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- The Archers of Kerma: Warrior Image and Birth of a State
Authors: Honegger; Matthieu
Abstract: A research programme conducted by the Swiss archaeological mission in the oldest sectors of the Eastern Cemetery of Kerma has uncovered the tombs of several dozen archers. The appearance of these armed warriors dating from ca. 2300 BC onwards can be put in parallel with the resumption of commercial activities between Egypt and Nubia, illustrated by the Harkhuf expeditions. The archers and their warrior attributes probably participate in the emergence of kingship ca. 2000 BC, which takes control of the commercial axis along the Nile and is illustrated by the accumulation of wealth and the development of servitude. This article proposes to describe these Kerma archers and then to look at the evolution of funerary rites that show in their own way how a social hierarchy emerges that will lead to the birth of a state, in this instance the kingdom of Kerma.
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- Preface by the Editor
Authors: Hafsaas; Henriette
Abstract: The aim of this thematic collection is to offer new insights on wars and violent conflict in the Sudan either as case-studies or as broader historical patterns.
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- The Art of Revolution: The Online and Offline Perception of Communication
during the Uprisings in Sudan in 2018 and 2019
Authors: Hajduga; Roksana
Abstract: The article deals with art from the Sudanese revolution in 2018 and 2019 (the December Revolution). The focus is on the most recognizable and widespread images from the uprising and their presence on the streets of Sudanese cities and social media. The article shows how freedom of expression exploded on the Sudanese streets after years of censorship, suppression, and violations of freedom of speech, media, and civil rights. Art and social media had significant roles in covering the uprising. Issues related to the importance and value of art in transmitting social discourse and dissent in a tightly controlled society are raised. These issues should be the subject of wider research on conflict and social media in Sudan. This article focuses only on a small part of this vast and important topic.
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- The Role of Warfare and Headhunting in Forming Ethnic Identity: Violent
Clashes between A-Group and Naqada Peoples in Lower Nubia (mid-4th
millennium BCE)
Authors: Hafsaas; Henriette
Abstract: This article reassesses the earliest cemeteries dating to the 4th millennium BCE in northern Lower Nubia. Remains from two cultural groups have been found in the region – native predecessors of the A-Group people and Naqada people arriving from Upper Egypt. The evidence presented suggests that Naqada people from the chiefdom at Hierakonpolis conducted a violent expansion into Lower Nubia in the mid-4th millennium BCE. The violent encounters with the natives are testified through evidence of interpersonal violence in five cemeteries of the predecessors of the A-Group people, young males buried with weapons in a Naqada cemetery in A-Group territory, and a settlement pattern shifting southwards. The author argues that the violence led to an ethnogenesis among the native population of northern Lower Nubia, and the ethnic boundary between the two groups became even more defined through headhunting provoking a schismogenesis. This case study provides new insights into warfare in ancient...
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- Words on Warfare from Christian Nubia
Authors: Tsakos; Alexandros
Abstract: This article is an attempt to assemble the vocabulary related to war found in Nubian written sources (primarily manuscripts) and discuss the insights it offers about warfare in Christian Nubia. All four languages used in medieval Nubia are examined, but the focus is on Old Nubian. Saint Epimachos, Saint Mercurios, Saint George, and the Archangel Michael are the personae around which pivot the narratives that offer insights into weapons, offices, and practices in the otherwise very scarcely documented military of Christian Nubia.
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- Gender as Frame of War in Ancient Nubia
Authors: Matić; Uroš
Abstract: Gender research in Sudan archaeology and Meroitic studies is a nascent field. Studies of gender are especially lacking in investigations concerning war and violence, which are usually written from an androcentric perspective, and often focus solely on soldiers, army, weaponry, and images of battles and enemies. The experiences of non-combatants in the context of war in ancient Nubia are rarely considered; nor is the gender background of war. This paper deals with gender structure in the lists of spoils of war, women and children as prisoners of war, feminization of enemies in royal texts, participation of royal women in war, and depictions of royal women smiting enemies. In gender as a frame of war, Kushite kings were represented as masculine and their enemies as feminine. This binary opposition has also been observed in ancient Egyptian and Neo-Assyrian sources, and was clearly a shared vocabulary of the great powers of the second and first millennium BCE. Such a frame of war...
PubDate: Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +000
- 'In the Bosoms of Abraham': A Christian Epitaph from Nubia in the Brooklyn
Museum
Authors: Zellmann-Rohrer; Michael
Abstract: First edition of a Christian epitaph in Greek of a woman, Timothea, brought by Henry J. Anderson to the United States in 1848 and now in the Brooklyn Museum. Analysis of the form and text of the monument allows its epigraphic context to be reconstructed, as part of a dispersed funerary assemblage of northern Nubia, including a distinctive textual formula wishing the deceased repose in the “bosoms of Abraham.”
PubDate: Tue, 9 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000
- An Obituary for George Pagoulatos
Authors: Tsakos; Alexandros
Abstract: An obituary for one of the most influential Greeks of Sudan whose contributions to Sudan archaeology and Nubian Studies have been priceless.
PubDate: Wed, 5 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000
- Booker T. Washington’s Challenge for Egyptology: African-Centered
Research in the Nile Valley
Authors: Davies; Vanessa
Abstract: In 1909, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted sent a letter to Booker T. Washington, along with a copy of an article Breasted had recently published in The Biblical World. To fully understand the short correspondence between the two scholars, this article delves into three related topics: Washington’s philosophy of industrial education and its complementarity with the educational program of his contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois; Washington’s prominent standing in educational, political, and social circles, including his professional relationship with the president of the University of Chicago William Rainey Harper and his advisory role to US president Theodore Roosevelt; and Breasted’s perspective on race and Egyptology. Washington, unlike Breasted, considered connections between ancient Nile Valley cultures and cultures elsewhere in Africa, a point of inquiry that has recently gained momentum in a variety of fields. In the correspondence between Washington and Breasted, we see demonstrations...
PubDate: Tue, 4 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000
- A Short Note on Queen Gaua: A New Last Known Ruler of Dotawo (r. around
1520-6)'
Authors: Simmons; Adam
Abstract: The Nubian Christian kingdom of Dotawo is attested in Old Nubian sources from the eleventh to the late fifteenth centuries. The reign of Dotawo’s last “king” is dated to the period between 1463 and 1483 (at least). This short note wishes to highlight another ruler, a Queen Gaua (or Jawe), who is mentioned by the Portuguese historian João de Barros in his imperial history entitled the Terceira Década da Ásia (“Third Decade of Asia”), published in 1563. Her reign can be dated to encompass the early 1520s and knowledge thereof challenges certain narratives regarding the latter period of Dotawo and this note poses questions for further research to explore regarding Christian Nubia in the sixteenth century.
PubDate: Tue, 4 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000
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