sacred and secular polities in ancient nubia

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This article was downloaded by: [New York University] On: 10 December 2014, At: 08:53 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK World Archaeology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20 Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia William Y. Adams a a Department of Anthropology , University of Kentucky Published online: 15 Jul 2010. To cite this article: William Y. Adams (1974) Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia, World Archaeology, 6:1, 39-51, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1974.9979587 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1974.9979587 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia

This article was downloaded by: [New York University]On: 10 December 2014, At: 08:53Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office:Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

World ArchaeologyPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscriptioninformation:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20

Sacred and secular polities in ancientNubiaWilliam Y. Adams aa Department of Anthropology , University of KentuckyPublished online: 15 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: William Y. Adams (1974) Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia, WorldArchaeology, 6:1, 39-51, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1974.9979587

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1974.9979587

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, ouragents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to theaccuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the viewsof or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied uponand should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francisshall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses,damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantialor systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access anduse can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia

Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia

William Y. Adams

In reconstructing political institutions from archaeological evidence we are generallyobliged to paint with a broad brush. In most cases we visualize more or less uniformpolitical ideologies and integrated power structures extending to the territorial limits ofthe ancient states or empires with which we deal. Yet documentary history will oftenshow us instances in which different regions of the same state, or different strata in thesame population, have been governed through quite different instrumentalities; when thestate has been able to avail itself of more than one ideology and more than one powerstructure. In the case of ancient Nubia I believe that archaeological evidence also pointsto a differentiation of political institutions and functions within the borders of the sameempire.

Nubia, the section of the Nile Valley which extends upstream from Egypt to thejunction of the Blue and White Niles, was first organized politically as a province of theEgyptian empire between about 1580 and 1000 B.c. During the centuries of Egyptiandomination the native population was gradually detribalized and acculturated, andacquired a considerable veneer of the civilization of its overlords. When pharaonicsovereignty was withdrawn, in the last millennium B.C., there arose in its place theindigenous Nubian empire of Kush, whose court and governing institutions weremodelled as closely as possible on those of the Pharaohs. At the height of their power,from about 750 to 650 B.C., the Nubian emperors reigned in Egypt also, as the Pharaohsof the XXV ('Ethiopian') Dynasty. Although soon expelled from Egypt by the Assyrians,they retained control of Nubia, and kept up many of the traditions of pharaonic civiliza-tion, for another thousand years. The last 'Pharaoh' of Kush died probably aroundA.D. 350.

From the first to the fourth century A.D. the empire of Kush extended nearly toAswan in the north and to a point well above the confluence of the Niles in the south(fig. 14). The capital city (i.e. the principal royal residence) at this time was at Meroë,in the southern part of the empire. The archaeological remains of this city, still largelyunexcavated, cover an area of several hundred acres, and include a number of impressivetemples, a labyrinth of palaces, a Roman-style bathing establishment, iron smelters, andof course a great many ordinary dwellings. Three miles east of the city are the royalcemeteries, a complex of some 120 pyramids with decorated mortuary chapels and sub-terranean burial and offering chambers.

The empire of Kush in its later phase (usually termed 'Meroitic', after the capital

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R O M A N

Aft TEMPLES

D FORTRESSES

VILLAGES aCOMMONCEMETERIES

« ROYALCEMETERIES

© MAJOR TOWNS

! OVERLAND.' TRADE'l ROUTES

U km.

Figure 14 Map showing the provinces and principal localities of the Kushite Empire in thethird century A.D. ,

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Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia 41

city) seems to have comprised three fairly distinct provinces. The southern and politic-ally dominant province included the region around Meroë itself, and extended north-ward perhaps as far as the Fifth Cataract of the Nile. Within this area were a number ofmajor urban centres in addition to the capital city. Farther north, the middle or Napatanprovince extended approximately from the Fourth to the Third Cataract of the Nile.It was dominated by the former capital city of Napata (comprising Jebel Barkal andSanam), still an important administrative and religious centre although no longer theseat of the rulers of Kush. Other important centres in the middle province were Kawaand Pnubs, near the downstream end of the province.

The northern or Lower Nubian province extended more or less from the SecondCataract to a point 120 km. south of Aswan, which had been fixed as the frontier ofRoman Egypt in 23 B.C. This region had been heavily resettled in the first and secondcenturies A.D. after an interval of nearly a thousand years when it was, apparently,largely uninhabited. Although populous and prosperous in the Meroitic era, LowerNubia lacked the great temple-centres and the royal monuments which had been builtin the middle and southern provinces during the earlier years of the Kushite empire.

It is important for purposes of this discussion to notice that the three major provincesof Kush were not territorially contiguous (cf. fig. 14). Between the Fifth and FourthCataracts, and again between the Third and Second Cataracts, there were rocky andinfertile zones which, though nominally a part of the Kushite dominions, were prac-tically devoid of permanent habitation. Communication between the southern and middleprovinces, moreover, was not by way of the Nile (where navigation was impeded bynumerous cataracts between Napata and Meroë), but via the much more direct caravanroute across the Bayuda Steppe. There may have been some travel along the riverbetween the middle and northern provinces, but commerce between Meroë and thenorth also moved primarily across the desert (see fig. 14).

It is not certain that the inhabitants of the three provinces of Kush were members ofa single ethnic group. The archaeological evidence reveals minor cultural differences,particularly between the northern province and the other two, and there are suggestionsof linguistic diversity as well (see Millet 1966). Nevertheless only a single officiallanguage (called Meroitic) was in use, and the texts in this and other languages leave nodoubt that all of the peoples from the Roman frontier to the junction of the Niles owedallegiance to the ruler at Meroë. If the empire of Kush was a single political entity,however, it does not necessarily follow that the] institutions or even the ideology ofgovernment were the same in its three provinces. My concern in the remainder of thisarticle will be to analyse the political system of later Meroitic times (c. A.D. 100-350),and more particularly to point up the differences in political organization and ideologybetween the southern and northern provinces.

The nature and limitations of the evidence

Our knowledge of the society and polity of ancient Kush comes from both archaeologicaland textual sources. The evidence in both categories is, however, far from satisfactory.

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42 William Y. Adams

Archaeologically we have, in the southern provinces, a number of conspicuous royalmonuments (temples, palaces and tombs), but very few town sites have thus far beeninvestigated, and the common burial places of this period have yet to be discovered. Inthe north the opposite holds true: royal monuments are almost non-existent, buttown sites and ordinary cemeteries are numerous and conspicuous, and both have beenexcavated in externo.

Textual records include royal proclamations which are an inseparable feature oftemples and tombs in this part of the world. Those from the earlier centuries of Kushitecivilization are written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and can be read fairly well. They aremostly the boasting accounts of heroic or virtuous deeds, but they allow us to infersomething about the character of the Kushite monarchy, as do the carved reliefs whichregularly accompany them. A second class of textual evidence is represented by mortuaryinscriptions which were incised upon stone 'offering tables' designed to be mounted ontombs. Unfortunately these texts (like the later royal inscriptions) are all in the Meroiticcursive script which was in general use in the later years of the empire, and which hasyet to be properly deciphered. The mortuary texts seem to contain, among other things,lists of the titles and relations of the dead, and from these inferences can be made aboutrelationships within the governing hierarchy of Kush. Unlike some of the other kinds ofevidence, offering tables are found about equally in the northern and southern pro-vinces of the Kushite empire, though the textual formulae seem to be somewhatdifferent in the two areas (Griffith 1911; Griffith 1912; Crowfoot and Griffith 1911;Hintze 1959; Trigger 1970).

In addition to the 'internal record' represented by royal inscriptions and mortuarytexts, there exists also a fragmentary but important 'external record'. The existence ofMeroë and its empire is mentioned by a number of Greek and Roman writers (seeShinnie 1967: 13-23). Their accounts, though mostly written at distant second hand,provide a few additional clues to the nature of political organization.

It will be noticed that the evidence upon which our picture of ancient Nubian polityis based is not only incomplete, but is very unevenly distributed in space. Some kindsof evidence are available only in the southern provinces, and others only in the north.Because of these circumstances some scholars have argued that meaningful comparisonsbetween the two areas cannot be made on the basis of present evidence. I believe, onthe contrary, that the differences in the evidence are themselves significant indicatorsof cultural and political disparities between the Meroitic north and south, given thefact that the most conspicuous archaeological remains have undoubtedly been investi-gated in both areas. Had there been royal monuments in the north like those in thesouth, or town sites and cemeteries in the south as abundant as those in the north, I canhardly believe that they would have escaped notice. Had they come to notice, theyassuredly would not have escaped excavation. I therefore think it is quite appropriateto make contrastive inferences about the two areas, not disregarding but rather takingfull account of the differences in the available evidence.

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Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia 43

The society and polity of the southern provinces

The royal monuments of Kush are the most conspicuous and the most thoroughlyinvestigated archaeological remains in the two southern provinces of the empire. Theyconsist of temples, palaces and tombs, together with their accompanying reliefs andinscriptions. The distribution of these sites is shown in fig. 14. The cemeteries in the

.Napatan (middle) province are those of the earlier centuries of the empire, dating mostlyfrom a time when the principal royal residence was also in this area. During the lastcenturies of Kush, with which we are chiefly concerned here, all of the royal dead seemto have been buried in two pyramid-fields just east of the capital city of Meroë. Theroyal tomb typically comprises a rather small (by Egyptian standards), sharp-pointedstone pyramid with an adjacent chapel in the form of a miniature temple (plate 2).Underground are two or three rock-cut chambers, sometimes decorated, in which thebody and its attendant offerings are placed. Though the royal tombs have invariably beenplundered in antiquity, enough has survived to show that the royal dead were lavishlyprovided with luxury goods and also frequently with animal and human sacrifices.

Palaces have been identified only at the capital city of Meroë and in a nearby town,Wad ben Naqa. There must surely have been others, particularly in the former capitalregion of Napata, but they have not yet come to light. At Meroë a whole series of build-ings which have been interpreted as palaces were enclosed within a stout surroundingwall (the so-called Royal City). They are massive square or rectangular complexes ofvaulted rooms built of burned brick or of mud brick with a burned brick facing. Anotherfeature of the Royal City is a bathing establishment of unmistakable Roman design(Garstang 1912: 77-81; George 1913: 15-21).

A building closely similar to those at Meroë, and even larger in size, has recently beenunearthed at Wad ben Naqa (Vercoutter 1962). In this case the wealth of its adornment(which included apparently the covering of some walls with gold leaf) leaves little doubtthat it was indeed a royal residence. The surviving chambers seem, as at Meroë, to bechiefly magazines; it is surmised that the living quarters were on an upper floor.

As can be seen in fig. 14, Meroitic temples are heavily concentrated in a few majorreligious centres such as Jebel Barkal, Meroë, Musawwarat and Naqa. Individualtemples, some of them of considerable size, occur at a large number of other places inthe southern provinces of the Kushite empire. By far the largest two temples ever builtby Nubians were the great Temples of Amon at the capital cities of Napata and Meroë;each of these comprised a long Series of colonnaded chambers reaching a total length ofabout 150 m. Most other temples comprised only one or two chambers, entered usuallythrough a massive double-pylon gate of Egyptian type (plate I). In the Napatanperiod (i.e. the earlier centuries of the Kushite empire) even the one- and two-roomtemples were often quite large, while those of Meroitic times were generally smaller.

Nearly all Meroitic temples are richly adorned with carved reliefs, as are the mortuarychapels adjoining the royal pyramids. These typically portray the rulers (both kings andqueens) associating familiarly with the gods of Egypt and Nubia (cf. fig. 15). As reflections

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44 William Y. Adams

Figure 15 Meroitic royal iconography: the king (right) and queen (left) with a three-headedrepresentation of the lion-god Apedemak. Detail from a temple relief at Naqa (after Lepsius)

of the self-image of the Kushite monarchy they are perhaps as revealing as the royalproclamations themselves.

Collectively, the royal monuments of Kush leave little doubt that the Nubian mon-archy throughout its history remained faithful to the model which had been importedfrom Egypt a thousand years earlier. Although monumental art and architecturedeveloped, in time, a distinctive local character, the basic iconography of royalty neverchanged. The king was always the beloved companion of Amon and the other stategods; his regalia and even his titulary were those of the Egyptian Pharaohs of the NewKingdom.

Unchanging iconography can probably be taken in this instance as indicative ofunchanging ideology. We therefore have little reason to doubt that the state in UpperNubia remained, as it had begun, a theocratic despotism on the pharaonic model,dominated by a god-king who was at the same time the nexus of social, political, econo-mic and religious life.

As in nearly all early empires, Meroitic religion presents us with additional insightsinto the nature of political organization. Temple reliefs depict the royal personages inassociation with many of the familiar Egyptian gods (Amon, Osiris, Isis, Horus andothers) as well as with one purely local deity, the lion-headed Apedemak (fig. 15).Among this numerous pantheon Amon and Apedemak stand out clearly as the mostimportant: nearly all Meroitic temples were dedicated chiefly to one or the other ofthem. It is significant that both of these deities are closely associated with the institution

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Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia 45

of the monarchy. Amon was the traditional god of Egyptian Thebes whose worshipbecame, during the centuries of Theban supremacy, the ofEcial state cult of Egypt. Assuch it was transplanted to Nubia at the time of the New Kingdom colonization, and itremained the chief ideological buttress of the Nubian monarchy after the Egyptiandeparture. The great Temples of Amon in the capital cities were, as we have alreadynoted, far larger than any others of their time, and nearly every ruler at Meroë alsotook the name of Amon (Amani in its Nubian form) as part of his throne name (Shinnie1967: 58-61).

Apedemak was apparently a local deity of the Meroë region (where lions could stillbe encountered as recently as 150 years ago - see Budge 1907, I: 325), who became aspecial tutelary of the Meroitic state when its capital was established in the southerncity. Lion-temples (i.e. temples of Apedemak) are found in a number of settlements inthe Butana region, and their reliefs leave little doubt that they enjoyed the specialpatronage of the Meroitic rulers. On the other hand representations of Apedemak arehardly known from the Napatan and northern provinces.

The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (Book III : see Shinnie 1967: 16-18) tells usthat until the third century B.c. the rulers of Kush were elected from among the eligibleroyal princes by the Priests of Amon, who also had the right to depose and kill anincompetent monarch. Then, according to Diodorus, the energetic King 'Ergamenes'(probably to be identified with Arkamani) turned the tables by killing the priests, afterwhich time the rulers always had the upper hand. Whether or not the story is true (andthere is some independent textual evidence to support it), the religious establishment oflater times seems to have been largely, if not wholly, subservient to the monarchy. In anumber of inscriptions the kings commemorate their largesse in rebuilding or repairingthe temples in response to pleas from the priests. It seems that in Kush, as in manyanother empire, religion was encouraged and subsidized chiefly in the interests of themonarchy; it was in fact inseparable from state ideology.

Non-royal remains from the southern Meroitic provinces which have been investi-gated are few indeed. Exploratory excavations have recently been carried out in thetown site of Meroë (Shinnie 1970), but they have not yet defined very clearly the housingand living patterns of the common people. At the nearby settlements of Musawwaratand Wad ben Naqa, only monumental remains were encountered. In many of theButana sites, in fact, the absence of recognizable house structures is so conspicuous thatit has led some scholars to speculate that the ordinary Meroitic folk in this region werenomads who have left few material traces (Ali 1972: 643-5). There is, however, a wellattested Meroitic village of mud brick houses far away in the south at Abu Geili (fig. 14),which shows many features in common with village sites in Lower Nubia (Crawford andAddison 1951).

Mortuary remains of the common people are even less conspicuous than are habitationremains in the southern provinces of Kush. In the vicinity of the royal pyramids atMeroë are the tombs of a great many individuals who were not actually rulers, but itseems evident that these are in fact the queens and lesser members and dependants ofthe royal family. The wealth and luxury of some of the tombs rival that of the royalpyramids themselves, and they are certainly not the typical graves of commoners. Itseems rather that the royal wealth and privileges were shared with a small clique of

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nobles, many of whom were linked to the monarchy by ties of kinship or clientage.These individuals presumably formed the power elite of the Meroitic state, in so far asit had one.

It used to be thought that the common folk of Meroë were buried in three sizablecemeteries located just to the east of the town (Garstang 1910: 69-70), but most of thesegraves are now generally assigned to a later age (Kirwan 1939: 41-2). If they are elimi-nated from consideration, then not a single common cemetery of any appreciable sizehas been found in the whole of the two southern provinces of Kush. While it can hardlybe doubted that such cemeteries exist, the graves of the commoners must have beenhumble indeed to escape so successfully the attention both of tomb robbers and ofarchaeologists.

We are left to conclude, in the absence of indications to the contrary, that the commonfolk of the Meroitic south led the simplest of lives and enjoyed few material luxuries.This presumed condition contrasts starkly with the abundance and opulence of theroyal monuments and tombs. It gives us a picture of ancient Kushite society much akinto that which we have of Egypt in the Old Kingdom: a two-class society sharply dividedbetween rulers and ruled, with a tiny governing elite monopolizing all wealth and powerin its own hands. Such a condition argues by further analogy that the foreign trade ofKush - the export of raw materials and the import of manufactured luxuries - wouldhave been a monopoly of the state.

Differences in the Meroitic north

Lower Nubia (the Meroitic northern province) lies within the area which has beeninundated by the successive dams at Aswan. As a result it has been the subject of threeof the most intensive archaeological surveys in history, in the course of which more thanone hundred Meroitic sites have been discovered and investigated (Adams 1962: 12;Adams and Nordström 1963: 13; Trigger 1965: 186-200). We can therefore speak withfar greater confidence both about what is present and about what is absent in the archaeo-logical record than is possible in the southern Meroitic provinces.

When we contrast the archaeological remains from Lower Nubia with what we doknow about the south, their most conspicuous feature is the near-total absence of royalmonuments. We can hardly consider, in so well-explored an area, that they have goneundetected; the only alternative conclusion is that they never existed. The absence ofroyal tombs in an outlying province is to be expected, but the absence of temples in anarea where in earlier times the Egyptian overlords had built a large number of them issurprising. Among all the known Meroitic sites of the northern province, there is goodevidence for temples only at Gebel Adda and at Qasr Ibrim (fig. 14). Both buildings seemto have been built at the very end of the period of Meroitic hegemony, and it is notcertain that either was ever finished (Plumley 1964: 53; Millet 1967: 56). (However, apre-Meroitic temple at Qasr Ibrim was undoubtedly restored to use in Meroitic times.)

Absent along with temples and pyramids are the reliefs and inscriptions which regu-larly accompany them. While the name or likeness of one or another Meroitic ruler can

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be found in nearly every major settlement in the southern provinces, the contemporarysites in the north have yielded only one very battered head apparently belonging to aroyal statue (Millet 1967: 56) and one lion statuette inscribed with the name of KingAmani-Yeshbekhe (end of the third century A.D.) (Plumley 1966: 12). Among scores offunerary inscriptions (on offering tables and stelae) found in Lower Nubia there is nomention of a king by name, though a number of royal titles are employed.

Of more than one hundred known sites in the Meroitic north, all but four are theremains of peasant villages or cemeteries, or both. The exceptions are represented by themonumental sites of Qasr Ibrim, Gebel Adda, Faras and Karanog (fig. 14). The first twoof these are bristling citadels perched high above the Nile (plate 3); the third is a walledenclosure close beside the river, and the fourth is a towering edifice of brick which hasbeen called a 'castle' (Woolley 1911:15-25). Though none of these sites closely resemblesanything in the southern provinces, they are surely the administrative centres from whichthe northern province was governed, and the equivalent of the temple-cities of UpperNubia. The only known temple remains from Lower Nubia were indeed found atQasr Ibrim and Gebel Adda, as were the royal statue and inscription previously referredto.

Qasr Ibrim, Gebel Adda and Faras are as truly monumental sites as are Napata andMeroë. Their fortress walls, which have no parallels in the southern provinces, areenormous, and would have required more time and effort to build than did many royalmonuments. We can hardly doubt that these bristling structures were intended tosymbolize the majesty of the Kushite state in the north, just as did the temple and thepyramid in the south. But the near-total absence of royal and divine iconography on theone hand, and the naked display of military strength on the other, suggest that theauthority of the state in the north rested on a very different and more secular ideologicalfoundation. Evidently it was possible, and perhaps even desirable, to govern LowerNubia without invoking the name either of the king or of the gods. The monumentalremains of the Meroitic north are suggestive not of divine kingship but of militaryfeudalism.

Textual evidence seems to provide some confirmation in regard to the secular andfeudal character of Lower Nubian polity. Funerary texts from Karanog and elsewherehave revealed that the northern province was governed for several generations bymembers of two or three noble families, who must therefore have enjoyed some sort ofindependent power base. These individuals styled themselves by a bewildering varietyof titles, some of which'were traditionally royal titles, but none of them claimed actualkinship with a specific ruler at Meroë. Millet (n.d. 39-40) believes that their connectionwith the ruling dynasty in the south was in fact a remote one.

It would seem then that Lower Nubian nobles, like medieval barons, held powerchiefly because they retained the practical bases of power in their own hands. Likemedieval barons too they evidently saw little need to demonstrate the legitimacy of theirpower by linking it tô a higher authority, either human or divine. Yet the ruler atMeroë was continually reminding his subjects, through the medium of reliefs, inscrip-tions and protocols, that his power came from the gods.

Despite the general absence of temples, we have no reason to suppose that the LowerNubians were less religious than their southern neighbours, or even that their religious

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beliefs were very different. Religion was, however, put to different purposes in the tworegions, and for that reason assumed different forms. We know from the evidence ofRoman writers as well as from a number of inscriptions in the Temple of Philae (fig. 14)that the favourite deity of Lower Nubia was neither Amon nor Apedemak, but thegoddess Isis. She was also worshipped in the southern provinces, and is as often shownin temple reliefs as are several other Egyptian deities. She was not, however, a specialtutelary of the ruling family in the same way as were Amon and Apedemak. Indeed, herchief cult centre was not in Meroitic territory at all but on the Island of Philae, inRoman Egypt (fig. 14). Here she was worshipped alike by Romans, Egyptians, Nubiansand desert nomads, and her shrine was a centre of pilgrimage from all parts of the NileValley. Isis-worship therefore did not, and could not, serve to reinforce the exclusivesovereignty of any one family or monarchy in the same way as did the tutelary cults ofAmon and Apedemak in the south. Some of the ruling officials in the north did indeedadopt the title 'Agents of Isis' (Millet n.d. 26), but others ignored her and all otherdeities in their titularies. Once again we are reminded not so much of the ancient worldas of medieval Europe, where the sanction of the Church was conferred impartially onseveral different and sometimes warring monarchies. Since it conferred no more blessingon one regime than on another, it could not (as in Byzantium) provide a sufficientideological basis of government.

It remains to consider what light is shed on political conditions by the villages andcemeteries which comprise the vast bulk of Meroitic archaeological sites in the north.These in their own way are as distinct from the remains in the southern provinces as arethe great fortress sites. The village houses are built of mud brick and are so tightlyclustered together that even small villages present an 'urbanized' and congested appear-ance. Some houses are very sturdily built and regular in design, and seem to be thework of professional builders; many others are more flimsy and irregular. Houses ofboth kinds are usually found in the same village, as though each community had itselite and its humbler families. Yet both humble and elite houses are supplied withmaterial goods, including luxuries, to an extent which is matched in the south only inthe royal and noble tombs.

Similar conditions prevail in the Meroitic cemeteries of Lower Nubia. A typicalcemetery contains from 50 to 400 graves, which are clustered nearly as tightly as arethe village houses. The underground chambers are usually dug out of hard earth banks,without structural reinforcement, but some are walled and vaulted with brick. Preferencefor one type of chamber over another seems to be determined more by the firmness ofthe soil than by other factors. There is some variability in the size of the chambers;some of the larger might hold two or more bodies, while many others would have roomonly for one. Large tombs were sometimes surmounted by small brick pyramids orplatforms at the surface, to which stelae or offering tables might have been attached(though these have usually been displaced by robbers). Despite these indications ofsocial inequities, however, there is no clear typological distinction between the largestand the smallest tombs, and they seem to be randomly distributed through the ceme--teries. Thus, we know from the presence of stelae and offering tables that members of theWayekiye family - hereditary officials of Lower Nubia for several generations - wereburied in the Karanog cemetery (Millet n.d. 77-107). Since their stelae and offering

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tables were long ago displaced by tomb robbers, however, we now have no way ofknowing which tombs at Karanog are actually theirs. This seemingly democratic order-ing of society contrasts sharply with the situation at Meroë, where one cemetery wasreserved for the monarchs alone, another for the lesser nobility, and still others (pre-sumably) for the ordinary folk.

Widespread material prosperity is even more evident in the graves than in the housesof the Meroitic north. Although the larger graves typically contain more offerings thando the smaller ones, it is a rare burial which is not accompanied by at least half a dozenobjects, often including such imported luxury goods as bronze, faience, glass and ivory.The volume of imported goods found in sites of the late Meroitic period is in factgreater than at any subsequent time in Nubian history down to the twentieth century.

Three conclusions may be drawn from our observation of the Meroitic villages andcemeteries of Lower Nubia. First, the unbroken gradation of grave and house typessuggests that society was not rigidly stratified on hereditary lines (though the institutionof slavery certainly existed, even if it is not attested archaeologically). Second, the wide-spread and fairly equitable distribution of wealth indicates almost certainly that tradewas not a monopoly of the state or the elite few, but was widely dispersed in privatehands. Finally, the more equitable distribution of wealth in the northern province meansalso that the average citizen in this political backwater enjoyed a substantially highermaterial standard of living than did his southern cousin who dwelt in the shadow of theroyal court.

Summary and epilogue

The differences between the Meroitic north and the south which I have epitomized hereare understandable either in evolutionary or in difFusionist terms. Upper Nubia, remotefrom outside influences, preserved for a thousand years the institutions of primarycivilization which had been imported in the days of the Pharaohs. Lower Nubia, on thefrontiers of Graeco-Roman Egypt, was receptive to the winds of change which blew infrom the Mediterranean. The secularization of government, the flourishing of trade inprivate hands, and the widespread material prosperity of the north are all attributablein all probability to the influence - both ideological and material - of Ptolemaic andRoman Egypt. Long before the final collapse of the empire, the northern province ofKush had outstripped its southern neighbours in every respect except politically. It wasthe first part of Nubia to cross the threshold from an ancient to a medieval society andpolity.

There is nothing unusual in the condition of political/economic imbalance whichexisted in the later years of the Kushite empire. The same thing happened in the latedays of Theban supremacy in Egypt, of Maya supremacy in Middle America, in theRoman Empire and in several Chinese dynasties, when capital cities remained rootedby tradition in one place while the centres of economic growth and prosperity movedelsewhere. Such imbalances have usually presaged imperial breakups and the shiftingof political centres of gravity, and such was in fact the case in ancient Kush. Some timein the fourth century A.D. the Meroitic state finally collapsed,, and after a period of

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5O William Y. Adams

anarchy and confusion a new power centre emerged in the north not far from the oldMeroitic fortresses of Gebel Adda and Faras. This was the Nubian successor state ofBallana, whose monarchy retained a small part of the Meroitic royal iconography butdispensed with nearly all of its governing ideology. The Ballana monarchy lasted abouttwo centuries before giving way in turn to a series of Christian kingdoms, whose comingmarks the final transition from the ancient to the medieval world.

For extended debate over both the evidence and the interpretations presented in thisarticle see Adams, W. Y., Meroitic north and south (Meroitica 2), in press.

25 .x. 1973 Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Kentucky

References

Adams, W. Y. 1962. The archaeological survey on the west bank of the Nile: second season,1960-1. Kush. 10:10-18.

Adams, W. Y. Meroitic north and south. Meroitica 2 (in press).

Adams, W. Y. and Nordström, H. A. 1963. The archaeological survey on the west bank of theNile; third season, 1961-2. Kush. 11:10-46.

Ali, Ahmed M. 1972. Meroitic settlement of the Butana (central Sudan). Man, Settlement andUrbanism, pp. 639-46 (eds P. J. Ucko, R. Tringham and G. W. Dimbleby). London. Duck-worth.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1907. The Egyptian Sudan. 2 vols. London: Kegan Paul.

Crawford, O. G. S. and Addison, F. 1951. Abu Geili. The Wellcome Excavations in the Sudan.Vol. 3, 1-110. Oxford: University Press.

Crowfoot, J. W. and Griffith, F. Ll., 1911. The Island of Meroë and Meroitic Inscriptions,part I. Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Memoir 19. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

Garstang, J. 1910. Preliminary note on an expedition to Meroë in Ethiopia. University ofLiverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology. 3:57-70.

Garstang, J. 1912. Third interim report on the excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia. University ofLiverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology. 5:73-83.

George, W. S. 1913. Fourth interim report on the excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia, part II -architectural and general results. University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthro-pology. 6:9-21.

Griffith, F. Ll. 1911. Karanog, the Meroitic inscriptions of Shablul and Karanog. University ofPennsylvania, Egyptian Department of the University Museum, Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expeditionto Nubia, Vol. 6. Philadelphia.

Griffith, F. Ll. 1912. Meroitic inscriptions, part II. Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Memoir 20.London: Egypt Exploration Fund.

Hintze, F. 1959. Studien zur meroitischen Chronologie und zu den Opfertafeln aus denPyramiden von Meroe. Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst, Jahrgang 1959, no. 2. Berlin.

Kirwan, L. P. 1939. The Oxford University Excavations at Firka. Oxford: University Press.

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Millet, N. B. 1966. Some notes on the linguistic background of modern Nubian. ContemporaryEgyptian Nubia, Vol. 1. 59-71 (ed. R. A. Fernea). New Haven : Human Relations Area Files, Inc.

Millet, N. B. 1967. Gebel Adda preliminary report, 1965-6. Journal of the American ResearchCenter in Egypt. 6:53-63.

Millet, N. B. n.d. Meroitic Nubia. Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the GraduateSchool of Yale University in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1968.

Plumley, J. M. 1964. From the New Kingdom to the Mamelukes: 3500 years of history un-covered at the Nubian fortress of Qasr Ibrim. Illustrated London News, 11 July 1964: 50-4.

Plumley, J. M. 1966. Qasr Ibrim 1966. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 52:9-12.

Shinnie, P. L. 1967. Meroe, a Civilization of the Sudan. New York: Praeger.

Shinnie, P. L. 1970 Excavations at Meroe. Meroitic Newsletter. 5:17-19.

Trigger, B. G. 1965. History and settlement in Lower Nubia. Yale University Publications inAnthropology, no. 69. New Haven.

Trigger, B. G. 1970. The Meroitic funerary inscriptions from Arminna West. Publications of thePennsylvania-Yale Expedition to Egypt, no. 4. Philadelphia and New Haven.

Vercoutter, J. 1962. Un palais des 'candaces', contemporain d'Auguste. Syria. 39:263-99.Woolley, C. L. 1911. Karanog, the town. University of Pennsylvania, Egyptian Department ofthe University Museum, Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expedition to Nubia. Vol. 5. Philadelphia.

Abstract

Adams, W.Y.

Sacred and secular polities in ancient Nubia

It is well known from textual records that Nubia in the early centuries A.D. comprised a singleimperial state. However, archaeological evidence suggests that the institutions of politicalcontrol were far from uniform in the different provinces of the Nubian empire. In particular,government in the northern province seems to have rested on a much more secular basis thanwas true in the southern provinces. This article examines the evidence for political differencesbetween the northern and southern provinces and suggests some explanations for them.

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