Related Research Articles
The history of Sudan refers to both the territory of the Republic of the Sudan, including what became in 2011 the independent state of South Sudan. 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.
Nubians are an 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 other 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.
Kerma was the capital city of the Kerma culture, which was located in present-day Sudan at least 5,500 years ago. Kerma is one of the largest archaeological sites in ancient Nubia. It has produced decades of extensive excavations and research, including thousands of graves and tombs and the residential quarters of the main city surrounding the Western/Lower Deffufa.
Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with the name Menes also possibly used for one of these kings.
The Kerma culture or Kerma kingdom was an early civilization centered in Kerma, Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 BC to 1500 BC in ancient Nubia. The Kerma culture was based in the southern part of Nubia, or "Upper Nubia", and later extended its reach northward into Lower Nubia and the border of Egypt. The polity seems to have been one of a number of Nile Valley states during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. In the Kingdom of Kerma's latest phase, lasting from about 1700 to 1500 BC, it absorbed the Sudanese kingdom of Sai and became a sizable, populous empire rivaling Egypt. Around 1500 BC, it was absorbed into the New Kingdom of Egypt, but rebellions continued for centuries. By the eleventh century BC, the more-Egyptianized Kingdom of Kush emerged, possibly from Kerma, and regained the region's independence from Egypt.
The C-Group culture is an archaeological culture found in Lower Nubia, which dates from ca. 2400 BCE to ca. 1550 BCE. It was named by George A. Reisner. With no central site and no written evidence about what these people called themselves, Reisner assigned the culture a letter. The C-Group arose after Reisner's A-Group and B-Group cultures, and around the time the Old Kingdom was ending in Ancient Egypt.
Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030. Built on the banks of the Gash River, it is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens.
Jebel Sahaba is a prehistoric cemetery site in the Nile Valley, near the northern border of Sudan with Egypt in Northeast Africa. It is associated with the Qadan culture, dated to the Younger Dryas some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, with one skeleton having been radiocarbon dated to approximately 13,140–14,340 years ago. Newer apatite dates indicate that the site is at least 11,600 years old. It was discovered in 1964 by a team led by Fred Wendorf.
Agordat; also Akordat or Ak'ordat) is a city in Gash-Barka, Eritrea. It was the capital of the former Barka province, which was situated between the present-day Gash-Barka and Anseba regions.
The Badarian culture provides the earliest direct evidence of agriculture in Upper Egypt during the Predynastic Era. It flourished between 4400 and 4000 BC, and might have already emerged by 5000 BC.
The following is a chronicle of predynastic and ancient Egyptian foreign contacts up through 343 BC.
The A-Group culture was an ancient culture that flourished between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Nubia. It lasted from c. 3800 BC to c. 3100 BC.
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.
The Kingdom of Kush, also known as the Kushite Empire, was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Nubian Dynasty, the Kushite Empire, the Black Pharaohs, or the Napatans, after their capital Napata, was the last dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt that occurred after the Nubian invasion.
Abu Ballas is an archaeological site in the Libyan Desert of Egypt. It lies about 200 km (120 mi) south-west of the Dakhla Oases and consists of two isolated sandstone cones in the otherwise flat desert. Both hills are covered with Egyptian pottery. These vessels were at the beginning of the 20th century often well preserved, but are today - due to modern tourism - very much destroyed. The site was discovered in 1918 and 1923. More recent research was undertaken in the last years.
The Gash Group is a neolithic, prehistoric culture that flourished around 3000 to 1800 BC in Eritrea and the Eastern Sudan. It was followed by the Jebel Mokram Group. The name Gash relates to the river in Eritrea with the same name.
The Butana Group was a prehistoric, neolithic culture in the eastern part of modern Sudan, that flourished from the fourth to the early third millennium BC.
Black-topped pottery is a specialized type of Ancient Egyptian pottery that was found in Nubian archaeological sites, including Elephantine, an island on the Nile River, Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert, and Kerma in present-day Sudan. This type of artifact dates predominantly to the Predynastic Period, but “a handful of examples made in the Early Dynastic Period are known to exist.” These vessels were used “exclusively for ritual and funerary purposes” and were discovered in ancient cemeteries and settlements. The majority of these pots are variations of the Egyptian hes-jar form and feature red bodies with black tops and interiors. The red color is derived from the natural iron that occurs within Nile silts which oxidizes upon firing, and the black top and interior is a product of reduction firing and carbon smudging.
Esh Shaheinab is an African archaeological site that was occupied multiple times during the early Holocene. Artifacts from this site exemplify various traditions including the Early Khartoum, Neolithic, and Late Neolithic.
References
- ↑ Andrea Manzo: Eastern Sudan in its Setting, The archaeology of a region far from the Nile Valley, Archaeopress 2017, ISBN 9781784915582, 43-44 online
- ↑ Manzo: Eastern Sudan in its Setting,, p. 45
- ↑ Rodolfo Fattovich: The late prehistory of the Gash Delta (Eastern Sudan). in: Late Prehistory of the Nile Basin and the Sahara, Poznan 1989, 496
- ↑ Manzo: Eastern Sudan in its Setting,, p. 48
- ↑ Manzo, Andrea (2020). "Back to Mahal Teglinos: New Pharaonic Evidence from Eastern Sudan". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. SAGE Publications. 106 (1–2): 89–104. doi: 10.1177/0307513320966615 . ISSN 0307-5133.