The Kushite Kingdom of Kerma in the Post Middle Kingdom Era with Dr. Faraji

hi i’m aaron brody at the bade museum at pacific school of religion and i’d like to welcome you to the first in our series of new perspectives on ancient nubia but before we get to today’s talk i’d like to introduce jess johnson who is our assistant curator and a graduate student at uc berkeley jess the floor is yours hello everyone we would like to start by acknowledging that berkeley california is on the territory of the huichin the ancestral and unseated land of the chocheno ohlone we respect the land itself and the people who have stewarded it through many generations and we honor their elders both past and present there is no question that our society is poised at a moment of change we see it when fellow americans are unjustly detained when our citizens are wrongly harmed and when our communities are in the streets for months on end protesting in order to be heard the bade museum of biblical archaeology and the archaeological research facility (arf) at uc berkeley wish to acknowledge the pain and outrage for our community members who bear the weight of existing in a society designed to work against them and feel the devastation most keenly here at the museum and at arf we have been moved by the courage of those who are most deeply affected and the tenacity of those protesting for change the bade museum and arf stand in solidarity with the african american community we join you in your calls for justice collectively and individually our staff condemns the police brutality and systematic racism that has long been enacted against the black community and other communities of color it has persisted for far too long it has resulted in the unjust and premature ending of lives so let us say their names brionna taylor tony mcdade ahmed aubry george floyd tamir rice trayvon martin and countless others let us as organizations be perfectly clear black lives matter we lend our thoughts and actions to those who every day actively work to make this statement a living breathing ideal and to those who continually live the reality of racial injustice likewise we lend our expertise to the cause of incorporating blm’s sensitive material into our exhibits our programming and our curriculum we know very well that this moment has been a long time coming and we are in the fight for equality justice and accountability through this lecture series we aim to raise awareness on ancient nubia a vibrant region in northeast africa with a rich archaeological and historical legacy learning about the ancient peoples of nubia is one way to decenter the usual academic focus on egypt and biblical and classical lands in order to reconceptualize our past decolonizing our views of the past as through the research presented in the new perspectives on ancient nubia series we hope will lend to a more just and equitable future thank you and enjoy the lecture thanks jess now it’s my pleasure to introduce dr salim faraji who is professor and former chair of africana studies at california state university dominguez hills he is the founding executive director of the masters of arts and international studies africa program at concordia university irvine located in ghana west africa he completed his masters of divinity at the claremont school of theology and m.a. and phd at claremont graduate university he is a member of the international society for nubian studies and specializes in early christian history africana and africanist historiography coptic studies and the kerma napoten marowitic and medieval periods of nubian history dr faraji is also a founding member of the nubian language society and one of a handful of nubiologists in the united states and the only africana studies scholar in the country who is also a coptic studies specialist professor faraji is a contributor to publications in romans barbarians and the transformation of the roman world the encyclopedia of african religions the oxford dictionary of african biography and is the sole author of his monograph the roots of nubian christianity uncovered the triumph of the last pharaoh today dr faraji will present the ascendancy of the kushite kingdom of karma in the post-middle kingdom era revisiting the second intermediate period of ancient egypt welcome dr faraji and the floor is yours good afternoon everyone and let me first extend gratitude uh to the pacific school of religion the bade museum and the archaeological research facility at uc berkeley or extend this invitation to give this lecture on ancient nubia very quickly i’m gonna pull up my screen here right as dr brody said the ascendancy of the cushite kingdom of karma and the post-middle kingdom era revisiting the second intermediate period of ancient egypt before we begin i want to acknowledge the africana intellectual tradition in the study of now valley civilizations i also want to thank the organizers of this lecture series for their uncompromising statement in solidarity with black lives matter in solidarity with the movement of black lives in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of what we now call california and in solidarity with the decolonizing uh scholarship in research uh in particular in egyptology newbiology in in other in other disciplines let me just say very quickly uh two years ago the former president of the african studies association which is an international organization of africanus scholars dr jean allman gave a presidential lecture in 2018. in that presidential lecture uh she emphatically made it clear that african american scholars and other scholars of the african diaspora were and are the founders of african studies in the united states she even suggested that the famous hercovitz award which is a prestigious award in the africa and the african studies association be renamed to a prominent african-american intellectual by the name of dr william leo hansberry not only that even in the discipline of egyptology my colleague dr vanessa davies is also doing work looking at the africana or the african-american intellectual um tradition and his contributions to the discipline of egyptology so here i’m acknowledging the pioneers in the africana intellectual tradition as a way for us to think about parallel traditions and parallel perspectives and viewpoints that have always existed side by side with traditional quote-unquote establishment disciplines so here we see uh the original cover of the publication now valley civilizations edited by dr ivan van servant a prominent africanist and anthropologist scholar of antiquity originally from guyana in south south america i’m sorry um and this this proceedings was a part of the now valley civilizations proceedings conference in atlanta september 26 to the 30th 1984 a preeminent now valley conference hosted by african american and african diaspora scholars earlier that year in february 1984 in southern california in los angeles an organization called the association for the study of classical african civilizations uh was also founded in the same year uh and established the first annual ancient egyptian studies conference ascak is an organization that still is in existence and is still uh active and committed to scholarship in the ancient now valley egypt uh sudan as well as the horn of africa as well ethiopia eritrea djibouti somalia and so forth so these are scholars just very quick i think it’s appropriate to to say their names um beginning in the early 19th century um scholars of the african diaspora african- americans have always had an interest in the nile valley so martin delaney edward woolman blyden george washington williams antoner furman drusilla dungey houston w b du bois william leo hansberry carter g woodson john henry clark check into [ __ ] tfl obenga jager carruthers melania karenga renoka rashidi charles finch ivan van sertima yosef bin bin chikanon among many others so i think it’s important for me to establish that the presentation uh that you all will see this afternoon i’m indebted to this intellectual tradition uh uh many of these scholars not all of them have passed some of them are still alive especially the latter ones i named and i have been mentored uh and guided by many of these scholars and in my study of ancient now valley civilizations i would like for us to uh actually begin at the end so to speak uh i’m looking at the role of ancient cush karma civilization and ancient nubia in general uh in the influence of the now valley between uh the 13th and 17th dynasties the second intermediate period in particular in ancient egyptian history but actually what i will cover will actually extend really from the first intermediate period really up until the second intermediate period uh and i use this particular slide as a way for us to begin to look at some of the some of the some of the themes that were going on in now valley history at this particular time certainly the rise of ancient kush and uh ancient karma you know we uh have uh as of late heard uh notions of nubian or black pharaohs or black pharaohs in the 25th dynasty of ancient egypt or somehow ancient egypt was a civilization that was not african meaning not black and then somehow the nubians were a black civilization we’re going to flush all that out this afternoon but also the the notion that the only time uh which which which is a error in the misperception but the only time that that nubians or the kushites came to prominence in the now valley was the 25th dynasty of ancient egypt but what we will see this afternoon is that uh the karma kingdom basically the kermit kingdom from a period of 2500 bce to 1500 bce was a prominent power in the nile valley that contended with egypt and for a short time held sway over over egypt as well so we look at this particular inscription sobaknock of the 17th dynasty 17th dynasty is late second intermediate period also at the very beginning of what will become uh the new kingdom sobot knock is a local governor of a town called el cobb uh in the egyptian language is neckhead in upper egypt um the patron a deity or goddess of this particular city was uh the goddess nekobat uh we will see that in these tombs uh this particular image of so but not painted tomb was was discovered uh by uh british egyptologist william vivian davies uh it’s dated to around 1575 to 50 1550 bce this was a crucial transitional period in egypt’s history when a native uh dynasty centered at themes in upper egypt was engaged in a war of independence against a foreign canaanite dynasty the so-called exosoheka kasuk who were based at avarice in the now delta in controlled lower egypt only a handful of these type of tombs have survived and so but nakatum is the best preserve uh in 2003 london times the times uh put out this uh controversial uh and sensational headline in the in the uk in their newspaper tune reveals ancient egypt’s humiliating secret and what was this humiliating secret uh that had been hidden from us uh or concealed and so forth our correspondence report on how details of a crushing defeat by another now superpower was kept hidden who was this other now superpower that sober knock had talked about he left this inscription uh in his tomb of his battles against the cushite kingdom but not only the christian kingdom but a cushite alliance and federation he says listen you who are alive upon the earth vile cush came aroused along his length he had he having stirred up the tribes of huawats that is lower nubia the island dwellers of kentucky punt and describes a cushite lead alliance that indicates polities from lower nubia even as far as ponce which is believed to be the horn of africa what is now eritrea somalia and the magi people in the eastern desert of the nile valley we must consider the political influence in range of kush as a former power in the now valley that possessed the authority and resources to launch an offensive on egypt in concert with other regional powers there’s a map of course to the right of the nile valley of course northern egypt lower egypt touching the mediterranean upper egypt to the south uh lower nubia which borders southern egypt or upper egypt and then of course upper nubia which is the heart uh of the cushite empire in the region of the fourth and fifth uh cataracts i also want to begin with uh laying out the paradigm and perspective of of my approach to the nile valley in general and ancient kush in newbie in in particular a new biological perspective ancient nile valley history one that privileges the southern pole of classical nile valley civilization and its historic polity the karma kingdom of kush contains notions of ancient egyptian preeminence consequently the traditional periodization of the post-middle kingdom era in ancient egyptian history as a second intermediate period by egyptologists is not only egyptocentric but also a totalizing narrative that discounts the geocultural complexity of the middle now region and the ascendancy of cushite dominance during the 17th and 16th century uh bce and so uh two things one uh i’m deconstructing and we’ll talk about that more even a little later uh i’m deconstructing the notion of the second intermediate period because the second intermediate period although historically in the 19th century it was viewed as a period of xo’s rule and hixo’s domination especially at avarice in in in lower egypt and at some time it was even called the hixos period before it was renamed by scholars in the early 20th century the second intermediate period yet what i’m contending uh this afternoon is that the terminology’s second intermediate period actually suppresses if you will uh uh it it it uh makes invisible the prominence of ancient kush during this particular time and not only ancient kush but as the sublux knock uh inscription informs us there were other prominent players uh in the nile valley such as c group nubians uh also people often called the nehesi as well as the magi people and then we also see that they had contacts as far south and east as uh punt on the horn of africa so there was a complexity of cultures although cush was the prominent and certainly the largest state uh in in the middle now valley at this particular time and so what i’m suggesting is that we revisit the second intermediate period by highlighting the prominence of kush and not using that term to make kush uh invisible i also want us to look at the now valley of course not simply around uh its neighbor to the north ancient egypt but also the nile valley complex which consisted of ancient egypt also called kemet the indigenous language ancient uh kush or nubia and then certainly even the cultures uh in in in the in the horn of africa so this is a powerful quote uh put out by the oriental institute the newman expedition some of the earliest work that was done there in the in the early 60s by keith silly uh and here dr uh bruce williams uh gives us insight to how to approach um the now valley and kush in particular um we we we see egypt as the prominent civilization and then somehow ancient kush or nubia is simply a a a replica if you will or an impersonator or a receiver of traditions from ancient egypt but actually we have two polls we have the northern poles centered in egypt and then the southern pole as with the a group before the cushite i’m sorry as with the a group before the cushites held the geographical pivot of north eastern africa they mixed ideas and materials from the north egypt the east pan grave and magi in the south to the west sudanese saharan traditions since no one could pass by them they mediated contacts among these groups at the same time the a group cushites tradition remained a major center of lower now valley civilization having a common origin with egypt in nakata one nakata too these are pre-dynastic upper egyptian polities the southern group remained more true than egypt to the archaic heritage that was passed to its descendants at napata and through modif and though modified by continuing contacts with egypt was revived in dramatic form by the nuba days in the final pharonic seminar cemeteries of kutztool in bellano so here we we see that ancient kush represented the southern pole of non-valley civilization uh and not only that it represented a a tradition that maintained archaic now valley traditions not archaic ancient egyptian traditions but archaic now valley traditions and practices which would be manifested differently in egypt as well as in nubia this is why it is actually more appropriate to talk about the now valley as opposed to a lopsided asymmetrical analysis that holds egypt as preeminent and then push as simply a secondary backwater this perspective allows the two to be what they were rivals contenders and even at other times uh partners uh and so forth not only that we also see a continuity from the a group kingdom of kutztool in lower nubia all the way to the a group of the bolana kingdom of the nubi days in the 6th century a.d we have this unbroken continuity from 3100 3200 bce all the way into the 6th century a d this is a a tradition that lasted very very long even after egypt was conquered by persians uh greeks romans the byzantine and even ultimately the arabs kush continued to be an independent power uh in the now valley and certainly this begins um at an early day with a group uh as well as karma kush as we as we will see uh not not only that not only is kush the southern power or southern empire of the nile valley but it is also a sudanic sahelian kingdom the ancient cushite culture emerged from with mcdonald’s labels as a trans-saharan pastoral techno complex dating between 3 800 and 1000 bc it is known within the domain of nubian studies that ancient karma and its northern counterpart c group nubia existed in the middle now region from approximately 2500 to 1500 bce and was contemporary with the old and middle kingdoms of ancient nubia yet equally significant the ancient kingdom of karma was also a part of a sudanic sahelian tradition that extended from the sudan to mauritania in west africa one of the hallmarks of this expansive cultural complex was the construction of earthen mounds that served as both ritual centers and royal tombs these mound tomulai arranged and date from 4000 bce to 500 ce and have been discovered in the regions of what are now chad mali niger southern algeria mauritania and ghana ancient kush certainly was a now valley civilization but it was also part of the sahel the sahel zone the savannah zone that stretches from uh uh ethiopia into sudan all the way into senegal mauritania gambia mali and so forth and we know this because of the uh certain cultural complex that they shared here i mentioned the tumuli two milai that were built at karma uh as well as two milai being built in niger mali and as far west as synagogue but they also shared a ceramic tradition in common as well so here we see a map highlighting the sahel zone of course to the right we see the nile valley and then as we move toward the left we move west across chad niger where you see those spiral circles those are places where uh wavy lying pottery or dot i’m sorry wavy line pottery ceramics uh were discovered in the suit in the sudanic and sahara belt so archaeologically we have at least uh two traditions an architectural tradition of tumuli building and a ceramic tradition of this wavy lying pottery that spread across the sahel zone from the sudan all the way into west half africa substantiating that kush was also a part of the saharan and savannah traditions um the ceramics that were recovered from these sites they characterized wavy line and dotted wavy line uh decoration which formed the cornerstone of mesolithic and neolithic components along the central nile across the sahara and and sahel belt not only that they formed a model for cultural uniformity for the nilo saharan sahel belt and they ranged from the eighth millennium bce to the fourth millennium bce uh in the sudan some of the major sites of the discovery was at cartoon hospital also known as early cartoon shahinab and el coles the wavy line indicted wavy line motifs are widespread in space and time they cover an area from the red sea to mauritania and from the eastern sahara to the savannah in west africa of course they date uh uh again from the 8th millennium to the 4th million bce covering a span of 5 300 kilometers east to west and 1500 kilometers north to south again an area that that covers from senegal to the red sea also let me uh mention very quickly um before i move on to kutz tool and the crystal instance burner is that the this is actually another project that that that i’m working on um the tumuli uh in west africa there are some in northern senegal um that date from 1000 ce others in the southern synagogue zone which date from 200 bce to 100 ce is some in the gorma region of mali which date from 900 bce to 540 bce and probably one of the most famous elva lagi tumuli which is 11th century mali which dates uh during that same period and so forth so we have a range of tumuli some which are comparable to the tumuli that that were built at karma and even the tumuli um uh that were built in lower nubia among the bologna culture uh of the new bidets and so forth we see these practices spread across the sahel this gives us a different perspective on how we should understanding understand the founding of both uh cushite states as well as egyptian the sahel and savannah perspective um for instance dr christopher eric he says the crucial early innovative areas in the continent lay in the sudan belt in west africa even with the najar political history egypt’s first large state the old kingdom took shape not at the center but at one edge of a wider nexus of early complexity that included saharan past pastoralists nubian town dwellers and of course the kutztool state and yet as undiscovered small states further south and nubia as well the major technological turning points of early african history from the invention of ceramics to the invention of iron working did not originate in egypt but spread there from other areas end quote um for for so long in egyptology and even early nubiale scholars such as george reisner attempted to separate both egypt and nubia from the rest of africa and also make africa uh nowhere near connected to the nile valley as if the nile valley egypt and nubia were not on the african continent suggesting that uh egypt was a cul-de-sac or nubia was a cul-de-sac in the now valley with no type of interaction with the rest of quote unquote black africa and so forth yet what we see dr eric makes clear the ceramic production across the sahel makes clear the tumuli production across the sahel makes clear that the now valley civilizations of both kush uh in egypt did not emerge in the vatican and did not merge disconnected uh from the rest of the african continent uh and so rightly so the uh the foundation of custom we see here the famous crystal instance burner was discovered uh by the expedition team of the oriental institute newbie expedition in the early 60s and this famous instance burn that discovered at cemetery l 24 uh about i believe gave indication that there was a pharonic monarchy uh in what is now lower nubia before the founding of dynasty uh dynastic egypt certainly that was uh the case let me highlight some of the significance of the crystal uh instance burner it was the earliest complex of easily recognizable pharonic symbols uh and today uh kudzul is considered one of the founding centers of dynastic egyptian civilization one of four centers in fact along with abidos nakata and hieronkopolis the coastal instant burner consists of the earliest representation of the white crown of upper egypt in the middle nile valley the innocence burner is the first to depict horus perched upon the cerec facade the falcon it’s to first depict the prominent symbol of sovereignty and kingship during the early dynastic period it also displays a royal bark procession approaching an imperial palace uh and it also is the first to assemble all of these unique uh phoronic symbols together on one particular object as we as as we see here so what what of course this this is a well-known discovery and when it and when it was first made and released in in the early 60s and then even in the 80s when it was published in prominent archaeological archeology magazines it caused a lot of controversy because the idea was that okay these scholars are arguing that the egyptian pharonic civilization did not begin in egypt uh but it began in ancient nubia and actually that was the the incorrect way to understand it what it was really showing us is that now valley civilization and dynastic state formation was uh uh in distance indispensably connected right to what we now call lower nubia and ancient kush right and so the crystal instance burner uh reveals that to us and then not only that kutztool as well as the other upper egyptian uh and cushite states cannot be considered independent of uh east east central africa the great lakes region or what i’ve been emphasizing so far in this presentation the sahel and the saharan belt as well gave birth to what we would see at crystal in both cush as well as upper egypt so this leads us to donald v reference book i think it’s been out maybe 10 years or more now from slave to pharaoh the black experience of ancient egypt right um this is prevalent this is popular this perspective this viewpoint uh on ancient kush and nubia in this bifurcation of a white uh egypt or at least a non-african egypt and then a black uh nubian hush and so forth um and then somehow the cushites were slaves and then they became pharaohs only in the 25th dynasty of egypt right this is the common perception right yet uh the evidence suggests otherwise and certainly the rise of kush from the first intermediate period to the second intermediate period suggests otherwise and then of course the connections to the sahara and sahel belt suggest otherwise as well so the earliest beginnings of nubia and nubians in relation to egypt therefore was as sovereign equals and not slaves reference suggests that the study of nubian history throughout its entire span along with a group nubia and karma is not germane to a book that attempts to situate knocking history within the context of new kingdom egypt without ever establishing the antecedents of napoteng culture in karma and the pre-dynastic traditions of sudanic and sahelia in africa such an approach is historically indefensible and certainly egyptocentric and so and so when when we only focus on the so-called black pharaohs of the 25th dynasty uh or we only focus on the period of nubian i’m sorry egyptian conquest of uh karma as well as lord nubia during the new kingdom with uh uh communist optimist and then certainly tutmosis iii who kind of seals the deal for uh egyptian conquests of nubia during during the new kingdom that 500 year period but when we begin cushite history with the egyptian conquest during the new kingdom or only the 25th dynasty beginning in the late period of egyptian history and we ignore uh old kingdom middle kingdom we ignore karma we ignore its influence in the now valley we ignore uh its connection to sahel the sahelian sahara belt as well as the great lakes region um then we can put out books that suggest that the nubians were somehow black slaves uh in in in the now in the nile valley only and exclusively certainly cush was called vile certainly cush was called uh wretched kush was called wretched and vile in some egyptian texts because they were a major rival in a major contender even in the soba knock inscription that i showed you at the beginning of this presentation the word vile kush is used that that trope that motif is used uh and certainly because kush along with the magi along with sea group along with punt have launched an invasion into egypt certainly that is not uh uh indicative of a people uh who are inferior or uh who are imitators or who are slaves all right i want to clarify just very quickly some of the uh toponyms and ethnonyms for the region known as cushion in egyptian texts nubia uh was called wawat which consisted of lower nubia also called tassetti which referred to uh a kingdom in lower nubia translating land of the bow tahsetti was also the first norm in upper egypt on the border of uh uh lower nubia and so forth in egyptian texts upper nubia what is now upper nubia or the karma kush cataract fourth fifth cataract region was called yam in egyptian texts uh other times the land was also called nehesi the nubian land beginning in the 12th dynasty the middle kingdom the the uh the top of them cush is used beginning in the 12th dynasty so old and middle kingdom texts the territory that we now uh refer to as ancient nubia or uh the modern country of the sudan and even uh southern egypt these were the terms that were used during the old and middle kingdom in ancient egyptian literature from wawat uh to kush um those are the terms that are used another ethanol that is often used is nahesi egyptologists have translated over the years as negro other times they translated as black other times they translated as uh as nubian i’m more inclined to agree with stuart tyson smith um who has recently established that that the verbs uh for the basis of uh hessian hess it mean one to implore a god or to bite or sting there’s very little evidence other than the chauvinistic bias of early egyptologists to translate the word nahesi as negro uh or or black and even technically technically it does not mean nubian either it’s its own inherent uh ethnonym um i’m more inclined to accept that it means to implore god or to bite or sting another reason why these translations are interesting to me because uh this was the trope of the ethiopians right the greeks called uh the area now known as or then known as kush ethiopia and then the greeks had tropes and motifs for these people as well and one of them was they are very devout very religious and then number two they are expert archers and fighters and combatants and wrestlers and so this translation of nehesi as one to implore god to summon a god or to bite to sting in other words your your martial and combative abilities and so forth um seems to be more in line even with later um tropes and and the reputation of these people during that particular time now the word nubian itself this dispute over is it based upon the egyptian word for gold or is it based upon text that we begin to see greek text that we begin to see in the third century aristocenes and then strebo quiting quoting erastosis i should say in those texts we see the word uh nubi used and then we also see the word nova used to refer uh to these people south of the first uh cataract the axon might stay laid greek also calls the people the noba in coptic text they are called anubha right so this is the the first time we begin to see that that particular term uh um yet the term nubian um has taken on a general geographic description of what we now call kush southern egypt or should i say uh not just kush but wawat lower nubia so southern egypt uh uh uh or uh laura nubia and then of course all of upper nubia right and so oftentimes we see ancient nubia egypt’s rival in africa or the ancient nubians and so forth and so it has taken on uh the notion of a generalized geographic description of the entire nile valley although it also refers to a particular ethnic groups that are located in in in northern sudan and in southern egypt so i just want us to understand how we use the terms i’m going to talk a little bit about uh kerma karma is divided into these particular chronological phases the neolithic uh culture pre-karma settlement dated between 3 500 and 5000 bce early kerma uh 2500 to 2050 bc which is uh is also known as kerman and then middle karma also known as kumamoyong and then karma karma classic here i just use the the english translation early karma middle karma and classic karma um the period that we’re that we’re focusing on during the second intermediate period which i have highlighted in red part of me is primarily dealing with the period of middle current and classic kernel so between 2050 bce and uh 1580 bce what you all see to your right is a bell-shaped kerma beaker um this was the har mark of classical kermit civilization um the karma beaker is the most common form of the classic kermal wear it’s an outgrowth of a long melodic tradition of black top red polish wear uh and it marked the zenith of ceramic technology in the ancient kingdom of kerma this particular beaker was found at the egyptian site of abidos in fact a number of awares from classic karma have been found in that region during the middle kingdom and even some as late as the early kingdom the tombs generally contain both karma ceramics as well as egyptian goods the fact that this particular ceramic was found in abidos uh in in upper egypt shows a level of interaction and communication as well as trade in the movement of people um at this particular time um especially this one is particularly dated during the classic karma period this particular this particular layer of course we have to refer to the ancient city of karma uh of course to your left this is the western defu this was uh a mud brick or adobe temple that was at the center of the town of karma and then to your right which you see is a scale model of what the city looked like put out by charles bonay in the swiss archaeology mission in sudan the kingdom of karma was the largest of the second intermediate period states so during the second intermediate period that you’ll see a map as we move forward um you have a state uh states in the north at average both the 14th and 15th dynasties at average then you have upper egyptian dynasties of phibians 16 17 dynasties in particular then you have of course polities in northern nubia magi as well as t group and so forth and then uh karma kush uh the largest of these states the largest of these polities at this time in the in in the nile valley was the kingdom of kermit um at its peak it stretched from the first to the fifth cataract covering over one thousand kilometers in fact charles bonet remarks of this period that the kingdom of karma is without a doubt the prominent civilization of the valley of the nile end quote right which you know in in in researching this which was very curious to me this is not this is not anything that’s uh uh original um i mentioned william vivian davies of course uh charles bonnet dominique vibao uh lazzo tarot all of these scholars are familiar with this particular period in the prominence of karma during this time and so it just it just begs the question um why does the image of the 25th dynasty of kush continue to persist in the popular imagination of a time when a a cush had prominence in the nile valley when clearly during this period this was the most prominent of the nile valley states uh during the classic karma period uh not only that the de fufa that we see here to the left again i indicated that it was a temple um towering over 25 meters high um of that in that city at that particular time and even when you look at the model produced by uh the swiss mission in the sudan you see in the center of the town that that building um is the de fufa so it was surrounded of course by different compounds smaller villages and one of the things that really is market about this if you look very closely and this is something again that that that i’ve heard dr bones say not only reading his his work but also meeting him at newbie studies conferences um is that much of the art architecture at karma uh was distinct and some of it was reminiscent of west african styles uh in particular um some of the hut buildings as well as um these circular str structures with conical thatch roofs three columns structures holding up um are reminiscent of structures seen in cameroon and nigeria and other places in in in west africa suggesting again that uh karma was indeed not only a now valley civilization but also a part of the saharan and sahelian belt in the biography of uni kharkov expeditions there is mention of nubian nations and nubian um ethnicities and both of these techs um who they mention a federation of various nubians in the biography of luni he mentions the urgent nubians the magi nubians yam nubians nubians and the kawa nubians we also technically if we if we follow uh the old kingdom texts it also could it also could be the urjet nahesi the and the harcourt expedition is saying uh a a confederation of uh of nubians are are mentioned so what you all see to the right is an image of nubian soldiers uh dated to the middle kingdom 11th dynasty found in the area of a suit and and then the image to the right at the bottom is a staley of a nubian soldier called menu after the collapse of the old kingdom and during the civil war between the thievins and the heracleopolitans uh during the first intermediate period while what nubian soldiers figured prominently in the military of both factions the gabileen nubian mercenaries fought on the side of heracleopolis um but nubian warriors also fought on the side of the fieman armies and they were greatly utilized and deployed by both pharaoh and theft ii uh again this is the the one on the bottom right there’s another steady let’s delay from the area called gabileen which was a area where it was a contingency of nubian mercenaries who had fought during the first intermediate period civil wars um this provides this particular stale provides life the life of a nubian soldier during the early eleventh dynasty distillery presents the archer nenu and his egyptian wife sekator the scene also highlights the new son daughter and servant along with hunting dogs then new wares the new wears newbie and tire as well as his son daughter and servant his wife is depicted wearing a white egyptian dress uh the new stale demonstrates the extent to which nubian soldiers integrated into egyptian society intermarried with egyptian women in fact into marriage was common between egyptians and nubians and such families represented by cultural and inter-ethnic relationships that contributed to shaping the culture of upper egypt and lower nubia during the first intermediate period and the middle kingdom nanu represents a distinct egypto nubian culture in egypt and lower nubia that was pervasive in shaping the political life of both the the first intermediate period up into the rule of cush during the second intermediate period the culture was forged by again people that inhabit those regions and so the nubian soldiers were very prominent in fact uh during the middle kingdom the egyptian military um adopted nubian military attire and even the hieroglyphic sign for soldier or army takes his iconography from a nubian warrior representing a kneeling man with a bow and an arrow and feather on his head uh in fact egyptian soldiers of the middle kingdom adapted the warrior uniform and regalia of nubian warriors thus appropriating nubian martial culture and combat again this would persist from the first intermediate period well into through the middle kingdom up until the second intermediate period the egypto nubian pharaohs the 11th and 12th dynasty and then amin the first both are founders of dynasties mantua ii is the founder of the 11th dynasty and ahmed hop versus the founder of the 12th dynasty in the funerary temple complex of nehemiah montuho ii six burial shrines were uncovered at the temple of half four comprised of nubian woman who served as half four priestesses five of the six women were also identified as wives of mantua one of the queens identified as ashayet was portrayed in her sarcophagus as a dark brown woman as were her companions queen kim set and queen uh so uh mantuatep um his wives six uh these women were nubian women not only were they nubian women but they were also priestess of uh of hathor and were buried in his royal complex alongside with him my colleague dr uh solange ashby who’s actually a part of this nubian lecture series that has done more detailed research on that particular area and then of course we have uh i’m in the hopper first who too was a part of this egyptian or egypto nubian cultural milieu um and this is how we must situate both mantuatup ii as well as anahap is famous for the the prophecy of nefertiti where the text explicitly states that the king a king will come from the south ameni the son of a woman of tassetti child of upper egypt the prophecy is communicating that not only is omnihop the first to prophesy savior who will restore the two lands but he is also an egyptian of nubian ethnic heritage from upper egypt so the prophecy of nefertiti um announces that amon hop who actually served in the administration of montuatep iv um so he was not of a royal blood of the royal family he was actually a soldier who worked his way through the ranks during the uh during the regime or reign of mantua the fourth i’m referring to almond hop uh i’m gonna have to first um and one of the ways to legitimize his ruling final 12th dynasty uh was this was the prophecy in nefertiti uh peculiar about it is that it connects to restoration of the two lands with uh the son of a woman from tasetti uh in particular saying that he will be the next savior now of course we also have to deal with the fortresses that were built uh in lower nubia beginning with uh i’m gonna hop the first his successor said more set the first and then similar set the third would build all the major uh fortresses in lower nubia now there’s discussion about why was the 12 dynasty pharaohs building these fortresses what was the purpose of these fortresses and i have them listed um from north to south so if you look on the map to the right is the fortress of buhen which is the father’s north and then sim the south is the further south in fact fifteen fortresses were built in lower nubia during the twelfth dynasty most of the fortresses were built during the reign of sin were set the first extending from in the north to bu the greatest concentration of the fortresses were located in the semna gorge which was the most critical region for defending the border between lower nubia and upper nubia against the advances of the kingdom of kush there is a review of the top enemy for the fortresses of this region shelfac or nachi seminal west in the south and kuma reveals the defensive purposes of these structures xiao fact was referred to to conquer the foreign countries and iranadi was called repelling the into referring to a nubian people associated with the majority and sim in the south carried the title subduing the seti or the bow land and kumna was designated as repelling the bows and so oftentimes the fortress building of the twelve dynasty is interpreted as uh an act of colonization um an act of subduing uh lower nubia uh what what i suggest is that the primary purpose was defensive to secure the southern frontier against karma certainly trade um these fortresses were also used uh uh portrayed surveillance of the sea group the hesse people and then certainly to annex gold mining and then the control of the nile these are different these are different functions of how the fortresses were used but the impetus for the construction of these four torches during the 12th dynasty uh was to defend against the kingdom of cush and its alliances with the polities of wawa um what i think is that the soba knock inscription is what we began with and in that inscription he describing his his war his fight against a cushite federation um is a was a persistent threat his inscription is 17th dynasty so it’s late second intermediate period late second intermediate period and yet that was a threat in preoccup and preoccupation we see even during the 12th dynasty this was a persistent threat uh but these fortresses would begin to be built during the 12th dynasty because that marked the time period where uh uh kush could very well have had could have advanced and taken over i shouldn’t say take over but advanced and attempted to conquer uh lower nubia in upper egypt um sooner than the period of the 17th dynasty in the second intermediate period and so what we see what what’s going what’s going on here is that the invasion that so but not describes could have happened not in the 17th dynasty it could have happened even in the 12th dynasty or late 11th dynasty and the fortresses were built to prevent what so but knock describes in his inscription a cushite federation um invading egypt and rei holt’s work the political situation in egypt during the second intermittent period 13th dynasty rule by honor hop the fourth 14th dynasty was a very interesting dynasty canaanite dynasty 15th dynasty the hekakasu or the hixos 16 dynasty theyben the 17th dynasty the 16th and 17th dynasty of course will give birth to the famous 18th dynasty the dynasty that ultimately expels the hixos from northeastern egypt and establishes uh the new kingdom right the 16th 17th dynasty of course leads to that 18th dynasty these particular dynasties are referred to as the second intermediate period the second eating period was con was coined by british egyptologists at the turn of the 20th century previous periods uh it was simply known as the hixos period and then in the early 20th century scholars began to call it the second intramural period because of the diversity realizing that pixels was just one of many key players we had the hixos the 14th dynasty which i think is an under uh an under uh study dynasty in the popular imagination of of egyptology in particular because if we mostly pay attention to the 15th dynasty and the uh and the uh the hixos right but their predecessors the 14th dynasty was also a canaanite dynasty an egyptianized canaanite dynasty that had been present in egypt for quite some time from the southern levant whereas the the 15th dynasty hixos were more from the northern northern region of uh of the labyrinth and so forth so those two particular dynasties being based at avarice 14th and 15th dynasty but they were not the only players of course the demons and then of course the cushite confederation of wolves and then all the polities of uh lower nubia or northern lubia in in in huawei um we we know about the the the 14 15 dynasties because of scarab sealed impressions um they were a particular importance for the study of the second intermediate period the production and use of royal scarab seals or impressions flourished under the 13th dynasty and then they were adopted by the rulers in the 14th and 15th dynasty um at avarice the study of the scarab typology became the primary means for establishing uh the chronological order of the avarice kings in particular one particular king during this period that interests me uh who who who was a king in the 14th dynasty who who took on the name nahesi whose mother was a kushite queen and whose father uh was a canaanite king so nehesi uh was the was the child of a diplomatic marriage between both kush uh and the canaan knight kings laura nubia and during the 14th dynasty at avarice uh the second intermediate period uh this particular king also uh erected monuments at average as well the direct intense relation between the kingdom of avarice and the rulers of cush so one of the things we see going on during the second intermittent period is that there is a diplomatic alliance between the kingdom of cush uh and both the 14th dynasty the canaanite dynasty as well as the 15th dynasty uh the hixos there is a diplomatic arrangement in other words they are working uh together uh uh especially for trade and commerce i and and i would imagine so because the the the uh the northern part of egypt of course provided access to the entire mediterranean world and so the cush the kush kush would have needed uh that relationship to move its goods uh and trade items into the mediterranean world and then vice versa uh uh the kings at avarice both the fourteen dynasty and the fifteenth dynasty exos would have needed cush for all of the trade routes that connect the nile valley to both the western sahel and sahara as well as across uh the red sea into uh the indian ocean diaspora and so forth and so these two kingdoms the northern kingdom of the hixos and the canaanite kings of the 14th dynasty in diplomatic alliance uh with kush the early second minute period i’m sorry forgive me direct and intense relationship between the rulers of cush and avarice at this time are mentioned in the stale of commerce of camosus and are tested by fines of lower egyptian pottery in karma cemeteries and in lower anubian fortresses this evidence is supported by seals with the names of asiatic rulers as well as uh avarice or canaanite designs found in karma context in nubia so what we see here is that there are there are as there’s archaeological evidence not only uh sources literary sources of archaeological evidence demonstrate the connections between the kingdoms at everest and the kingdoms of cush primarily seals average seals being discovered uh at karma so this is a map of the nile valley during the second intermediate period again we see uh even on this map it has the 15th dynasty hixos it completely does not mention the 14th dynasty of canaanites it mentions the 16th dynasty dynasty and then you see the kingdom of christians right these were the major polities and states during the second intermediate period and of course kush uh was the largest of the second intermediate states and certainly the most um influential and powerful at the time the image to the right is simply an image of the expulsion of the hixos because of the war that camosus would fight and then certainly his successors opmoses as well and the founding of the 18th dynasty ultimately pushes the 15th dynasty exos out of uh the nile valley so moses iii would come in and say well we have to we have to deal with kush too it’s not enough to control uh lower nubia we see the power of this state so to moses the third extends egyptian influence for the first time in nile valley history egypt extends its political influence and power and reign as far south as the fourth and fifth cataracts regions this occurs under most of the third during the new kingdom during the second intermediate period there are uh egyptian officials who were stationed um at the fortresses in lower nubia who during that time when kush takes control over lower nubia and the fortresses in that region these egyptian officials are now working and are in service of kush right so this particular stale of the official cop during the karma classic or classic kermit period 17 dynasty he says i was a valiant server servant of the ruler or heka of cush i wash my feet in the waters of cush in the following of the ruler of nejay i return safe and sound in my family too so here we have an example of an egyptian official who’s saying he is now working in service of the cushite king during this particular time why is it isn’t okay i’m just having a problem with uh for some reason i have just two more slides and uh it’s not moving forward try this again would you like to wrap up um just without use of the slides and then we can move on to questions yeah yeah that’s very strange that is strange um let me just i’m gonna try one more time or maybe i can just do it is that clear yeah that’ll do it’ll do i don’t want to go back to the full screen in may uh the staley of the commander of of buhen sepedhor again i was violent a violent commander of bruhen no previous commander has done what i have done i built a temple to horus lord of buhen to the satisfaction of the prince of kush so we see that these officials are now in service of cush um in lower nubia and upper egypt the famous uh carmosas staley um in this delay basically he’s saying look um we have to fight and free egypt in the north the xos are ruling us and in the south cush is ruling us of course i’m paraphrasing that’s not exactly what it says but i know we have to wrap it up and so in in this delay he’s basically saying that um these two powers have taken over egypt and their respective regions in the nile valley right and so we have to fight and resist them and so forth certainly the asiatics um but also nubia who’s in the who has a possession of egypt as well right so it’s clear that in the 17th dynasty uh nubia was a prominent power chris was a prominent power in the nile valley and then of course the famous commonwealth second staley where it alleges that he intercepted a letter from the king of the pixels of pepe um and in this letter the king of the hixos is asking the king of kush for assistance to fight against the thebans right and so what we have here uh again is an example of hixos and cushite collaboration um to maine power to maintain power in this particular uh letter and in the letter the the hixo’s king says come north come north do not hold back see he is here with me there is none who will stand up to you in egypt so the this representation is suggesting that uh push is formidable because the king of the hixos is saying that no one in egypt can stand up to you so come help us assist us i will not give him way out until you arrive then we shall divide the towns of egypt and kentucker shall be in joy thank you thank you so much dr fragi for that really interesting and um really informative presentation of your work um we have several questions that have come in from the audience if you would give us a few more moments to uh to answer some of them we’d appreciate it um so to just jump into the questions um one from a carl walsh is asking are the west african tumuli you mentioned similar in their construction techniques to the kerma tumuli and where have they been published yes um now again let me say this i can’t speak and make a blanket statement because there are there are thousands uh in mali and senegal and so and there are variations and not all of them were built during the same time period i think the earliest is 900 bce and then the late maybe the 11th century a.d and then they range from senegal to mali even to northern even to northern nigeria but two scholars that i mentioned are both africanist archaeologists kevin mcdonald and then susan uh mcintosh had has done some work i think in the early or mid 90s and so forth um this is just very uh when i discovered this is very exciting to me and it also told me one thing another thing as well is that africanist archaeologists we have to be in dialogue i know we have our disciplines but we compartmentalize our knowledge and disciplines so newbiologists and egyptologists aren’t talking to africanists in the advice and then vice versa um in uh and these west african sumili have been known about since let’s say by the western world i’ll say that by the western world since the 19th century uh when the french during during the colonial era colonizing west african creating french west africa and the upper volta they were very aware of these tunula and have begun to survey them and even excavate some of them as well that’s great i i really i want to echo that call for for more um communication and collaboration hopefully having things online like this and the increased connectivity now that we all have i mean due to the global pandemic maybe will actually help help with that and it might be one nice outcome okay lots of questions are coming in so let me just move on to the next one um christine astor from the uh the director of the archaeological research facility has um a couple of questions about um sort of subsistence and and cultural um practices and so um two i’ll just put them together um one is did they use musical instruments that we associate with this region today such as the ood and the quora and the other is if you can comment on nubian food ways and subsistence um are there they farmers along the nile or elsewhere and do they eat in the style of the um helium and or nilotic foods do they use ovens or griddles or both wow great great question some of it may be beyond my uh yeah my uh expertise um the the first question about musical instruments um and you she mentioned that i love the core by the way i love the the sound of that of that that instrument molly and cinegambia and so forth um i i’m not sure i know some of the similarities um monarchs monarchs were buried in these tumuli as the tumuli in the nile valley in karma they were also buried with their weaponry as in kurmakush they were also buried with insignia they are also buried with certain food items ceramics and so forth similar to uh karma kush as well um and then the over and then the structure of them are also um similar not identical because each region has its own topographical variations and so forth uh in terms of the food ways i really you know i really can’t speak directly directly to that beyond a more generalized level of the denial having an agricultural basis certainly but yet at the same time pastoral pastoral and nomadic lifestyles also coming in as well from uh from the west in these two uh lifestyles existing side by side in information of uh of karma kush i know the city of karma as early as 3500 bce you see this kind of proto-urbanization happening uh you know well before kerma in its heyday during the middle in classic karma periods and so forth so of course agriculture to support a city like the model i showed you all from the swiss expedition to support a city you had to be rooted in well for perhaps to find further information on those topics um someone actually asked can you recommend any um succinct readings for undergraduates on nile valley material culture especially connections to west african material culture wow uh i love what i was drawing on today came um from charles charles bonnet’s work for undergrads uh what else means so much of it is technical in terms of it’s still in the realm of you know archaeologists and so forth but charles bonnet charles bonet’s work um i have a colleague who just finished his phd at the university college of london ucl who wrote his dissertation on on this topic but he focused primarily on nigeria his name is dr andrew jaggs so his he’s done similar work um that that i can think of think of right off hand and then certainly i s you know i mentioned susan mcintosh and i mentioned kevin mcdonald’s work you may want to look at that my book uh the roots of newbie and christianity i spend far more time in detail on this topic as well i do have sections on my book that deal with this great thank you um gilda fernandinho has asked as i said thank you so much for your interesting talk and is asking about the ethno nubian according to the most recent studies of c riley the word derives from the neurotic word n-o-b uh found in erotic texts i don’t know if i said that correctly but um i guess that’s sort of more of a comment than a question if you wanna i mean certainly i mean you know i’ve i’ve met dr riley i’m familiar with his work um i’m i’m certain that that is plausible um i even suspect i mean just i’m a historian and then i focus on archaeology anthropology and some in some linguistic as well but i even suspect that although the word in terms of greek text shows up in the third century when we look at the material culture especially around the the funerary practices and the the burial practices of late antique nubia the nuba days in particular we see practices that extend back to the marowitic period and we also see practices that extend back to the kushite karma period as well so it could be that that particular term in greek text the the nuba or the nova is actually referring to uh the the same uh people who uh lived and existed in cush uh during um the kermit period as well as the marowitic period so what so what i’m saying is is maybe maybe it’s a different name for uh those people that that persisted from that time period and so uh riley’s work showing a meroidic origin i mean that that that sounds um you know plausible to me i really can’t comment it you know beyond that because i don’t specialize in the meroitic language but certainly that that sounds like that could be a plausible take on the origin of the word okay and um to wrap up one more question from from salon jashbi um who says i would love to hear more about the 14th dynasty king from avarice this multi-ethnic ruler needs to be better known yes yes he does um you know he he built you know i think he he in fact of the 14th dynasty kings the reason why he’s known is because he’s the only one that built you know modern monumental structures in the in the region of avarice um and certainly he he represents the diplomatic alliance between cush um and uh the canaanite kings in the 14th dynasty a very very interesting figure in fact i i mentioned that i think the 14th the 14th dynasty doesn’t get as much you know acknowledgement as the famous 15 dynasty of the hixos but i think it’s even more important but understanding egypt’s connection to the levant in particular those polities that from syria to uh uh jordan and everything else um in in between uh israel palestine and and so forth and so the 14th dynasty is very interesting um a very fascinating period uh and i think it explains um uh a lot i think it even explains some of what we see in in the biblical narrative as well um in terms of why there’s such a prominent role and i know that’s not my lecture that’s my colleague who will come later but why we see such a prominent valorization of cush in the hebrew bible cush is placed in the garden of eden in genesis chapter 2.

27:37 - moses is married to a cushite and then we see kushites being sought for refuge in chronicles and kings taharka is mentioned and and i think um um the 14th dynasty helps explain um a lot of that as opposed to just looking exclusively at the hixos in the 15th dynasty great thank you dr ferraji i’m afraid we’re out of time excuse me but i would like to uh thank you on behalf of the baade museum and the archaeological research facility uh both uh at pacific school religion and uc berkeley uh for sharing these new perspectives uh on on uh ancient kerma uh and ancient nubia uh and for uh kicking off this lecture series um thank you for your talk and for your time uh and we look forward to uh hearing further perspectives uh once a month uh all the way through june so on behalf of the berkeley community thank you very much and we look forward to uh further uh events uh in the future absolutely i i appreciate it thank you for the invitation and i’m looking forward to the the other lecturers as well in this series so great appreciate you all i’m hosting and organizing.