C. The Emergence of the State: The A-Group and Pre-Kerma Periods: 3500-2500 B.C.

1. Lower Nubia's Mystery People: The "A-Group"

From about 3500 BC at least two important cultures emerged in Nubia that may suggest the existence of early states controlling major territories and trade routes. The first was centered in Lower Nubia, between the First and Second Cataracts, and the other was centered in Upper Nubia, between the Third and Fourth Cataracts. If there were others, we don't yet know. While these two seem to be related, they also differ in many respects, and yet there can be no doubt that they were in communication with one other, just as they were probably both in contact with Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt. Because of finds of central African products in contemporary Egyptian contexts, we can be sure that both of these early Nubian "kingdoms" had a hand in and benefitted from some sort of north-south Nile trade linking central Africa with Egypt.

The early Lower Nubian culture was discovered in 1907 by the famous Egyptologist George A. Reisner during his archaeological survey south of Aswan, which he undertook on behalf of the Egyptian Government just prior to the first raising of the Aswan Dam.

The people of this early Nubian culture used no writing, and none of the earliest Egyptian inscriptions (which appeared about 3200 B.C.) preserve their original name. (The Egyptian texts call Nubia only by an Egyptian name: "Land of the Bow"). Reisner thus called these people, known only by their grave goods, the "A-Group," since theirs was the earliest culture he had found in Lower Nubia. The name has been used by archaeologists ever since.

A-Group remains are quite distinct from those of contemporary Egypt, so there is good reason to suspect that the people differed from the Egyptians politically, linguistically and culturally, and perhaps ethnically. Their unmistakable objects have been found well distributed throughout Lower Nubia, from the Second Cataract north to Aswan, and a few of their objects have been found at Hierakonpolis, site of the earliest Egyptian capital in Upper Egypt. Although a few small and rather poor looking settlement sites were identified before the region was flooded forever by the Aswan High Dam, the A-Group people are known primarily from their much more prosperous looking cemeteries. Laid in pits beneath small mounds, the dead were arranged flexed, facing west. Obviously they had a strong belief in the afterlife, for the bodies were accompanied by elegant thin-walled painted pottery of their own manufacture, polished stone palettes for grinding eye cosmetics, mica mirrors, as well as a variety of luxury items imported from Egypt.

These included food jars, linen for clothing, copper tools, and small ornaments. Since Lower Nubia, agriculturally, was a poor land, and since at that time it had no recognized natural resources (gold being discovered somewhat later), we must wonder how there came to be so much Egyptian material in these graves. Oddly, very few A-Group products have ever been found in Egypt. It seems most likely that these people purchased their Egyptian goods directly from Egyptian river traders by using as barter raw materials they had obtained from further south in the Sudan. On the other hand, they might also have received their Egyptian goods from Egyptian shippers as tolls in exchange for allowing the Egyptians safe passage to Upper Nubia. In any case, about 3200 B.C. the A-Group people seem to have been middle-men in an ever increasing trade in exotic raw materials flowing between Egypt and the distant south.

In 1962, at a place called Qustul, about 180 miles (300 km) upriver from Aswan, a University of Chicago team, under the direction of Dr. Keith Seele, discovered a series of plundered, but still unusally rich, tombs containing massive quantities of Egyptian trade goods and luxury items. Since the rising floodwaters were advancing rapidly, the tombs were excavated hastily and the material put in storage. In the early 1980's, when he first examined the material prior to its final publication, Prehistorian Bruce B. Williams theorized that the tombs may have belonged to a dynasty of ten to twelve A-Group kings and that, like Upper and Lower Egypt at about the same time, Lower Nubia may also have developed a strong centralized authority. Two of the objects found in the tombs were sandstone incense burners, made of local stone, carved in intaglio with scenes that seemed to show ancient Egyptian kings, dressed in traditional tall crown (signifying rule over the south) and protected by the falcon god Horus. What made Williams' theory so controversial was that he proposed that the objects did not show early Egyptian kings but rather A-Group kings, and that the objects - and the A-Group kingship - were earlier by at least two centuries than the Egyptian kingship of the same form. He went on to suggest that this hypothetical Nubian kingship became the model for the later Egyptian. The argument was quickly seized by American Afrocentrists as proof that Egyptian-style kingship was not home-grown but was imported from central Africa, and that the report by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC that Egyptian civilization had derived from Nubia ("Aithiopia") was confirmed.

While Williams' theory was intriguing, it could never be proven or disproven absolutely because shortly after the clearing of the tombs all of Qustul had been flooded forever by the Aswan Dam and could not be reinvestigated. Given the large numbers of imported Egyptian goods in the tombs, one could also never be certain if the incense burners, too, were not simply Egyptian imports rather than Nubian products, as most would have assumed them to be. The fact that they were made of local stone seemed to confirm that they were Nubian, and many other objects and pottery vessels seemed to have a Sudanese origin. Williams' characterization of the tombs as belonging to a time "prior to any known Egyptian kingship" now has to be modified by the recent discovery at Abydos in Egypt of Egyptian royal artifacts that do indeed seem to reach back as far as the Qustul tombs (about 3400 BC).

For unknown reasons, perhaps in dispute with the A-Group rulers over commodity prices or control of trade routes, or in rivalry for empire, the earliest Egyptian pharaohs, as recorded in their brief inscriptions, seem to have been determined to conquer the "Land of the Bow." At least five Egyptian military campaigns into Lower Nubia are recorded between 3100 and 2500 BC. A text of the Fourth Dynasty king Sneferu (ca. 2575-2555 B.C.), for example, reports that the Egyptians carried away from Nubia seven thousand captives and 200,000 head of cattle. These conquests ultimately had the effect of eradicating all traces of the A-Group - at least in the archaaeological record - suggesting either that a large Nubian population went to Egypt, or that it was assimilated, or that it was driven some distance away from the river into the desert grasslands. This allowed the Egyptians to move into the area tentatively and to establish small fortified settlements at strategic points. One of these settlements was located at Buhen, at the approach to the Second Cataract, which was ideally situated as a trading station where Egyptian shippers from Aswan could meet Nubian merchants from the deep south and barter their goods directly with them.

2. Upper Nubia's First Kingdom? The Pre-Kerma Culture

The site of Kerma, about 10 miles (16.5 km) south of the Third Cataract, and about 350 miles (580 km) upstream (south) from Aswan, is known to have been that of the largest city in the Sudan during the period about 2000-1500 BC. Although we do not yet know its ancient name, Kerma was the probable capital of the first Nubian state to call itself Kush, and there is every reason to believe that this phase was the latest of a major town that had already existed here continuously for two or three thousand years. This isolated but highly fertile region of the Nile Valley, between Sai Island and the Fourth Cataract, was uniquely suited for human settlement, independent cultural evolution, and state formation. It was on a wide low-lying plain, which the Nile irrigated with multiple channels, creating many islands. In antiquity greater rainfall stimulated seasonal growth of grasses in the plains and enabled the residents to raise cattle on a grand scale. Whatever king could achieve political power over this district could control all river traffic between Egypt and the lands to the south - traffic from which he could collect tolls, receive gifts, and amass great wealth.

In 1986 the expedition of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, under the direction of Dr. Charles Bonnet, was excavating at the ancient city site of Kerma, which dates to about 2500-1500 BC. Beneath the cemetery of this city, about 1.5 mi (2.7 km) east of the Nile, they found ruins of a second, older town, dating from about 3500-2700 BC. This town is now called the "Pre-Kerma settlement" and its culture the "Pre-Kerma." Mixed with these remains were traces of an even older town, which have yielded carbon dates stretching back to about 4800 BC.

Between 1995 and 1998, 5000 sq. m. of the Pre-Kerma town were cleared, revealing part of a complex plan including the remains of some 50 round houses, which could be identified only by their surviving patterns of post holes. The average house plan was just over 13 ft. (3-3.5 m) in diameter, but several were over 23 ft.(7-7.5 m) in diameter, suggesting that they were used for important community functions or were occupied by important persons. Such houses are very similar to a type of rural African dwelling still used in the Sudan. These are round, with conical roofs, and were made of vertical posts and woven mats, sometimes covered by layers of mud plaster. It was the vertical posts whose holes survived in the ground. Some of the structures, however, were only 3-4 ft. ( 1 - 1.3 m) in diameter, suggesting their likely use as pens for young animals, such as one still sees today in the Sudan.

Two other buildings in the Pre-Kerma town were rectangular in plan. Comparing these with seemingly similar structures in use today by rural Sudanese nomads, we can suggest that they might have been elevated platforms used to store animal fodder. There were also double lines of holes, suggesting where fences had been built as animal corrals. The modern fences of the Sudanese nomads are built in exactly the same way.

Although no imported Egyptian pottery or other material has yet been found in the Pre-Kerma settlement, there seems little doubt that the ivory and other African products found in contemporary Egyptian sites were procured originally from the people of Upper Nubia. Such goods would also have passed through the hands of the A-Group Nubians. Rock drawings of very early ships of this period have been found scratched in the boulders of the Second and Third Cataracts, which would seem to prove that between 3500 and 2900 BC there was at least limited direct river traffic between Egypt and the northern Sudan. So little excavation has been carried out on sites of this period in Sudan that it would be dangerous to assume that the relative simplicity of the Pre-Kerma townsite was an accurate indication of the level of the political and cultural attainments of all of Upper Nubia. If there was a kingship in Lower Nubia during the mid-fourth millennium BC, it would not be far-fetched to assume that there was one of equal importance here as well. On Sai Island, about 100 mi (170 km) downstream from Kerma, another huge early town site has been identified by a French team from the University of Lille, under the direction of Dr. Francis Geus.

At Kerma about 2700 B.C. the Nile channel shifted suddenly to the west, and the Pre-Kerma settlement was abandoned. Closer to the river a new town was built, and it was this city that would ultimately become the capital of Upper Nubia.