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Nubia
Term Paper ID:27818
Essay Subject:
History of Nubia as a country, & history of the populace is discussed. Past & present culture, & the manner of cultural evolution described. Also examined is disappearance, through assimilation, of Nubian culture because of Aswan Dam... More...
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Paper Abstract:
History of Nubia as a country, & history of the populace is discussed. Past & present culture, & the manner of cultural evolution described. Also examined is disappearance, through assimilation, of Nubian culture because of Aswan Dam
Paper Introduction:
Nubia is the name of a former African country now divided between Egypt and Sudan, and the name remains for the Nubian Desert South of Lake Nasser. Ancient Egypt was briefly ruled by Nubian kings in the 8th 7th centuries BC. The ancient Egyptians knew the north as Wawat and the south as Kush, with the dividing line roughly at Dongola. Egyptian building work in the area included temples at Abu Simbel, Philae, and a defensive chain of forts that established the lines of development of medieval fortification. Between about 600 BC AD 350, the capital of Nubia was Meroe, near Khartoum. About AD 250 550 most of Nubia was occupied by the X group people, of whom little is known; their royal mound tombs were mistaken by earlier investigations for natural mounds created by wind erosion and were excavated in the 1930s.
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Such dissatisfactions caused many of them to migrate to cities.Once the dam was completed, a handful returned to Nubia and establishedfarming villages along the shores of Lake Nasser. theregion took advantage of the disintegration of the Egyptian New Kingdom andbecame the independent kingdom of Kush. Contact between the Arabs and the Nubians predatedthe coming of Islam, but the arabization of the Nile Valley was a gradualprocess that took nearly 1, years to complete (Metz, 1991, 9). By the third millennium B.C.E.,contacts between the areas of the upper and lower Nile were established,and there was trade between Egyptian merchants and those of Nubia forivory, ebony, frankincense, and leopard skins. Those who resettledappear to have continued to follow this same pattern of working in town fora time. Migrants serve as intermediaries between rural and urbanEgypt and as agents of social change in the village. There is anthropological evidence that Africa may be thesite where human beings first evolved: It was in Africa that the first hominids appeared more than three million years ago. Lineages had acorporate identity with a recognized leadership pattern, and theindividual's closest social contacts were with his brothers and cousins.Different lineages vied for power and influence within the village, and theinterests of the lineage were frequently more important than the interestsof individuals. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992. The Christian kingdoms of ancient Nubia left behind a few superbmurals only recently rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam. New York: West Publishing, 1994.Keating, Rex. One of the reasons much is not known about the Kushitesis that they developed a phonetic script unrelated to Egyptianhieroglyphics, a script that has not yet been deciphered: This evocative land of Nubia has been described as the cockpit of the ancient world, the point of contact between the civilizations of the Mediterranean and the now lost early cultures of inner Africa. Individuals were expected to unite in the interests oftheir lineage against outsiders (Metz, 199 , 123-124). Until therevolution in Egypt in 1952, Nubia lacked strong political links with LowerEgypt but had persistent ties with the rest of Egypt. Africa is the largest of the continents after Asia. The lineages were controlled by elder males and were an integralforce in village life and politics, and families gained their identity notas autonomous entities but as part of their larger lineage. Nubian social structures are changing to match the larger society, andmodernization and increased education are hastening the change. Most lived in the cities,especially Cairo, Alexandria, and urban regions along the Suez Canal. Islam alsofostered political unity, economic growth, and educational developmentamong its adherents, but these benefits were restricted largely to urbanand commercial centers. The Nubians differ from their neighbors in a number of ways. Egypt: A Country Study. These are the successor kingdoms ofNubia, and they are first mentioned in accounts by Greek and Coptic authorsof the conversion of Nubian kings to Christianity in the sixth century. About AD 25 -55 most of Nubia was occupied by the X-grouppeople, of whom little is known; their royal mound tombs were mistaken byearlier investigations for natural mounds created by wind erosion and wereexcavated in the 193 s. The Nubians in the Sudan have maintained more of their traditionalsocial structure than those in Egypt simply becausetheir communities have been more stable, but many Nubians from Egypt havemoved to Sudan and brought with them different ideas and attitudes. The Nubians were not happy with their resettlement on a numberof grounds--they did not like the government-built, cement-block houseswhich were uncomfortable and vastly different in design from their oldhomes; their resettlement disrupted family ties and ignored historicalrivalries among the three Nubian ethnic groups; and the government forcedthe Nubian farmers to join agricultural cooperatives and pressured them tocultivate sugarcane, a crop that had not been part of their traditionalculture. (Duiker and Spielvogel, 1994, 229)Of course, Europe was aware of the kingdom in Egypt, but this was seen as athing of the past, a civilization that had faltered, and for that matterEgypt is not always considered part of Africa proper. The Nubian kings accepted the Monophysite Christianity practicedin Egypt and acknowledged the spiritual authority of the Coptic patriarchof Alexandria over the Nubian church. Sudan: A Country Study. This iscomposed of various families descended from a common male ancestor four tosix generations in the past. The Nubians occupy a large segment of the population in Sudan and avery small portion in Egypt, another reason why the Egyptian branch hasbeen fighting a losing battle with change. Spielvogel. In the mid-196 s, the building of the Aswan Highdam displaced some 35, to 5 , Nile Nubians from their homeland to anarea of resettlement at Khashm al Qirbah on the Atbarah River in what wasthen Kassala Province. TheWestern image of the continent is that it is filled with jungles and rainforests, but this is incorrect as only a small portion of the continent canbe so classified. Thegovernment effectively destroyed Nubia with the building of the Aswan HighDam, and water inundated the Nubian Valley. Thebasic unit of village organization was patrilineal or clans. TheNubian kingdoms would remain strong until the thirteenth century as theywere able to maintain political independence and their commitment toChristianity. Temporary migration in search of wage labor continued to be a part ofNubian culture, and all males between the ages of 18 and 45 are gone formuch of the year. They are Muslims, however, and the tradition oflearning in that community is adhered to by the Nubian Muslims. Nubian Twilight. Inthe past, these Nubians had lived in villages along the Nile from Aswansouthward to about 5 kilometers inside Sudan, but they were forced toresettle with the building of the Aswan Dam. In the early eighth century and in the tenth century, Nubiankings led armies into Egypt to force the release of the imprisoned Copticpatriarch and to relieve fellow Christians suffering persecution underMuslim rulers. TheChristian Nubian kingdoms survived for many centuries and achieved theirpeak of prosperity and military power in the ninth and tenth centuries.Muslim invaders in 64 posed a threat to the Christian Nubian kingdoms andhelped isolate the Nubian church from the rest of the Christian world(Metz, 1991, 8-9). Egyptian building workin the area included temples at Abu Simbel, Philae, and a defensive chainof forts that established the lines of development of medievalfortification. Little was known about Africa, which was called the Dark Continentbecause of the lack of knowledge of the place on the part of mostAmericans. Theyoung are socialized into the society in which the Nubians find themselvesliving more than into traditional Nubian society except in the villages.As more and more Nubians move into the towns and cities, their traditionalstructures disappear. They varied in size but were never very large. It wasa century later when Egypt was overrun by Muslim Arabs who thus cut offNubia from the rest of the Christian world for some 6 years (Davidson,1966, 39-4 ). The NubianValley had been geographically and politically isolated for centuries andwas only rarely under the control of any central government. It was in this regionwhere agriculture may have first appeared. Thisrepresents a major reversal in history, for there is growing evidence thatthe ancient Nubians had much to do with shaping Egyptian society, whereastoday Egypt has control over Nubian society within its borders. Nubian societyadapted to the long absences of these migrants, and complex kinship andproperty relations enabled men to leave and still take care of theirfamilies, guard their wives, and ensure the protection of their herds andcrops. After 1952, however, the central government increased its controlover Nubia, mostly by building schools and public health services. Ancient Egypt was briefly ruled by Nubian kings in the 8th-7thcenturies BC. TheChristian kingdoms of Nubia arose largely through the missionary enterpriseof monks from Constantinople. This kingdom would emerge as oneof the leading trading states in the area, and the discovery of iron orenear the river at Meroe only increased this trading position. This changed when in 1276 the Mamluks, an elite caste ofsoldier-administrators composed largely of Turkish, Kurdish, and Circassianslaves, intervened in a dynastic dispute and made Dunqulah a satellite ofEgypt (Metz, 1991, 11). The government resettled some5 , Nubians to 33 villages around Kawm Umbu north of the city of Aswan,and as compensation the government gave them new land and homes andprovided them with some financial support until their new holdings wereproductive. Still, nearly all sought tomaintain a link with their traditional homeland. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963.Metz, Helen Chapin. Because of theincreasingly important role of nonagricultural work in the Delta, manyvillages have found new occupations resulting in social cleavages. It is not clear how many Nubians remained in theNile Valley, and even before resettlement, many had left the valley forextended periods of time to work in the towns. Theyhave Arab blood, but they have preserved racial characteristics that arenon-Arab. The Egyptian contingent of Nubian society is primarily Muslim, and in199 there were some 19 , Nubians in Egypt. For Egyptians of the Valley and LowerEgypt, only known members of the lineage are accepted as kin. ReferencesDavidson, Basil. Nubia is the name of a former African country now divided betweenEgypt and Sudan, and the name remains for the Nubian Desert South of LakeNasser. The ancient Egyptians knew the north as Wawat and the southas Kush, with the dividing line roughly at Dongola. Both the cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals may have occurred first in Africa. Imperialists couldstill claim that there was no civilization on the rest of the DarkContinent. However, in spite of their knowledge of Arabic and their devotionto Islam, Nubians have retained a considerable self-consciousness and havetended to maintain tightly knit communities of their own in the towns(Metz, 1991, 74). African Kingdoms. Most ofthese communities are based on descent, although for long-settledterritories, the occupation of a common territory became increasinglyimportant. Scholarshave been rediscovering ancient Nubia even as contemporary Nubia has beendisappearing into the larger societies of which the Nubian people are apart. There are gaps in the archaeological record, but recent evidenceindicates that the first African kingdom may have been located in the areahistorically known as Nubia, an area south of Egypt. In time, Nubia became anEgyptian territory, but at the end of the second millennium B.C.E. The Nubianhomeland disappeared under the waters of Aswan Dam, and now the Nubianpeople are disappearing into the larger and more urban population of Egypt. One of the more important of these wasJulian, whose story has been told by another monk, John of Ephesus. While Kushite culture borrowed heavily from the Egyptian,historians were wrong in considering Kush as a mere tributary of theEgyptian empire. New York: Time-Life, 1966.Duiker, William J. Amissionary was supposedly sent to Nobatia by the Byzantine empress Theodorain 54 . Almost all the Nubians of the Nile speak Arabic as asecond language, and some near Dunqulah have been largely arabized and arereferred to as Dunqulah. Theopportunity to earn a living independent of their fathers has permitted mento exercise more freedom from traditional authority figures, and highereducation has provided upward mobility for substantial numbers of ruralchildren, leading to new social distinctions within the villages. Local ethnic communities remained the fundamental societies in ruralSudan into the early 199 s, whether they were fully settled, semi-sedentary, or nomadic. A hierarchy of bishops was named bythe Coptic patriarchs and directed the church's activities, wieldingconsiderable secular influence. There are also smallergroups speaking a related language and claiming a link with the NileNubians who have been given local names, such as the Birqid and the Meidabin Darfur State. The Nubian people of today are part of the Sudan and Egypt, and in theearly part of this decade the Nubians were the second most significantMuslim group in the Sudan. Since the nineteenthcentury, Nubian males have migrated to the cities of Lower Egypt to workfor several years at a time as merchants and wage laborers. and Jackson J. Between about 6 BC-AD 35 , the capital of Nubia was Meroe,near Khartoum. The educational system of Egypthas been the socializing force in Nubian communities since the 195 s. The church encouraged literacythroughout Nubia with clergy trained in Egypt, and the use of Greek inliturgy eventually gave way to the use of the Nubian language. It was in Africa that the immediate ancestors of modern human beings--Homo sapiens--emerged for the first time about 4 , B.C.E. The emergency ofChristianity reopened channels to the Mediterranean and renewed Nubia'scultural and ideological ties to Egypt. Their kinship structureis also different in that it goes beyond lineage, for they are divided intoclans and broader segments as well. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 199 .Metz, Helen Chapin. The nature of Nubian, or Sudanese, society was changed with the comingof Islam, which helped divide the country into north and south. A lineage inhabited a specific quarter of thevillage. The church sanctioned a sacerdotalkingship that confirmed the royal line's legitimacy, and in turn themonarch protected the interests of the church. They are tall and thin with Caucasoid features, but they are ofa much darker coloring than the average Egyptian. They have as their homeland the Nile Rivervalley in far northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Prior to that event, therewere three linguistically separate groups of Nubians in the region--theKenuzi in northern Nubia, the bedouin-descended Arabs in central Nubia, andthe Fadija-speaking people in southern Nubia near Abu Simbel. Certainly, one of the first states appeared in Africa, in the Nile valley in the northeastern corner of the continent, in the form of the kingdom of the pharaohs. Inthe north the Muslim religious orders were especially important. Descent groups remain varied in hierarchical arrangements sothat in some, the people were essentially equal while in others, variouslineages might hold power (Metz, 1991, 88). By the early 198 s theyhad constructed at least four villages, complete with traditional homes(Metz, 199 , 111-112). World History: Volume I. (Keating, 1963, 96) By the sixth century, three states had emerged as cultural heirs ofthe earlier Meriotic kingdom in northern Egypt--Nobatia in what is nowEgypt, Makuria, and Alwa or Alodia. Kush wouldbe a major commercial empire for several hundred years, providing goodsfrom Central and West Africa to Rome and its tributary states in theMediterranean.
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