was in itself a surprise, the purposefor which it was established is even more astonishing. To quote from the excavator's report:

Rough stone mortars set in the floors of cubicle type rooms, for use in the pounding of the ore,together with the remains of pottery crucibles and ingot moulds, showed that we were clearing anarea of the town which was obviously a metal-working factory. Charcoal and copper slagtogether with the droppings of pure copper from the crucibles confirmed this... ... Under 1 m. ofdrift sand we uncovered a well-built stone structure with wails standing 1.15 m. high. On eachside of it, at a still lower level, we discovered three well-preserved furnaces in which the copper

ore had been smelted. 19


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Fig. 23. Lower Nubia showing Egyptian activities in the Old Kingdom


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Fig. 24. Plan of a portion of Old Kingdom town, Buhen

The furnaces were cylindrical structures of brick, open at the top, and were about 3 feet in diameter and 3 feethigh. Halfway between the base and the top of the walls, a perforated flooring of mud bricks, resting on acentral column of masonry, allowed the smelting crucibles to be placed directly over the fire in the chamberbelow (Fig. 25). A covered flue leading to the lower chamber allowed for stoking and cleaning the furnace.(Surprisingly enough these apertures were oriented in each case away from the wind, and therefore cannothave served to increase the draught on the fire.) Double-chamber pottery kilns similar in design to the Buhen

furnaces were used in Nubia throughout the post-pharaonic periods, 20 and may still be seen at the potteryworks in Old Cairo.

Professor Emery, the discoverer, sums up the Buhen find as follows:

1

The town was a purely Egyptian colony, for although Nubian B-Group is present, at least 95 per cent of

the pottery sherds are Egyptian. 21 The town was a purely Egyptian colony, for although Nubian

B-Group is present, at least 95 per cent of the pottery sherds are Egyptian. 21

2Copper working was one of its industries, and so we may conclude that deposits of this metal are to befound somewhere in the northern Sudan.

3A well-organized despatch service was maintained with Egypt throughout the IVth and Vth Dynasties,to judge from the mass of papyrus jar sealings.

4.... The names of the following kings have been identified on sealings and ostraca: Khafra, Menkaura,

Userkaf, Sahura, Neferirkara, Neuserra. 22


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The first permanent Egyptian settlement in Nubia, then, was devoted to the production of copper and not tothe gold which figured so prominently in later Nubian history. Up to now it stands as one of the two knowninstances of copper mining in Nubia. The other is represented by a mine in the desert east of Kubban, in the

far north of Nubia, which is not believed to date back as far as the Old Kingdom. 23 In the present day there

Fig. 25. Old Kingdom copper furnace at Buhen

are no known copper deposits in the northern Sudan, and the source of the ores smelted at Buhen remains amystery. Presumably they were brought from some point in the western desert, perhaps at a considerabledistance from the Nile, to the nearest point on the riverbank where fuel and water were available for smelting.

The location of the Buhen settlement is itself something of a puzzle. It is situated within a few miles of theSecond Cataract, which marks the effective head of navigation in Lower Nubia, but the rocky andunprotected shore at Buhen does not offer a particularly favourable anchorage for large vessels. A betterlanding is available a few miles further south, at the immediate foot of the cataract, and this would seem amore logical place for the loading and off-loading of overland cargoes from the south. Buhen might havebeen the terminus of a desert road over which the copper ore was brought to the Nile from its inland source,but it is notable that the site remained important long after the cessation of the copper industry. The samelocality in the Middle Kingdom was the site of one of the largest fortresses ever built by Egyptians in Nubia,and substantial temples were added to it during the New Kingdom, and later still by the Nubian PharaohTaharqa. Buhen, then, was a place of importance to the Egyptians throughout the history of their colonialventures in Nubia, for reasons which are probably now forever lost. Perhaps its later importance wassymbolic, commemorating the site of the earliest Egyptian settlement on Nubian soil.

The initial discoveries of copper and diorite in Nubia can only have come about as a result of extensive andsystematic prospecting. Mineralhunters in the Old Kingdom evidently ranged far beyond the familiar

confines of Lower Nubia, for their inscriptions have been found as far south as Kulb in the Batn el Hajar 24


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and in the Wadi Allaqi in the Eastern Desert (Fig. 23). 25 The authors of the Kulb inscriptions are identifiedas a 'scribe of prospectors' and two 'overseers of prospectors'; those in the Wadi Allaqi are called 'chiefs ofcaravans'. The titles make it plain that all of this exploration was state enterprise. The inscriptions suggest, asdoes much other evidence, that Egyptians ranged freely and unmolested over large areas of Nubia during thefirst ' age of exploration'.

How much the lives of Nubians in the A Horizon were affected by the presence of Egyptian colonies in theirmidst is difficult to say. According to traditional theory the later Old Kingdom was a time of poverty andpartial depopulation in Lower Nubia (see Ch. 5), so that the number of Nubians who came in direct contactwith the foreign settlements may have been small. The handful of 'B-group' sherds (i.e. the poorer varieties ofA Horizon pottery) found at Buhen suggest that only a few native labourers or servants were employed in thecamp, and there was no congregation of hangers-on outside the walls. Presumably Nubian labourers wouldhave been employed in the more menial tasks of extracting and transporting the ore, but again the numbersrequired may not have been large. The defensive wall surrounding the Buhen settlement suggests on the otherhand that the neighbouring region was not entirely deserted.

On the whole, it seems unlikely that the Egyptian mineral operations at Toshka and Buhen had muchinfluence on contemporary Nubian life. Considering their limited scale, it is most improbable that they hadanything to do with the concurrent depopulation of Lower Nubia. If any activity of the Egyptians wasresponsible for that development, it is much more likely to have been the slave-raiding of Kha-sekhem andSneferu (of. Ch. 5).

No names of VI Dynasty pharaohs have been found either at the Buhen settlement or at the diorite quarries in

the western desert. 26 This was a time of conspicuous weakening of the pharaonic authority, and perhaps theroyal purse could no longer afford such costly enterprises on foreign soil. At all events Egypt's first ventureas a colonial power came to an end considerably earlier than did the unified Egyptian state itself. The VIDynasty texts of Uni and Harkhuf, as we mentioned in Chapter 5, are the records of trade between sovereignpowers and not of conquest and colonization.

THE FORTRESSES OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

For a period of two hundred years at the close of the second millennium B C Egypt had no effective centralgovernment. The extravagance of the Old Kingdom monarchs had apparently combined with a series of

natural disasters 27 to exhaust the power and wealth of the state, resulting in the breakaway of local princes invarious parts of the country. Four shortlived 'dynasties' (Dynasties VII-X) held sway in different parts ofEgypt during the First Intermediate Period, which intervened between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Fromthe standpoint of the literary record this is one of the darkest ages in Egyptian history; it has left fewmonuments in Egypt, and none at all in Nubia. Evidently the local dynasts were too busy contending with oneanother to have time for colonial adventures in the south.

Egypt's weakness may well have contributed to the revival of Nubian prosperity at the beginning of the CHorizon. Some idea of the altered relationship between the Egyptians and their neighbours is conveyed by ahieroglyphic text of the First Intermediate Period, lamenting that 'foreigners have everywhere become

people'. 28 Nubians were not only serving as mercenaries in the Egyptian army (as they had also in the laterOld Kingdom), but were settling permanently and achieving positions of some prominence in the northern

country, as is shown by their funerary inscriptions found near Gebelein in Upper Egypt. 29 The considerablevolume of Egyptian-made goods in the earliest' C-Group' graves may represent the rewards of military


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service in the north; at all events, it testifies to the rapid return of Nubian prosperity.

In the latter part of the First Intermediate Period the main centres of power in Egypt were in the FayyumBasin, where the IX and X Dynasty 'pharaohs' ruled, and at Thebes (modern Luxor) in Upper Egypt. Acentury of intermittent warfare ended with the triumph of the southern dynasts and the re-establishment ofunified rule under the Theban XI Dynasty. For most of the next 1,000 years Egypt was to be governed fromThebes. The XI and XII Dynasties, known collectively as the Middle Kingdom, represent the second climax

of imperial power in Egyptian history, sometimes referred to as Egypt's feudal age. 30

The pharaohs of the XI Dynasty were apparently occupied chiefly in restoring order in their own country.There are suggestions of military campaigns as far south as the Second Cataract during the later reigns of the

dynasty, but their scope and duration seem to have been small. 31 It was, at all events, under the more secureand more militaristic XII Dynasty that the full tide of Egyptian imperialism in Nubia set in again. Majorcampaigns undertaken during the first two reigns of the XII Dynasty are commemorated in a number ofhieroglyphic inscriptions. The texts leave no doubt as to the nature and intent of the Egyptian operations: 'wecame to overthrow Wawat'; 'I have brought.., all countries which are in Nubia beneath thy feet, Good God';'their life is finished'; 'fire in their tents'; 'their grain has been cast into the Nile' are some typical phrases

found in them, along with the ubiquitous representations of bound captives. 32

The conquest texts of the XII Dynasty are little different in substance from those commemorating the slaveraids of Kha-sekhem and Sneferu in the Old Kingdom. Their aftermath, however, was without precedent inthe history of Egyptian-Nubian relations. Not content with the spoil of the southern lands, the pharaohsproceeded to fortify the Nile in the northern Batn el Hajar with a chain of the mightiest fortifications evererected in the ancient world (Fig. 26; PI. VIIa). Four thousand years after their building, and three thousandyears after their final abandonment, the mud walls of these gargantuan relics still rose, in places, over fortyfeet above the desert sand. With Abu Simbel, they rank among the foremost monuments to Egyptianenterprise in Nubia or anywhere else. But whereas Abu Simbel has been saved, to UNESCO's and the world'scredit, the fortresses have disappeared without a trace beneath the Nile waters.

The most impressive and most concentrated group of Middle Kingdom forts, the so-called Second Cataract

Forts, numbered ten major installations. 33 They were ranged along the Nile over a distance of forty miles,from Buhen in the north to Semna in the south. All but one of the fortresses were on the west bank of theriver or on islands accessible from the west bank. Only at Semna was there an installation on the east bank,directly opposite a larger fort on the west. (For the geographical distribution of the Second Cataract Forts seeFig. 27.)

The Second Cataract Forts were apparently built over a period of about a hundred years, in the reigns of

Senusret I, Senusret II, and Senusret III. 34 They were evidently conceived as forming a single complex, and

may have been under a unified command. 35 Similarities of plan suggest that several of the forts were

designed by the same architect and were built almost simultaneously (Fig. 28). 36

A papyrus found in the Ramesseum at Thebes in 1896 gives the names of seventeen Egyptian fortresses from

the later Middle Kingdom. 37 Of these the first eight are evidently the Second Cataract Forts, and seven ofthem have been specifically identified by name. The truculent names which


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Fig. 26. Egyptian colonization in the Middle Kingdom


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Fig. 27. The Second Cataract Forts


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Fig. 28. Ground plans of Second Cataract Forts

some of them bore - 'Repelling the Seti', 38 'Warding off the Bows', 'Repelling the Inu', 'Curbing the

Countries', 'Repelling the Medjay' - clearly reflect the self-image of XII Dynasty Egypt. 39 It is noteworthy,however, that the two northerly fortresses of Iken and Buhen were given ordinary local place-names,suggesting that these were localities previously familiar to the Egyptians and therefore not in need ofre-naming.


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Buhen, the northernmost of the Second Cataract Forts, served in later times as the administrative

headquarters for the whole group. 40 It was located several miles below the foot of the cataract, and less thanhalf a mile from the long-deserted town which had been Egypt's first colony on Nubian soil. Excavations at

Buhen were carried out in the early 1900s by a University of Pennsylvania Expedition, 41 and then for nearly

ten years in the 1950s and 1960s by the Egypt Exploration Society of Great Britain. 42 It is by far the mostcompletely excavated and (up to now) the most fully reported of the fortress sites, and may serve to illustratethe features of the group as a whole. In the words of the excavator:

It consists of an elaborate series of fortifications built on a rectangular plan, 172 by 160 meters[c. 560 × 525 ft], which enclosed a town containing domestic habitations, barrack buildings,workshops, a temple, and the Governor's palace. Excavation of this great structure has beencompleted and has revealed a carefully laid out example of rectangular town planning with pavedarterial roads, each with its own independent drainage system. On the river side of the fortress,two great gates in the walls lead directly to the stone quays from which ships were loaded withtribute and products of trade from conquered Nubia. The contents of tombs discovered outsidethe town, and the condition of houses within it, give ample evidence of a rich and even luxuriousstandard of living in this outpost of colonial Egypt.

The elaborate defense system which enclosed this small town consisted of a massive brick wall,4.8 meters (11 ft] thick and 11 meters [36 ft] high, relieved at intervals on its outer face with theusual projecting rectangular towerS. At the foot of the wall was a paved rampart with a firestep,protected by a loopholed parapet overhanging the scarp of a dry ditch about 9 meters [30 ft] wideand 7 meters [23 ft] deep. The counterscarp on the other side of the ditch was surmounted by anarrow covered way of brickwork, beyond which was a glacis rising from the natural groundlevel. Projecting into the ditch from the scarp were round bastions with a system of tripleloopholes with single embrasures, through which archers could direct a cross-fire which wouldcompletely cover the ditch [see PI. VIIa]. The most strongly fortified part of the structure was thegreat gate built in the center of the west wall facing the desert from which came the long traderoads leading to the mines and quarries. The gate was closed by double doors, beyond which wasa wooden drawbridge which could be pulled back on rollerS. The gate and bridge were flankedby two spur walls which extended over the dry ditch, forming a narrow corridor through whichan attacking force would have to battle its way exposed to a rain of missiles from the battlementson three sides. Even when the storming party had broken through the gate, their difficultieswould not bc at an end, for they would find themselves in an enclosed square with exits givingaccess to the town only through narrow roads immediately under the inner sides of the walls of

the fortification, thus coming under fire once again from the defenders. 43

Buhen staggers the imagination not only by its size but by the complexity of its defences. Bastions,loopholes, fosse, drawbridge, glacis - virtually all of the classic elements of medieval fortification are presentin this structure which was built 3,000 years earlier in the Nubian desert. To a greater or lesser degree, the

same features are incorporated in most of the other Middle Kingdom fortresses. 44

Ten miles to the south of Buhen, the even larger fortress of Mirgissa 45 guarded the upper end of the Second

Cataract. 46 Facing it across the main channel of the Nile was the island fortress of Dabenarti, apparently

never finished or occupied. 47 Further south again were tile isolated strongholds of Askut 48 and Shelfak, 49

both built on rocky summits high above the river. Finally, the southern end of the chain was marked by a


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cluster of four separate forts (Semna, Kumma, 50 Semna South, 51 and Uronarti 52 ) surrounding the SemnaCataract - the most constricted passage along the entire course of the Nile (PI. VI). It was at this easilycontrolled point, apparently, that the Egyptians chose to establish the limit of their sovereignty in the MiddleKingdom.

At least five additional fortresses were located to the north of the Second Cataract group, within Lower Nubia

(Fig. 26). 53 They too apparently date initially from the reign of Senusret I. They did not form a tight clusterlike the Second Cataract Forts, but were widely scattered; most of them seem to have been situated close tothe main areas of native settlement. All of the northern forts had a regular rectangular plan, and the outer

defences were similar in design to those at Buhen. The interior arrangements, except at Kubban, 54 were toodenuded to be worked out in any detail.

Most of the Egyptian fortresses had undergone extensive renovation both in the Middle and New Kingdoms,so that the interior features found by the excavators did not necessarily reflect the original plan. The twofortresses which showed least evidence of alteration were Shelfak and Uronarti. At Buhen, although thebuildings had a particularly long and complex history, the excavator was at special pains to work out the

original plan and to distinguish it from later modifications, 55 It appears from these investigations that all ofthe Middle Kingdom fortresses were originally divided into 'quarters' consisting of store rooms, workshops,living quarters and barracks, and officers' quarters. Each fortress was thus a self-contained community. Thegreatest regularity and symmetry was apparently incorporated in the original design of the forts: streets anddrains were perfectly straight and uniformly spaced, and rooms were uniform in size and design. In lateryears, as is so often the case, increasing departures were made from the original 'ideal plan' in the interests ofcomfort and convenience.

Recent excavations at the fortress of Mirgissa have revealed, among many other details, the armoury in whichweapons were made and stored. Here were found stone 'lasts' upon which hide shields were stretched andformed, a number of finished wooden cross-handles for the shields, and quantities of raw wood and hides forthe making of additional shields. More than seventy-five spears and javelins had been carefully stackedaround the walls of the room; the wooden shafts had long since disintegrated, but the points were intact. Theywere made, even at this late date in the Bronze Age, not of metal but of chipped flint. The excellent quality ofthe stone work recalls the best flint chipping of Pre-dynastic Egypt. A neighbouring room yielded a very

large number of crescent-shaped stone arrowheads. 56 Evidently it was not considered necessary at this timeto supply the colonial garrisons with the latest in weapons.

We know comparatively little about the military organization of the frontier garrisons. Emery believes that

their composition in Middle Kingdom times was almost purely Egyptian, 57 and on that basis has given us apicture which is based largely on our knowledge of army organization in Egypt:

While the private soldier was simply called a 'member of the army,' there was a variety of titlesof rank for the officer corps, such as ' General,' 'Commander of the Shock Troops,' 'Commanderof the Recruits,' or 'Instructor of Retainers.' There was also the 'Army Scribe' who functioned inthe quartermaster's department and the 'Master of the Secrets of the King in the Army' - whichsurely indicates the existence of an Intelligence Corps attached to the command of the majorunits. The ar

my of the Middle Kingdom consisted entirely of infantry variously composed of archers,slingers, spearmen and axemen, who wore little in the nature of defensive body armor as we


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know it. The soldier wore a loincloth and sometimes webbing bands over the shoulders andacross the chest, which would give some protection from sword cuts, but he depended mostly forbodily defense on bull-hide shields which appear to have varied in size according to whether the

owner belonged to heavy or light infantry, 58

Others believe that the Nubian garrisons from the beginning included considerable numbers of nativeconscripts, and that the military equipment and organization were not necessarily the same as those in

contemporary Egypt. 59 The size of the garrisons at the largest forts has been variously estimated from 300 60

to 3,000; 61 under normal conditions of occupation the lower figure seems considerably the more realistic. 62

The group of Second Cataract Forts, from Buhen to Semna, was certainly under a unified command in the

time of the New Kingdom, 63 but this is less clearly attested for the Middle Kingdom. There was, however, asystem of visual communication between the major fortresses in the group. From Uronarti, the command

headquarters of the most southerly cluster, 64 it was possible to see upstream to Semna and Kumma anddownstream to Shelfak. Below Shelfak, where the distance between fortresses was greater, lookout andsignalling posts were established on some of the high bluffs west of the river. Five such stations were

discovered by the archaeological surveys of the 1960s. 65 In each place were rude stone huts containingpurely Egyptian pottery, evidently the temporary residences of the sentries. One lookout post south ofMirgissa also bore traces of a round platform of brick, perhaps intended for the building of signal fires.

The best-preserved of the lookout posts was perched atop the Rock of Abu Sir, a locality famed in recenttimes for its splendid panoramic vista over the whole length of the Second Cataract. Fires built here could beseen at Buhen in the north and at Mirgissa in the south. A very large number of huts and several inscriptionswere found just below the summit o rock, over 200 feet directly above the riverbank. Beneath them, the bastof the cliff was lined with more than 300 additional inscriptions commemorating the passage of merchants,

boatmen and officials in the Middle Kingdom. 66

POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FORTRESSES

Emery writes that 'the discovery of the complex and elaborate fortifications at Buhen shows that the Egyptianconquerors of the Twelfth Dynasty were holding their newly won territory against a well-organized enemy

whose military prowess was by no means negligible.' 67 In fact, the names of the fortresses indicate severalpotential enemies: the Seti, the 'Bowmen', the Inu, the 'Countries', and the Medjay. Some of these wereevidently not riverain peoples, and none of them is necessarily to be identified with the Nubians of the CHorizon. As we have already seen (Ch. 6), the Lower Nubians do not at any time seem to have posed much ofa threat either to the security or to the foreign interests of Egypt.

Nothing in the surviving record of Egyptian-Nubian relations seems fully adequate to account for the SecondCataract Forts. They were not intended simply to overawe and hold in subjection the people of Lower Nubia,68 for the greater number of them were built in the most remote and inhospitable part of the region, far fromthe centres of population in the C Horizon. In any case subjugation is not achieved through the elaboration ofdefensive measures, which are in the last analysis a sign of weakness rather than of strength. They mayinspire respect, but not fear. In more recent times Aden was held for more than a century, and Gibraltar formore than two, in defiance of hostile neighbours, but both of them notably failed to intimidate thesurrounding regions. In ancient Nubia, occasional predatory sallies from Aswan probably accomplished farmore towards the subjugation of the native population than did all of the massive Middle Kingdom


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fortifications.

Neither can the Second Cataract Forts be considered simply as the outermost defences of Egypt. It is true thatthe XII Dynasty pharaohs laid claim to Lower Nubia, but their purpose in so doing was certainly not toprotect either Egypt or Nubia itself against attack from the south. The fortresses are not properly territorialdefences at all, for they hug the bank of the Nile and could easily have been outflanked by any determinedinvader. Nowhere, however, is there evidence of any attempt by the Egyptians to patrol or to protect their

desert flanks. 69

The Second Cataract Forts are functionally intelligible only in relation to the Nile, and more specifically tothe Nile cataracts. All of them are situated at or close to the largest of the Batn el Hajar rapids: places whereriverain cargoes would have to be transferred from larger to smaller vessels, or perhaps off-loaded ontodonkeys for overland portage, while the vessels themselves were laboriously dragged through or around therapids. From these circumstances it seems logical to infer that the fortresses were designed chiefly to provideassistance to riverain commerce, and at the same time to protect it at those points where it was most

vulnerable to attack from the bank. 70 They are, in short, the Gibraltars, the Adens, and the Suezes of the Niletrade. The garrisons might have been recruited for military service, but their most important day-to-dayactivity was probably that of stevedoring.

It is noteworthy that both at Mirgissa 71 and at Buhen 72 there were welldeveloped port and warehousefacilities, situated respectively at the head and at the foot of the main chain of rapids forming the SecondCataract. These facilities were located in each case at a considerable distance from the main fortifiedenclosures, and were not themselves heavily fortified, yet they seem to have been major centres of Egyptianactivity during the Middle Kingdom. Presumably the great enclosures merely provided shelter and occasionalprotection for the work-forces, while their main daily activity was carried on at the docks.

A recent discovery at Mirgissa even more dramatically underscores the primary function of the SecondCataract Forts. Immediately downstream from Mirgissa lies the Kabuka Rapid, the most formidable of themore than 200 rapids making up the Second Cataract, and a place where several boats have been lost withinthe last century. Here, on the sandy desert fiat west of the river, the French Archaeological Mission atMirgissa found the remains of a mud-lined slipway two yards wide and a mile and a half long, over whichboats had been dragged around the worst of the rapids (PI. VIIb). The mud was evidently kept wet whiledragging operations were in progress, for bare footprints as well as the marks of boat keels were clearlyvisible along the track. It is now believed that this was a common method used by the Egyptians for thetransport of large statues and building blocks, although its use as a means of portaging boats has not

previously been recorded. 73

Further insight into the nature of Egypt's interest in the Second Cataract region is provided by the 'boundary'stele which was erected at Semna in the name of Senusret III. In translation it reads:

Southern boundary, made in the year 8, under the majesty of the King of Upper and LowerEgypt, Khakaura Senusret III who is given life forever and ever; in order to prevent that anyNegro should cross it, by water or by land, with a ship, or any herds of the Negroes; except aNegro who shall come to do trading in Iken [Mirgissa], or with a commission. Every good thing

shall be done with them, but without allowing a ship of the Negroes to pass by Heh, 74 going

downstream, forever. 75

The message here is perfectly clear. There is no rattling of the sword; the king's concern is purely economic.


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76 The border is simply closed in perpetuity to all commerce in foreign bottoms, unless it be destined fortrans-shipment immediately downstream at Mirgissa. Here, beyond doubt, is the hoary ancestor of all thosedecrees of commercial monopoly which have played so large a part in colonial history down to modern times.It serves once more to underscore the dictum of John Stuart Mill that distribution is a political, not an

economic, process. 77

The Second Cataract Forts were, then, at once the defences and the customs posts of the Nile trade. Theirfunction was not to keep the Nubians under control, but rather to keep the Nile under Egyptian control. Theyhad their counterpart millennia later in the castles along the Rhine and Danube, and later still in the 'castles'which reappeared in Nubia in the late Middle Ages. (Senusret would have been startled beyond measure hadhe known that 3,000 years later the kings of Nubia would themselves garrison the Batn el Hajar againstEgyptian commerce, and would proclaim their commercial monopoly in words strikingly reminiscent of hisown; see Ch. 15.) That the frontier forts also enabled the Egyptians to keep an eye on the movements of thenative population is attested by a series of despatches from the Semna garrison which were found at Thebes,78 there is no reason to suppose, however, that this was the principal purpose of the forts or that it offers anyexplanation for their awesome size.

If we have correctly identified the most important function of the Second Cataract Forts, then severalimportant corollaries follow. First, there must already have existed in the Twelfth Dynasty a very substantialvolume of trade between Egypt and the lands to the south of Semna, since the Egyptians were at such pains tocontrol and protect it. Second, some desert or Upper Nubian people must have developed the habit of preyingon the riverain 'caravans' - another probable indication of their volume and wealth. Third, the Egyptian'boundary' at Semna, and the effort to enforce a monopoly of trade only below that point, indicate that theupstream origins of the Nile trade were not under direct Egyptian control. Finally, the absence of Egyptianforts at the cataracts above Semna (admittedly not as dangerous as those further downstream) suggests thepossibility that the Nile above Semna was effectively controlled by another power. If so, this was a genuineinternational trade.

What was the nature and source of this flourishing commerce, which played so large a part in shaping Egypt'sforeign policy during the Middle Kingdom ? As Trigger has observed, 'Since the region between Kerma andSemna is dangerous and there were marauding tribes in the Eastern Desert, it is unlikely that this river trafficconsisted of occasional individuals bringing produce north to trade with the Egyptians. More likely itconsisted of regular flotillas which were despatched by the king of Kush, who was probably the successor of

the ruler of Yam with whom Harkhuf had traded.' 79

As far back as the late Old Kingdom, we noted that the pharaoh's interest had already turned from theunproductive lands along his immediate frontier to the greener pastures further upriver. The principalobjective of each of the four major expeditions of Harkhuf was not the familiar regions of Irtet and Wawatbut the more remote and more affluent land of Yam. It is doubtful that this profitable contact was maintainedduring the turbulent years of the First Intermediate Period, but its restoration seems to have been the principalgoal of the Middle Kingdom Pharaohs who conquered and garrisoned Lower Nubia.

The name of Yam is never heard after the Old Kingdom, and its exact location will probably never be known.

It may or may not have lain to the south of the Second Cataract. 80 On the other hand the main source ofEgypt's foreign commerce in the Middle Kingdom can almost certainly be identified with the site of Kerma,not far from the Third Cataract. Here in later times was the seat of the most autocratic chief who ever ruled in

pre-pharaonic Nubia, and here also are the remains of an Egyptian trade emporium, 81 Kerma, then, is the


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probable missing piece in our puzzle: the key to Egypt's colonial policy in the Middle Kingdom. The place ofKerma in Nubian history will be discussed at length in the next chapter.

The subjugation of Lower Nubia under the XII Dynasty was, then, in all probability coincidental to thesecuring of the cataracts and the southern trade route. It was one of those numerous instances of militaryoccupation designed not so much for the exploitation of the conquered territory as to provide a buffer against

more warlike peoples beyond: perhaps, in this case, either the Upper Nubians or desert nomads. 82 As wehave already seen, the Egyptian yoke seems to have rested rather lightly on the necks of the Nubian villagers

who lived within the occupied territory, if their archaeological remains are any gauge. 83 Nevertheless, someof the fortresses which were built to the north of Buhen, and which are not obviously associated with rapidsor natural hazards, can only have been intended for the subjugation and administration of the native populace.This is particularly true of the fortress of Aniba, situated in the middle of a broad and fertile plain which is

thickly dotted with 'C-Group' remains. 84 Kubban, another fort situated at the mouth of the Wadi Allaqi, wasmore probably intended originally as a supply and control point for traffic along the desert road which led tosome of Egypt's richest mines and quarries (see below), but it may have served as a local administrative

centre as well. 85 The Lower Nubian fortresses of Faras 86 and of Serra 87 are more difficult to account for;they are distant alike from cataracts, from overland trade routes, and from known centres of Nubian

population. 88 We do not know, and probably will never know, what considerations prompted the Egyptianoccupation and fortification of these places.

While we can, on various grounds, explain the locations of all but a few of the Middle Kingdom forts,nothing which has thus far been said seems adequate to explain their colossal size and complexity. Nowhereon the Nubian scene are we aware of 'men to match these mountains'. It is notable that in later times, whenEgypt was genuinely threatened by far stronger enemies both in the north and in the south, the defensivemeasures which she adopted were not even remotely comparable to the Middle Kingdom fortresses.

Any attempt to account for the fortresses on pragmatic military grounds alone. 89 seems as futile as anattempt to account for the pyramids in terms of a need to dispose of the dead. Both are examples of thematerial hypertrophy which is characteristic of Egyptian civilization. Once the decision to build them wastaken, the rest followed from force of habit. In the long run the size of the fortresses might be less a reflectionof the pharaoh's will than of his inability to curb his architect's ambition - an experience not unfamiliar toroyal patrons.

The rigid canon of their design, as well as their history of continual aggrandizement, make it plain that thefortresses must be regarded primarily as monuments. The formal symmetry of bastions and embrasures bearscomparison to the exterior decoration of a temple or cathedral, rather than to any known military challenge ofthe times. The fortresses are the chosen form of self-expression for the militarist civilization of Egypt'sMiddle Kingdom, as the pyramids are for the Old Kingdom and Karnak is for the New Kingdom. That theywere built in Nubia and not in Egypt was an accident of circumstance which did not affect their primarilysymbolic function. They 'showed the flag' to the Nubians, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to thepharaoh himself, and to posterity. (We may note parenthetically that both Rameses II in the New Kingdomand Gamal Abdel Nasser in modern times have followed the Middle Kingdom example in erecting some oftheir proudest monuments south of Aswan.)

The full significance of the fortresses can only be understood in relation to their times. The Middle Kingdomwas not an age of creative flowering to the same extent as were the Old Kingdom and the New Kingdom; itwas an interval of uneasy stability following two centuries of anarchy. The tenor of the times was sober,


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cautious, and authoritarian, and its watchwords were Law and Order. 90 The great fortresses were the physicalembodiment of those ideals.

MINES AND QUARRIES IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

Although it was not the main focus of Egypt's attention in the Middle Kingdom, Lower Nubia was not whollywithout productive resources. Presumably a certain volume of tax or tribute could be wrung from the nativeinhabitants, and they could perhaps be conscripted for work in the Egyptian mines and quarries. The dioritemines west of Toshka seem to have been reopened at the beginning of the XII Dynasty and to have been

worked intermittently until the end of the Middle Kingdom. 91 Amethysts were also mined in the same

general region. 92 An inscription from the time of Amenemhat II records that a work party heading for thedesert quarries consisted of 20 'chamber officials', 50 lapidaries, 200 stone-cutters, 1,006 workmen, 1,000

pack-asses, and an unspecified number of guardsmen. 93

Copper smelting at Buhen was not resumed in the Middle Kingdom, but a mine at Abu Seyal, in the deserteast of Kubban fortress, is believed to date from this time. An inscription from the reign of Senusret I records

that a certain official named Horus was ordered by the king to collect 'copper from the land of Nubia'. 94 A

large heap of slag found at Kubban itself 95 is believed to represent ore from the Abu Seyal mine; however,

the remains of furnaces and slag heaps show that a good deal of smelting was done directly at the mine. 96

Nubian gold production was developed primarily under the New Kingdom, but there are at least a fewsuggestions that it originated earlier. Among the hundreds of miners' and prospectors' inscriptions found inthe Nubian gold-mining districts (cf. Ch. 9), only three can be attributed, somewhat hesitantly, to the Middle

Kingdom. 97 However, a Middle Kingdom stele from Edfu states that its owner 'brought back gold and

maidservants from southern Kush'. 98 Perhaps more convincing than this direct evidence of gold-miningactivity is the indirect evidence represented by the great fortress of Kubban, which was almost certainly builtprimarily to control traffic along the Wadi Allaqi - the desert watercourse which led to Nubia's richest

goldfield. 99 A very small balance-scale of the type traditionally used in Egypt to weigh gold was also found

in the Semna fortress, apparently in a Middle Kingdom context. 100 Its presence might suggest that theEgyptians at Semna were buying gold in small quantities from native suppliers, who perhaps obtained it fromthe outcrops at Duweishat, a few miles upstream. This was another major centre of gold production in the

New Kingdom, 101 but here too activity is not clearly attested in earlier times. At all events, it seems clearthat the volume of mineral production could hardly have provided the main justification for Egypt'soccupation of Lower Nubia during the Middle Kingdom.

'OVERTHROW' OF THE FORTS

Unified rule in Egypt came to an end in the XIII Dynasty; during the Second Intermediate Period (DynastiesXIII-XVII) the country was once again divided among warring factions. The shadowy XIII and XIVDynasties together lasted just over a century. In the meantime intruders from Asia (the Hyksos) entered theDelta region and set up a kingdom of their own. They reigned as the pharaohs of the XV and XVI Dynasties.Quasi-independent Egyptian rule was maintained at Thebes in the south, but the Theban dynast was obligedto pay tribute to his stronger neighbour and to allow Hyksos trade to pass through his territory.

While Egypt was thus divided, the power and wealth of Nubia increased apace. By 1700 Bc there were three


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major powers on the Nile in place of the former one, prompting the Theban ruler to complain: 'a chieftain isin Avaris [in the Delta] and another in Kush: I sit united with an Asiatic and a Nubian, each man in

possession of his slice of this Egypt.' 102 An uneasy balance of power was maintained by an alliance betweenthe Nubian and Hyksos kings, which recalls the historic alliance of France and Scotland against England.

Economic as well as political relations were maintained between Kerma and the Hyksos; 103 evidentlycontrol of the profitable Nubian trade had passed from the hands of the Theban pharaohs into those of theirnorthern rivals.

What happened to the Egyptian colonial venture in Lower Nubia during these chaotic times? Apparently itdid not come to an immediate end, for garrisons were maintained at several of the fortresses at least duringthe earlier reigns of the XIII Dynasty. A watch was still kept on the movements of the Nubians, as is shown

by the 'Semna despatches' dating apparently from the early XIII Dynasty. 104 By the time that Hyksos rulewas firmly established in the north, however, it seems certain that Egyptian political control in Nubia had

come to an end. 105

As a result of his discoveries at Buhen, W. B. Emery has popularized the idea that the Middle Kingdom forts

were 'overthrown' and 'destroyed by fire', 106 This conclusion rests not on any contemporary texts but onarchaeological evidence of burning and destruction. As I have written elsewhere, however, archaeologicalevidence of warfare is likely to be ambiguous. Most sites in the course of time have been ravaged by onedestructive force or another, and after the passage of centuries or millennia it is seldom possible to distinguish

the handiwork of man from the handiwork of nature, 107

At Buhen there was undoubted evidence of burning between the Middle and New Kingdom occupationlevels, most conspicuously in the vicinity of the western gate and the 'Commandant's palace', but to see thisas evidence of armed conflict requires considerable imagination. The signs of fire in the 'Commandant'spalace' are mostly at floor level, and are unlikely to have resulted simply from the burning of the roof, whichwas presumably the only flammable part of the structure. It looks much more as though a fire had beendeliberately built within the structure, which could hardly have been done while hostilities were in progress.It may have been an act of symbolic destruction, carried out either by the retreating Egyptians or by theNubians after they took possession of the abandoned fortress.

One thing seems certain: no attack against the fortresses could have succeeded in the face of an organized andsystematic defence. Whether or not a token force was overcome or driven out by Nubian attackers, I think itcan safely bc assumed that the bulk of the garrisons had already been withdrawn. It is inconceivable that theTheban pharaoh, beset as he was in the north, could have spared any number of men and supplies for thecontinued occupation of Nubia. It also seems at least possible that the evacuation proceeded peacefully, and

that the fires at Buhen and Semna 108 were set by the retreating Egyptians themselves. Destruction of

immovable supplies and installations prior to evacuation is, after all, standard military procedure. 109

The conditions encountered at Buhen and Mirgissa point to a considerable hiatus between the MiddleKingdom and New Kingdom occupations. There had been some deterioration of the ramparts, and also alarge accumulation of sand within, by the time the buildings were renovated in the XVIII Dynasty. Yet theforts were not completely abandoned during the Second Intermediate Period. The presence of Nubian

squatters at Dorginarti fortress is attested by their carvings of bulls on door lintels and jambs; 110 squatter

occupation is also suggested at Askut. 111 Much more suggestive, though enigmatic, is a group ofhieroglyphic stelae found at Buhen, which seem to indicate that at some time during the Second Intermediate


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Period the one-time Egyptian stronghold was governed by an Egyptian family on behalf of the ruler of Nubia

(meaning presumably Kerma). 112 The stele of Sepedher, the longest of the group, reads in part: 'I was avaliant commandant of Buhen, and never did any commandant do what I did: I built the temple of Horus,

Lord of Buhen, to the sarisfaction of the ruler of Cush.' 113 Another stele gives the Nubian king a name,making it plain that it is indeed a native ruler and not the pharaoh who is designated by the term 'ruler of

Cush'. 114

While the King of Kerma thus apparently replaced the pharaoh as master of Lower Nubia during the latterpart of the Second Intermediate Period, Egyptian influence was not thereby brought to an end. The volume oftrade goods in the late graves of the C Horizon is greater than at any previous time, and Egyptian influence isnow manifest also in the appearance of mud-brick architecture and in the increasing Egyptianization of burialcustoms (cf. Ch. 6). Effective interchange between Egypt and Nubia evidently did not depend, after all, uponEgyptian control of the cataracts: it flourished even more conspicuously under Nubian control.

INTERPRETATIVE SUMMARY

Egypt's colonial interest in Nubia dates back almost to the foundation of the pharaonic state. During the earlycenturies, however, there does not seem to have been a fully articulated political or economic policy towardsthe southern countries. Various exploitative activities were begun during the Archaic period and the OldKingdom, but they were mostly of a sporadic and uncoordinated nature. Slaves and plunder were taken byoccasional military forays, and there was intermittent prospecting and quarrying in the Nubian deserts. Onlyat Buhen was a permanent Egyptian colony planted on Nubian soil, apparently for the smelting of copper oreobtained somewhere in the desert hinterland. There is nothing to suggest, however, that the Buhen colonywas an administrative centre, or in fact that any systematic effort was made to extend the pharaoh's authorityover the Lower Nubian population. Apparently the natives were too few and too weak in Old Kingdom timesto offer either a threat or an opportunity to the Egyptians.

By the later Old Kingdom, the pharaoh had already become aware of richer lands to the south of LowerNubia, and from that time onward Egyptian policy centred upon the development of commerce with thesouthern lands. Major expeditions during the last reigns of the VI Dynasty brought back all kinds of exoticproducts from the Land of Yam, probably in Upper Nubia.

Commerce with the far south was probably interrupted during the turbulent years of the First IntermediatePeriod, but it was resumed at the outset of the Middle Kingdom. By the time of the XII Dynasty trade withthe Upper Nile had reached such proportions that it was subject to depredation by Upper Nubian or desertpeoples. In order to secure the southern trade route, and also to assure an Egyptian monopoly of trade, the XIIDynasty pharaohs fortified the most vulnerable points in the Second Cataract region with a series ofenormous military posts, which served at the same time as frontier customs stations. They were meant toshow the flag in the southern lands, but were also, in a larger sense, the major architectural monuments of amilitaristic age.

Concurrently with the building of the fortresses, the pharaoh assumed outright political control over LowerNubia. This was a holding operation designed primarily to protect Egyptian commercial interests, and hadlittle visible effect on the lives of the riverain farmers of the C Horizon. However, quarrying and coppermining were resumed on a small scale, and native levies were undoubtedly employed.

The unity of the Egyptian state was again destroyed during the XIII Dynasty, and the local ruler at Thebeswas too weak and too preoccupied at home to maintain his hold on Nubia. The last of the southern garrisons


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were withdrawn or chased out by the native populace, and the fortresses fell into a state of partial disrepair.Nevertheless trade continued to flourish, apparently under the protection of the Nubian king at Kerma, longafter the departure of the Egyptian garrisons.

last updated 26th December 2000


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7 the rising tide of imperialism - earl j. heinrich nubia/_private/adams ch 7 egypt in... · 7 the...

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