Dongola Reach

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Physiographic zones corresponding to distinct Reaches in the Nile NileCataractReaches.jpg
Physiographic zones corresponding to distinct Reaches in the Nile

The Dongola Reach is a reach of approximately 160 km in length stretching from the Fourth downriver to the Third Cataracts of the Nile in Upper Nubia, Sudan. [1] Named after the Sudanese town of Dongola which dominates this part of the river, the reach was the heart of ancient Nubia. [2]

Contents

The Southern and the Northern Dongola Reach

The area where the Nile flows from the Fourth Cataract to the southwest making a great S-shaped bend following the structure of the Central African Shear Zone is the Southern Dongola Reach. The area where it flows northward out of the bend and through to the Third Cataract is the Northern Dongola Reach.

Geography

In the Dongola Reach the Nile is without any significant perennial tributary inputs. It passes over mostly sandstone and is flanked by wide alluvial flood plains. In the Southern Dongola Reach the Nile is joined by the extinct river systems of Wadi Abu Dom, Wadi Muqaddam, Wadi Howar and Wadi Al-Malik. The Northern Dongola Reach contains cultivable basins on the eastern side of the Nile valley floor such as the Kerma Basin, a large fertile flood plain traversed by a series of palaeochannels. [3]

History

The Dongola Reach contains archaeological material from numerous cultural groups from across the history of the Middle Nile region, including the Kerma culture, the Kingdom of Kush, and the medieval kingdom of Makuria. [4] The area of the Southern Dongola Reach served as a connection between the Red Sea in the east and Wadi Howar in the west, linking the Nile Valley with inner Africa. [5] Abundant archaeological sites belonging to different archaeological periods area lined on the banks of old Nile channels in the Northern Dongola Reach. [6] Affad 23 is an archaeological site located in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach in northern Sudan, [7] which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldest open-air hut in the world) and diverse hunting and gathering loci some 50,000 years old". [8] [9] [10]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Sudan</span>

The history of Sudan refers to the territory that today makes up Republic of the Sudan and the state of South Sudan, which became independent in 2011. The territory of Sudan is geographically part of a larger African region, also known by the term "Sudan". The term is derived from Arabic: بلاد السودان bilād as-sūdān, or "land of the black people", and has sometimes been used more widely referring to the Sahel belt of West and Central Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nubians</span> Ethnolinguistic group native to northern Sudan and southern Egypt

Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan speaking ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of civilization. In the southern valley of Egypt, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from Egyptians, although they intermarried with members of other ethnic groups, especially Arabs. They speak Nubian languages as a mother tongue, part of the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages, and Arabic as a second language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nubiology</span> Study of Ancient Nubia

Nubiology is the scientific study of ancient Nubia. The term was coined by Kazimierz Michałowski.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makuria</span> Medieval kingdom in Lower Nubia

Makuria was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Its capital was Dongola in the fertile Dongola Reach, and the kingdom is sometimes known by the name of its capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alodia</span> Medieval kingdom in Upper Nubia

Alodia, also known as Alwa, was a medieval kingdom in what is now central and southern Sudan. Its capital was the city of Soba, located near modern-day Khartoum at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.

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Old Dongola is a deserted town in what is now Northern State, Sudan, located on the east bank of the Nile opposite the Wadi Howar. An important city in medieval Nubia, and the departure point for caravans west to Darfur and Kordofan, from the fourth to the fourteenth century Old Dongola was the capital of the Makurian state. A Polish archaeological team has been excavating the town since 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lower Nubia</span> Northernmost part of Nubia

Lower Nubia is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern population, were relocated as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia; Qasr Ibrim is the only major archaeological site which was neither relocated nor submerged. The intensive archaeological work conducted prior to the flooding means that the history of the area is much better known than that of Upper Nubia. According to David Wengrow, the A-Group Nubian polity of the late 4th millenninum BCE is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser.

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Soba is an archaeological site and former town in what is now central Sudan. Three kingdoms existed in medieval Nubia: Nobadia with the capital in Faras, Makuria with the capital in Dongola, and Alodia (Alwa) with the capital in Soba. The latter used to be the capital of the medieval Nubian kingdom of Alodia from the sixth century until around 1500. E. A. Wallis Budge identified it with a group of ruins on the Blue Nile 19 kilometres (12 mi) from Khartoum, where there are remains of a Meroitic temple that had been converted into a Christian church.

The Kerma Basin is a fertile low-lying area just below the Third Cataract of the Nile in Northern State, Sudan. Extending over a distance of about 60 km it is a flood plain in the Dongola Reach creating the largest section of arable land between Aswan and the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. At maximum extent some 70,000 acres (283 km2) can be inundated by the annual Nile flood, but a more regular year sees only about half that. This has led to a high population density in history that has long made the Kerma Basin one of the central portions of Nubia. The ancient city of Kerma was in the basin. During that period the Nile ran in channels spaced across the basin floor, increasing the amount of arable land and promoting the emergence of developed societies like the Kingdom of Kerma.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nubia</span> Region in northern Sudan and southern Egypt

Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, or more strictly, Al Dabbah. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BC until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BC, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years. Nubia was home to several empires, most prominently the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its 25th Dynasty.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wadi Howar</span> River

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darb El Arba'īn</span> Trans-Saharan trade route

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References

  1. Geography of Nubia.
  2. Welsby, Derek A. (2001). Life on the Desert Edge: Seven Thousand Years of Settlement in the Northern Dongola Reach, Sudan. Sudan Archaeological Research Society Publication no. 7. ISBN   1-84171-264-7.
  3. Woodward, Jamie; et al. (2015). "Shifting sediment sources in the world's longest river: A strontium isotope record for the Holocene Nile". Quaternary Science Reviews. 130: 124–140. Bibcode:2015QSRv..130..124W. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.040.
  4. Welsby, Derek A.; Macklin, Mark G.; Woodward, Jamie C. (2002). "Human Responses to Holocene Environmental Changes in the Northern Dongola Reach of the Nile, Sudan". Egypt and Nubia. Gifts of the Desert. British Museum Press. ISBN   0-7141-1954-7.
  5. Żurawski, Bogdan (2003). "The Dongola Reach, The Southern Dongola Reach Survey Project" (PDF). Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean. Vol. XIV.
  6. Woodward, Jamie; Macklin, Mark G.; Krom, Michael D.; Williams, Martin (2007). "The Nile: Evolution, Quaternary River Environments and Material Fluxes". In Gupta, Avijit (ed.). Large Rivers: Geomorphology and Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. pp. 261–292. ISBN   978-0-470-84987-3.
  7. Osypiński, Piotr; Osypińska, Marta; Gautier, Achilles (2011). "Affad 23, a Late Middle Palaeolithic Site With Refitted Lithics and Animal Remains in the Southern Dongola Reach, Sudan". Journal of African Archaeology. 9 (2): 177–188. doi:10.3213/2191-5784-10186. ISSN   1612-1651. JSTOR   43135549. OCLC   7787802958. S2CID   161078189.
  8. Osypiński, Piotr (2020). "Unearthing Pan-African crossroad? Significance of the middle Nile valley in prehistory" (PDF). National Science Centre.
  9. Osypińska, Marta (2021). "Animals in the history of the Middle Nile" (PDF). From Faras to Soba: 60 years of Sudanese–Polish cooperation in saving the heritage of Sudan. Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology/University of Warsaw. p. 460. ISBN   978-83-953362-5-6. OCLC   1374884636.
  10. Osypińska, Marta; Osypiński, Piotr (2021). "Exploring the oldest huts and the first cattle keepers in Africa" (PDF). From Faras to Soba: 60 years of Sudanese–Polish cooperation in saving the heritage of Sudan. Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology/University of Warsaw. pp. 187–188. ISBN   978-83-953362-5-6. OCLC   1374884636.

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