F. Kerma, Kush and the First Nubian Empire (ca. 2000-1480 BC)

1. Egyptian-Nubian Relations 2200-1550 BC

Between the end of the Old Kingdom and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom (from ca. 2134-2040 BC), political turmoil in Egypt brought an end to trading expeditions like those of Harkhuf. At the same time, major political changes must also have taken place in Upper Nubia. The name "Yam" disappears in Egyptian texts and is replaced by the name "Kush," which the Egyptians regularly modified by an adjective meaning "vile" or "contemptible." The Yamites may have been friendly to Egypt; the Kushites, who replaced them, may have been much more menacing.

With the reunification of Egypt under the pharoahs of Dynasties 11 and 12 (ca. 2040-1783 BC), the Egyptians aggressively reoccupied Lower Nubia, penetrated to the head of the Second Cataract, and built a series of eleven impregnable fortresses along its desolate reaches. Each fort was defended by a massive mud brick wall system; this was surrounded by dry moats and walls with bastions and loopholes for archers. These structures served a number of purposes. One was to facilitate a massive trading operation with Upper Nubia by assisting and protecting shippers moving up or down the rapids, by providing safe havens and hostels for caravans travelling along the river, and by keeping potentially threatening peoples away. One of the most important purposes, however, must have been to display a strong defensive posture to the rulers of Kush to discourage them from attempting any sort of military moves to the north. These forts were all within signalling distance and were permanently garrisoned and well-supplied. They were given names that revealed their purpose: "Warding off the Bows," "Subduer of the Nubians (Nehesy)," "Curbing the Foreign Lands." At the southern limit of the Second Cataract, at a place called Semna, the Egyptians set up their official southern boundary marker.

About 1750 BC, Egypt again destabilized internally and withdrew from the Nile forts. In the north, a powerful people of Near Eastern origin moved in to occupy the Nile Delta; in Egyptian history they are known as the "Hyksos" (from Egyptian words which meant "Princes of Foreign Lands"), and they established two consecutive dynasties, the 15th and 16th. For a century they considered the Egyptian princes of Thebes their vassals. When the Theban ruler Kamose (ca. 1555-1550 BC) came to the throne of the south, the reigning Hyksos king conspired with the king of Kush to divide up Kamose's kingdom between them. This knowledge stirred the Thebans, first, to drive the Hyksos out of Egypt, which they did in a series of actions during the reign of Kamose's successor Ahmose I (ca. 1550-1525 BC), founder of Dynasty 18. Second, it encouraged them to invade Nubia and to destroy the kingdom of Kush, which had by then siezed all of the Nile Valley northwards to Aswan itself. The plan adopted by the new pharaohs was to invade Kush, annex its territory to Egypt, govern it directly, and sieze control of the Africa trade. This proved to be a much more complex task than expelling the Hyksos, for Kush was not completely subdued until the reign of Thutmose III (ca. 1479-1425 BC).

2. Kerma, the First Nubian City

Only one archaeological site in the Sudan fits all the criteria for having been the capital of the first kingdom of Kush. This is the site called Kerma, after the modern Sudanese village that occupies its site. Its ancient name remains unknown because no inscriptions have yet been found there that preserve it. The Nubians of this period still did not normally use writing, although some people, who did business with the Egyptians, may have learned hieroglyphic writing. Kerma lies just about 10 miles (16.5 km) south of the Third Cataract, on the east bank of the Nile, and about 170 miles (266 km) upstream from the nearest Egyptian fort. The first excavations were conducted by George A. Reisner and his team from Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, between 1913 and 1915. Since 1973, excavations have been continued annually by Charles Bonnet and his team from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Kerma consisted of a central city, surrounded by a series of defensive walls and moats. This incorporated a palace and a religious sanctuary and about 200 houses. The palace itself evolved from a large round building, about 12 m (40 ft.) in diameter, to a rectangular structure over four times as large. Originally the houses were round, as in the "pre-Kerma" settlement; later, like the palace, they were rectangular, perhaps under Egytian influence. Outside the walls were other heavily populated areas, still poorly known, as well as an area of small temples apparently dedicated to the worship of deceased kings. Along the riverbank were dockyards and warehouses. An enormous cemetery lay about 2 mi (3 km) to the east.

The main feature of the town was a large solid brick platform which in its latest phase stood about 60 ft (18 m), high and measured about 170 x 85 ft (52 x 25.8 m). This building is known as the "Western Deffufa" (after an old Nubian word for a mud brick structure) in order to distinguish it from the "Eastern Deffufa," a similarly sized but lower brick building that rises in the cemetery. It is now known that these buildings were temples. The Western Deffufa was a huge brick platform on top of which there was probably a small shrine or object of worship. The "Eastern Deffufa" was associated with the worship or preparation for burial of the dead kings.

3. The Kerma Cemetery and the Burial Customs of Early Kush

East of Kerma, in what is now the desert, lies its cemetery, which at the end of its existence (about 1480 BC) had grown to be about a mile (1.6 km) long, north to south, and about half a mile (.8 km) wide at its greatest width. It is estimated to contain over 30,000 graves, the oldest located at its northern end and the latest at its southern. The graves take the form of low tumuli covered or ringed with hundreds or thousands of white or black desert pebbles.

The southern border of the cemetery is distinguished by dozens of enormous mounds, four of which are about 300 ft. (90 m) in diameter. These belonged to the most powerful kings of Kerma during the last century of the city's existence. They are clustered around the remains of the large brick building known as the "Eastern Deffufa," thought to have been a funerary chapel connected with the royal tombs. All across the cemetery smaller graves seem to cluster around larger graves, which undoubtedly belonged to those of the highest rank.

The Kerma burial customs are unique, and their features remain quite constant throughout the site's history, suggesting a strong cultural continuity and religious faith. The dead were always interred in round or oval pits, four to five feet (1.5 m) deep, with food offerings and their belongings. The bodies were always flexed, lying on their right sides, their hands in front of their faces, their feet toward the west and their heads toward the east, looking north. This position was unchanging. Initially, the dead were laid on cowhides, but later they were laid on wooden beds, as if sleeping. The body was then covered with a cowhide, and the grave filled in. In later periods the graves normally contain several other skeletons, which can only have been human sacrifices. Many people were also buried with their pet dogs (In Egyptian tomb scenes and in their grave stelae, Nubian soldiers are almost always shown with their dogs, suggesting their fondness for these animals). After filling, the graves were covered with low mounds often decoratively covered with smooth white or black desert pebbles

4. The Royal Burials at Kerma

The three largest royal tombs in the cemetery lie in a row at its southern end. They were mounds approximately 300 ft. (90 m) in diameter and 10 to 13 ft (3 to 4 m) high. Beneath the surface each had a complex internal structure of mud-brick rib walls, built to hold a sand fill and to prevent the sand - and the mound - from blowing away. On this foundation, in the center of the mound, they built a small vaulted chamber. Connected to it was a walled corridor that ran the full diameter of the tomb. The small chamber housed the king's body and his most treasured possessions. It had wooden doors and a vaulted roof; and its plastered walls preserved fragments of wall paintings. Unfortunately, all the kings' chambers had been badly looted in ancient times, but it is known that their bodies were laid on magnificent beds with stone legs and were accompanied by large stone models of ships, which were perhaps believed to carry them on the river of the afterlife.

Previously the dead kings at Kerma had been buried in sand, but the idea of a vaulted roofed burial chamber was new here and seems to have been an Egyptian inspiration. The vault was a novelty in Nubia, but it already had been in use in Egypt for over a thousand years. The corridor in each tomb, which always ran from east to west, contained the bodies of dozens or in one case hundreds sacrificed people- in one case over 300. Some were men, who had obviously comprised the king's personal bodyguard; others were adult women and adolescent girls, all dressed in their finest garments and jewels, and others were children. In each tomb the ruler's entire household of servants and subordinate wives seems to have been buried with him.

After the royal burials were completed and the huge mounds were heaped over them, they were covered with pavements made of millions of white or black pebbles. Up to a thousand cattle were slaughtered, and their skulls were arranged around the southern perimeters of the mounds. Then an enormous white marble monolith, weighing up to ten tons, was set on the top of the mound as a monument. But this did not end the ceremony: over the years to follow, numerous subsidiary tomb pits were sunk in the surface of each great mound. These burials, many quite rich and containing multiple human sacrifices, were obviously those of persons of high rank who had been close to the dead king. Their loyalty to their lord, and their desire to remain forever by his side, obviously dictated their choice to be buried beside him.