Nubia Under the Pharaohs

Bruce Trigger's Nubia Under the Pharaohs is a brief study of the relations between Egypt and its southern neighbor from the Early Dynastic Period to the rise of the Napatan Kushite kingdom. As one can expect, a study such as this relies heavily on archaeological surveys, excavations and inscriptions to make sense of Pharaonic Egypt's interests and subjugation of Nubia. However, Trigger's publication is rather outdated by now, and reflects older scholarship's occasionally problematic racial framework. For instance, Egyptian attitudes about the southerners during the period of the New Kingdom empire are compared to the attitudes of Europeans about black Africans during the period of European colonial rule in Africa. Sure, Egyptian inscriptions recorded during the zenith of their empire in Nubia reflected their self-serving narrative but one wonders to what extent it was any different from Egyptian attitudes about their Levantine subjects. In addition, "brown" populations in Lower Nubian are distinguished from the "negroid" populations further south in a way that racializes the population history of Nubia. This does not seem particularly helpful, especially given the wide-ranging ties between Lower Nubia and Upper Nubia since prehistoric times. Indeed, the widely-shared C-Group characteristics as well as the presence of Pan-Grave burials (in addition to Egyptian imports and Egyptian-styled graves) point to a heterogeneous population in which "race" as we see it today should not be imposed. 

Despite these aforementioned "issues" and being somewhat dated, Trigger's study does suggest some ideas about how and why "Egyptianization" in Nubia became so influential and enduring. While influences from predynastic Upper Egypt appear already in the A-Group culture of Lower Nubia, the less favorable agricultural conditions in that section of Nubia may have limited the development of states or stratified societies. Nonetheless, populations in Lower Nubia were able to enjoy imported manufactured products from Egypt in exchange for African products desired by the Egyptian royal court and luxury markets in the Near East. Acting as middlemen between the powerful Egyptian state to the north and southern territories like Yam (Iam, assuming it was indeed in the area that later became known as Kerma), Lower Nubian groups appear to have enjoyed a degree of prosperity in the Old Kingdom period. However, Middle Kingdom Egyptian expansion, which included fortifications at key sites along the Nile to protect trade routes and access to gold, removed the need for Nubian middlemen in this next phase of Egyptian relations with Nubia. Nonetheless, a powerful state centered at Kerma, Kush, was able to prosper and during the Second Intermediate Period, even trade with the Hyksos in Lower Egypt profitably. Kerma expansion to the Egyptian frontier made them a potent state whose rulers were interred in large burials featuring human sacrifice on an impressive scale. Undoubtedly, Kerma was a power with access to Egyptian and Near Eastern products as well as some of the amenities and features of pharaonic civilization (the adoption or use of hieroglyphics is inferred from an Upper Egyptian ruler intercepting a letter from the Hyksos ruler to the Kerma king). 

The New Kingdom era, however, ushered in the most extensive period of Egyptian rule. Extending to at least the 4th Cataract, the New Kingdom pharaohs sponsored more fortifications, Egyptian settlements, gold mining operations, trade expeditions with the south, and Egyptian settlements. Egyptianization took on a new dimension as local elites (which included some descendants of the Kerma rulers as well as local headmen who had probably enjoyed a degree of status and power under Kerman rule) were sometimes sent to Egypt for education and adopted Egyptian burial styles, ritual worship and other traits. To what extent the population of Nubia was reduced to serving as peasant labor for estates of temples or serving the Pharaohs for mining or military service is unclear. According to Trigger, Egyptianization here was so heavily promoted because the Egyptians had little respect for local institutions and cultures in Nubia while also eager to fill the void left by the fall of Kush with more "advanced" Egyptian administrative, economic, and religious features. We find it hard to imagine the kingdom at Kerma was so lacking in establishing an administrative framework but perhaps the Egyptians wanted to efface the old system of Kush, especially since occasional rebellions in Upper Nubia continued to arise that may have preferred the Kushite state system. Regardless of the extent to which Egyptianization was more heavily promoted in Nubia than in the Levant, after 500 years, one can see why the Napatan-Meroitic civilization that emerged after Egyptian colonial occupation may have borrowed heavily from pharaonic civilization as a framework for the administration of an state that encompassed all of Nubia.