From c.3500 BC at least two important cultures emerged in Nubia. The first, the ‘A-group’ (so-called because it was the earliest culture found in Lower Nubia), was centred in Lower Nubia; and the other, the ‘Kerma’, was centred in Upper Nubia. The A-group people seem to have been middlemen in an ever increasing trade in raw materials flowing between Egypt and the distant south.
For unknown reasons, perhaps simply for empire, the earliest Egyptian kings seem to have been determined to conquer the ‘Land of the Bow’; at least five Egyptian military campaigns into Lower Nubia are recorded between c.3100 and c.2500 BC. The Egyptians moved into the area and established small fortified settlements at strategic points. One of these settlements was located at Buhen, north of the second cataract, where the Egyptians could meet Nubian merchants from the south and trade with them directly.
The site of Kerma, about ten miles (16.1 km) south of the third cataract, is known to have been the largest city in Sudan during the period c.2000 to c.1600 BC. Kerma was probably the capital of the first Nubian state to call itself ‘Kush’. This isolated but fertile region, between Sai Island and the fourth cataract, was ideally suited for independent development and state formation. A king achieving political power over this district could control river traffic between Egypt and the lands to the south – traffic from which he could collect tolls, receive gifts and amass great wealth.
During sixth dynasty Egypt a new people, the ‘C group’, pushed into Lower Nubia, apparently from the western desert. (A tentative ‘B-group’ has since been proved to have been nonexistent.) During the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians reoccupied Lower Nubia and built a chain of forts along the Nile between Aswan and the second cataract. But towards the end of the thirteenth dynasty Egypt had to withdraw from Nubia and the fortresses were occupied by Kush.
Leave a Reply