Meroe as a Sudanic State

The Archaeology of the Meroitic State: New perspectives on its social and political organisation by David N. Edwards is an interesting, yet short read. Arguing in favor of the Meroitic state (and perhaps during its Napatan phase and even the state of Kerma) as a Sudanic one resembling medieval and early modern states like the Darfur Sultanate, Borno, and the Funj or Sinnar Sultanate, Edwards believes the Meroitic state must be reconceived. Although the impact of Egyptian civilization and influences is undeniable in Kush, the role of the environment and archaeological evidence suggests the Meroitic state was founded upon different principles than that of Egypt. 

Instead of the control of production with ample surpluses, Nubia, especially Lower Nubia before the adoption of the waterwheel or saqia by the 300s, the kingdom was likely a segmentary state with the power of the rulers based on "trade" and warfare. In this case, the Meroitic rulers controlled "trade" or exchange with the North and through a redistribution network to provincial elites, controlled other provinces (loosely). The state's military capacity was likely also significant since military force and raiding could ensure a supply of locally valuable commodities (like livestock) and, through subjugated territories, access to gold, ivory, slaves, and other valuable exports to the north. 

Much of the book tries to fit Lower Nubia into this model, based on analyses of settlement patterns and data from cemeteries or burials. While much work remains to be done, if Lower Nubia's population truly was so low during this period of Meroitic "resettlement," then the theory of Edwards that these settlements were likely oriented to continue or ensure central government control of the routes to trade with Egypt for Mediterranean or Near Eastern prestige goods (later redistributed through the royally-controlled distribution network across the state). Thus, Meroe's "fall" in the 4th century may have had more to do with the loss of control of northern trade from the royal court, eventually leading to provincial elites severing ties while Blemmyes and Nobadaes settled in Lower Nubia in larger numbers. Since we don't know enough about the Meroitic state in relation to its core area (where it presumably exerted far more direct control and was better able to tap into local production and control access to water sources), one wonders about the core of the state's productive capacity for locally produced prestige goods. Despite the limited evidence from archaeology and our inability to read Meroitic inscriptions, the idea of the Meroitic state being "Sudanic" is an interesting hypothesis.

The Meroitic Language

Enjoying this lecture by Claude Rilly on the Meroitic language. While we don't agree with all of his theories and conclusions, we certainly hope scholars are on track to finally understand this ancient African language.

Ancient Nubia

P.L. Shinnie's Ancient Nubia manages the nearly impossible task of covering thousands of years of Nubian history from prehistoric times until the fall of the Christian kingdoms. Obviously, to cover so much time in a short volume requires omissions. Nonetheless, Shinnie's readable account is a nice summary of what was known at the time about the general history of Nubia. And while he occasionally expressed a strange, perhaps outdated perspective on "race" and the A-Group and C-Group peoples as "non-negro" or not black, Shinnie's survey stresses continuity as a major factor in Nubia's cultural history. Thus, the A-Group, C-Group, Kerma/Kush, Napatan, and Meroitic phases in the region's history present several areas of continuity. The "Egyptianized" elites of the period of New Kingdom rule and the Napatan-Meroitic phase are perhaps an expected result of centuries of Egyptian domination. However, even they inherited much from Kush and applied Egyptian models to local conditions and needs. That said, the Meroitic phase, perhaps the one in which rule urbanism, the arts, and trade were at their zenith, could have received a longer chapter. After all, if Meroe represented the zenith of the Napata-Meroe rulers, why not dedicate more space to theories of its development, ideology, and relations with the neighboring areas of Africa and the ancient world? And speaking of Meroe, why so little to say about Alwa, despite that region of Nubia likely benefitting from rain-fed cultivation as well as pastoralism and river-based agriculture? Certainly Alwa may have presented a medieval example comparable to Meroe's greatness.

Meroitic Lower Nubia

Millet's dissertation, "Meroitic Nubia," was not what we expected. Instead of a speculative and dated interpretation of Meroitic Lower Nubia and the Dodekaschoinos, Millet's essay focuses on interpreting the Meroitic inscriptions and texts to make sense of northern Nubia's elite administrative, religious, and kinship structures. Due to our failure to make sense of most of the Meroitic language, however, there is a lot of guesswork and attempts to corroborate guesses with Demotic and Greek sources or texts. With those limitations in mind, Millet nonetheless raises a number of interesting questions about the role of northern Nubia during the 3rd century of our era. 

According to Millet, the region's growing importance must have been linked to the adoption of the waterwheel, gold mining at Wadi el-Allaqi, and trade routes through the desert to Egypt. Intriguingly, Millet also proposes that Lower Nubia's economic importance was also based on trade with the west and southwest, with Darfur and Kordofan. The spread of the camel and Meroe's interests in peace with the desert nomads (ancestors of the Beja and others) must have been, in part, motivated by a desire to provide security for trade routes to Egypt. Although Meroe appears to have "shared" the Dodekaschoinos with the Ptolemaic and Roman rulers of Egypt, the continued importance of the temple at Philae represented another interest of Meroites in Lower Nubia. 

As for the general thrust of his thesis, on collateral inheritance of titles in Meroitic Nubia or the degree to which his tentative genealogies of elite families in the region can be substantiated, we assume more recent scholarship has partly addressed this. Our friends, the Wayekiye family, for instance, must be one of the fascinating families for analysis because of their education and links to the princely Akin lineage. Were they and other similar families also investing in land, and exploiting tenant farmers? Furthermore, it would be interesting to see if the relationship of Meroitic Lower Nubia to the heartland of the state was comparable to Lower Nubia's relation to Dongola in the medieval era. Certainly, the survival of Meroitic culture to some extent and a framework assuming cultural continuity would suggest this. 

Aethiopica

Helidorus of Emesa's An Ethiopian Romance is an enthralling read from the ancient world. Telling the story of the "white" Ethiopian Charicleia and her love, Theagenes, a Greek, it features a series of ordeals and tribulations that finally culminates in their matrimonial union in Meroe, capital of the "Ethiopians" (in this case, really the Kushites or Nubians). Divine intervention and fate see to it that Theagenes and Charicleia's foreseen union comes to fruition. But along the way they survive pirates in the Mediterranean, bandits in the Nile Delta, and machinations of foes and others in Delphi, Memphis, and, most dramatically, in Meroe where Charicleia's royal parents reunite with their lost progeny. Much of the novel actually consists of various characters explaining their backgrounds in long dialogues. For instance, Calasiris, the Egyptian high priest of Memphis, tells Cnemnon of his past travels and travails in a long conversation inside the home of Nausicles, a Greek merchant of Naukratis.

The most intriguing aspect of this novel to this blog, however, is its possible influence on Pauline Hopkins and the hidden city of Telassar in Of One Blood. In Hopkins's novel, the descendants of Meroe have established a utopian hidden city, but one in which monotheism appears to be the dominant faith. Nonetheless, her utopian ancient black civilization must owe something to the fabulous and utopian "Ethiopia" of Helidorus. Indeed, there are even similarities between the main characters: Reuel and Charicleia both possess birthmarks that prove their royal heritage and rightful place on the throne. 

Moreover, like Reuel, Charicleia is also "fair-skinned" and "passing" as "white" to those around her. Yet each are bound by ancestry and destiny to return to Ethiopia, although divine providence in the imagination of Hopkins is decidedly Christian. Both Charicleia and Reuell are also endowed with special abilities or powers. The former possesses a gem that protects her from fire while Reuel's mastery of mesmerism and the occult allow him to "raise the dead" (something also accomplished by an Egyptian mother who uses sorcery to force her deceased son to speak). Perhaps even the "hoodoo" and Vodou elements in the Hopkins novel have their equivalent in the "science" of Calasiris and other Egyptian characters, as well as the constant presence of the deities in dreams, visitations, and temple offerings. 

In addition to the parallels between Reuel and Charicleia, the dichotomy of a wondrous, noble Ethiopia ruled by a benevolent king versus the tyranny of the Persian empire suggests another similarity between the novels: "Ethiopia" as a utopian alternative to the oppressive central power of the day. In Hopkins time, African Americans faced an oppressive empire in the form of US Jim Crow while Africa was carved into European colonies. "Ethiopia" as utopia is biblical prophecy in the Ethiopianism of Hopkins, but it also reaches back into pre-Christian Greek notions of Ethiopia as "blameless" or ideal. It's exotic, remote, attributed with the origins of the Nile and Egypt (Calasiris himself studied in Ethiopia), and led by a wise and judicious monarch.

The gymnosophists consulted by Hydaspes may have been inspired by India, but they bring to mind the council consulted by Reuel in Of One Blood, and through their wisdom human sacrifice in Meroe is terminated. In short, the rulers of Meroe are wise, generous, and the ideal leaders. Their Ethiopia is filled with emeralds, gold, African fauna, exotic spices, and access to the luxuries of India and Arabia. Even the Greeks must recognize this African civilization's grandeur as exoticism meets utopia in Helidorus's eyes. Hopkins was surely influenced by this perception of ancient Ethiopia and, reinterpreting it through the lens of African American Ethiopianist rhetoric, modernized it as a redemptive tale for Black America. Tellasar, with the return of its king, will become Ethiopia stretching her hands unto God. 

Meroe in the Black Literary Imagination

Professor Aljoe speaks on the influence of Meroe in Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins. Reading Hopkins has actually inspired me to seek Helidorus's An Ethiopian Romance for a much older example of Meroe in novelistic form. "Ethiopia" as a utopian, romantic or exalted place in the ancient Greek imagination must have influenced Hopkins.

Of One Blood

Finally read Of One Blood because of my interest in Sun Ra. Past instances of African American science fiction or speculative fiction seems relevant to any research into Sun Ra's inventive (and, perhaps, wacky) notions. Pauline Hopkins also appears to have beat Ishmael Reed in establishing a fictive link between "voodoo" and ancient Nile Valley civilizations, although Of One Blood is a weaker novel that perhaps attempts to juggle too many competing "out there" or supernatural phenomena (mesmerism, occultism, second sight, magic mirror in Telassar, spiritualism). It also confronts issues of racism, the unity of the human species, incest, and the horrors of slavery on the black family, including a surprising revelation near the end of the novel about Aubrey Livingston's relationship with Reuel and Dianthe. 

But the most interesting aspect of this early Afrofuturist" novel is its use of Meroe, and a hidden city of its descendants, as a symbol of an ascendant Ethiopia who will restore the prestige of the black race in modern times. Drawing heavily on the discourse of Ethiopianism, which had influenced black nationalism in the US throughout the 19th century, "Ethiopia" (really, Meroe or "Nubia) returns to its greatness as one of its lost descendants, an Afro-American passing as white, returns to the throne. Telassar, the hidden city of Meroe's descendants, have maintained their ancient civilization in hiding, and with the return of a descendant of Ergamenes, are poised to return to greatness. Since Ethiopianism drew from Christianity as practiced by African-Americans, Hopkins employs the Bible (as well as sources from classical antiquity) to offer an Afrocentric view of the ancient world, with all civilization and the arts deriving from Ethiopians or their kin in Egypt, Canaan, and Babylon. 

For these aforementioned discursive uses of Ethiopianism in a speculative fiction guise, Hopkins has written perhaps the most interesting of early "Afrofuturist" literature. In terms of its prose and structure, there is room for improvement, but Reuel's use of mesmerism and occultism in the Boston chapters is directly relevant to the advanced hidden science of Telassar and the Afro-American's deep past. There is enough material here to appeal to academics, hoteps, black feminists (particularly through the character of Mira and Aunt Hannah), and those like myself, merely curious about unexpected speculative fiction. 

By the novel's call to a return to Africa, it also fits into the larger history of vindicationist black history, stressing the great past of the African as a way of countering white supremacy and instilling a pride in African Americans. However, it also demonstrates the limitations of Ethiopianist discourse as its centered on a great African past and Christian, Western notions of civilization. It is unclear what Telassar, with its king to inaugurate a new dynasty, will accomplish for an Africa experiencing European conquest. It possesses some advanced technology, but the reader is left in the dark about the future relations between Telassar and imperial Europe. Nonetheless, it is a far more entertaining and interesting world than that of Black Panther.