Nubia

Pyramids of Meroë.

Nubia (fl. -2000 to +1500) was the country just south of Ancient Egypt. The Greeks and Romans and the King James Bible called it Ethiopia – a name later hijacked in the 1930s by Abyssinia, a completely different country to the south-east. Nubia is also known as Cush, the Kushite Kingdom, or called Meroitic, etc. All the same place. The Nubians are still there, outnumbered, their Christian kingdoms taken over by Arabs starting in the 1300s.

• When: the years -2000 to +1500.
• Where: southern Egypt and northern Sudan along the Nile, from the Aswan dam to Khartoum – from the First Cataract of the Nile to where it splits into the Blue and White Nile (from about 24°, just north of the Tropic of Cancer, to 15° N).
• Population: about 1 million in the year 200.
• Major cities: through time:
  • -2500 to -1500: Kerma – one of the oldest cities in Africa
  • -1500 to -500: Napata
  • -500 to +350: Meroë
  • +350 to +1300: Faras, Dongola, Soba.
• Languages: Nubian, a Nilo-Saharan language, in an undeciphered Meroitic script from about -300 to +450.
• Religions: ancient Egyptian gods, especially Amun, along with local gods. From the 500s  to 1300s, mainly Coptic Christianity. Most Nubians are now Muslim.
• Currency: ???
• Economy: gold mines – “Nubia” comes from the Egyptian word for gold. Also copper, ebony and ivory, slaves, ostrich feathers, carnelian, jasper, amethyst, etc. Nubia lies where caravan routes cross the Nile. Raised cows, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys. Nubia is now mostly desert but back then it had rolling hills of grass. Irrigation through waterwheels. Grew sorghum, barley, wheat, lentils, etc. Cotton after about -400, iron in quantity after -300, camels after -100. Known for its pottery.
• Famous sons and daughters:
  • Greek mythology: Andromeda.
  • Bible: Moses’ Ethopian wife (Numbers 12:1), Zerah (2 Chronicles 14:9), King Tirhakah (2 Kings 19:9, Isaiah 37:9), Queen Candace and her treasurer the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:27). “Candace” probably just meant something like “queen mother”.
  • Egyptian history: the 25th dynasty  – King Tirhakah and such. Ruled Egypt, in whole or part, from about -728 to -593, the time of the prophet Isaiah and King Hezekiah of Judah. Loses to Assyria due to lack of iron weapons.
  • Roman history: Candace Amanirenas.

Queen Malakaye, -600s.

Frederick Douglass:

“while the Briton and the Gallic races wandered like beasts of prey in the forests, the people of Egypt and Ethiopia rejoiced in well cultivated fields and in abundance of corn.”

Herodotus:

“As between the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, I should not like to say which learned from the other.”

Nubia and Egypt: It seems they sprang from a common culture that existed before -3000 along the Nile from about the middle of Egypt to northern Sudan. From -3000 to -1500, Nubia became a backwaters relative to Egypt, presumably because of its six cataracts – rocky parts of the Nile where ships cannot easily pass. But it became Egyptianized from about -1500 to -1100 – so much so that by the -700s it was taking over Egypt in the name of traditional Egyptian culture!

The Greece of Africa: Just as Greece spread Egyptian ideas to the rest of Europe, so Nubia did the same for Africa. Its iron technology (but not writing!) spread west quickly along the Sahelian grasslands south of the Sahara, helping to set off the Bantu Expansion.

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• Africa: the last 13,000 years – Nilo-Saharans and such. Nubia is in the zone of summer rains.
  • Bantu Expansion
• The term “Ethiopia”
• Herodotus
  • Black people according to Herodotus
• Ancient Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt according to Chancellor Williams
• Diop: Contribution of Ethiopia-Nubia and Egypt
• Amun
• The map of Black people – 83% of  Nubians belong to haplogroup L.

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