Kulb

Last updated July 15, 2024

Kulb is a village on the Nile in northern Sudan. It has been inhabited since the time of the Christian kingdom of Makuria. Until the 15th century, it was in a remote area, serving as a retreat for Christians in Nubia. The domed Kulubnarti church, 21-S-1, is the only known example of a Christian center plan building in Lower Nubia.

Geography

Kulb is located about 130 kilometres (81 mi) south of Wadi Halfa. It sits just north of the Dal Cataract, which is situated between the 2nd and 3rd cataracts. There are two districts, one on the left (west) and another on the right (east) banks of the Nile, called Kulb West and East Kulb accordingly. Between them lies the 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) long island of Kulubnarti. Kulb is situated in the stony Batn-El-Hajar region, and is characterized as being a craggy and barren rocky area.

History

In ancient Egyptian times, Kulb was the southernmost point for metal miners who searched for copper ore and gold for the Pharaohs. During the 4th and 5th Dynasties of Egypt, the Ancient Egyptians quarried from the northern Wadi Allaqi large amounts of copper,^[1] leaving rock inscriptions naming Kulb by two officials, "Overseer of the metal detector" (LMY-r smntyw) and a "scribe of the metal detector" (SŠ smntyw). They were apparently responsible for the collection of gold, as their titles indicate that the search for raw materials in Nubia was organized as a state enterprise.^[2] From the Roman period, the granite mountains of the Batn-El-Hajar separated the area culturally from the Egyptian influenced Upper Nubia. Kulubnarti has been inhabited since about 1100 AD. It was used until the end of the Christian kingdom of Makuria as a retreat for Christians in Nubia. A fortress on the island may have existed even before that time.^[3]

Excavations

The first sketches of the domed church were made in the beginning of the 20th century by the English Egyptologist Somers Clarke, who published his findings in 1912 in Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley. The domed church was excavated in early 1968 under the direction of James Knudstad. In March 1964, the island was examined and surveyed by Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Erich Dinkler, Peter Grossman, and other members of the German Archaeological Institute Cairo. In 1969 and 1979, William Adams Yewdale led the University of Kentucky team in extensive excavations on the island and on the adjacent mainland. In January–February 1967, Dinkler and Grossman excavated in the southern area of the Batn-El-Hajar. This was followed in the years 1968 and 1969 with two excavation campaigns at Kulb, and on the two northern islands of Sunnarti and Turmuki. It was during this excavation that the perimeter wall of the Kulb fort and some building remains were located. Excavations in the area of research showed evidence of prehistoric culture of the A-group to the Islamic period.

Related Research Articles

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.

Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological digs on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979, along with other examples of Upper Egyptian architecture, as part of the "Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae".

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.

Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.

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.

The Kingdom of Kerma or the Kerma culture 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.

Faras was a major city in Lower Nubia. The site of the city, on the border between modern Egypt and Sudan at Wadi Halfa Salient, was flooded by Lake Nasser in the 1960s and is now permanently underwater. Before this flooding, extensive archaeological work was conducted by a Polish archaeological team led by professor Kazimierz Michałowski.

Nobatia or Nobadia was a late antique kingdom in Lower Nubia. Together with the two other Nubian kingdoms, Makuria and Alodia, it succeeded the kingdom of Kush. After its establishment in around 400, Nobadia gradually expanded by defeating the Blemmyes in the north and incorporating the territory between the second and third Nile cataract in the south. In 543, it converted to Coptic Christianity. It would then be annexed by Makuria, under unknown circumstances, during the 7th century.

The National Museum of Sudan or Sudan National Museum, abbreviated SNM, is a two-story building, constructed in 1955 and established as national museum in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semna (Nubia)</span>

The region of Semna is 15 miles south of Wadi Halfa and is situated where rocks cross the Nile narrowing its flow—the Semna Cataract.

Uronarti, a Nubian word meaning "Island of the King", is an island in the Nile just south of the Second Cataract in the north of Sudan. The primary importance of the island lies in the massive ancient fortress that still stands on its northern end. This fortress is one of a number constructed along the Nile in Lower Nubia during the Middle Kingdom, primarily by the rulers Senusret I and Senusret III.

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.

Kulubnarti is a 1 mile (1.6 km) long island in northern Sudan. Located on the Nile, around 100 miles (160 km) south of the Egyptian border, it is part of the village of Kulb.

The Kulubnarti church is an archaeological site and former Christian church located on the island of Kulubnarti, in the village of Kulb in northern Sudan. The island is situated between the 2nd and 3rd cataracts of the Nile, about 120 kilometres (75 mi) southwest of Wadi Halfa, in the Batn-El-Hajar region.

Meinarti was an island with a Nubian village in northern Sudan. Situated in the Nile, Meinarti was just north of the 2nd Cataract, a few kilometers upstream of the Sudanese border town of Wadi Halfa. On the island was an artificial mount 175m long and 12.5m high, consisting of stratified archaeological remains. When excavated it proved to contain 18 recognizable levels, the result of six separate and distinct phases of occupation. Each phase was followed by a period of abandonment and then a complete rebuilding. Structural remains at all phases were entirely of mud brick. Meinarti was excavated by William Yewdale Adams from 1962 to 1964, prior to perishing in the 1960s with the rising of Lake Nubia due to the Aswan Dam.

Stefan Karol Jakobielski is a Polish historian, archaeologist, philologist, epigraphist. One of the pioneers of nubiology. He participated in archaeological research in Faras, Tell Atrib, Palmyra, Deir el-Bahari and Qasr Ibrim; directed the archaeological works at Old Dongola.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dongola Reach</span>

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. Named after the Sudanese town of Dongola which dominates this part of the river, the reach was the heart of ancient Nubia.

The Bible was translated into Old Nubian during the period when Christianity was dominant in Nubia. Throughout the Middle Ages, Nubia was divided into separate kingdoms: Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia. Old Nubian was the standard written form in all three kingdoms. Of the living Nubian languages, it is modern Nobiin which is the closest to Old Nubian and probably its direct descendant.

The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia was the relocation of 22 monuments in Lower Nubia, in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan, between 1960 and 1980. This was done in order to make way for the building of the Aswan Dam, at the Nile's first cataract which was a necessary infrastructure project following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution. This project was undertaken under UNESCO leadership and a coalition of 50 countries. This process led to the creation of the World Heritage Convention in 1972, and thus the system of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Gebel Adda was a mountain and archaeological site on the right bank of the Nubian Nile in what is now southern Egypt. The settlement on its crest was continuously inhabited from the late Meroitic period to the Ottoman period, when it was abandoned by the late 18th century. It reached its greatest prominence in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it seemed to have been the capital of late kingdom of Makuria. The site was superficially excavated by the American Research Center in Egypt just before being flooded by Lake Nasser in the 1960s, with much of the remaining excavated material, now stored in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, remaining unpublished. Unearthed were Meroitic inscriptions, Old Nubian documents, a large amount of leatherwork, two palatial structures and several churches, some of them with their paintings still intact. The nearby ancient Egyptian rock temple of Horemheb, also known as temple of Abu Oda, was rescued and relocated.

References

Deichmann, Friedrich Wilhelm & Grossmann, Peter: Nubische Forschungen. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-7861-1512-5 (Archäologische Forschungen 17). (German language)
Dinkler, Erich: "West German Excavations at Kulb in 1969". In: Nubian Letters. 5, August 1985, ISSN 0921-8270, S. 10–18.
Dinkler, Erich: "Die deutschen Ausgrabungen auf den Inseln Tangur, Sunnarti und in Kulb". In: Erich Dinkler (Hrsg.): Kunst und Geschichte Nubiens in Christlicher Zeit. Ergebnisse und Probleme auf Grund der jüngsten Ausgrabungen. Bongers, Recklinghausen 1970, ISBN 3-7647-0216-8, S. 259–280. (German language)

↑ Kamil, Jill (1996). The Ancient Egyptians. Life in the Old Kingdom. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. p. 123. ISBN 977-424-392-7.
↑ Peden, Alexander J.; Peden, Alison (2001). The Graffiti of Pharaonic Egypt. Scope and Roles of Informal Writings (C. 3100–332 B.C.). Probleme der Ägyptologie 17. Leiden: Brill. p. 12. ISBN 90-04-12112-9.
↑ Nasir, Malik en. "Survey of the Christian Monuments in Nubia and the Northern Sudan". German Archaeological Institute Cairo.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

21°03′58″N30°39′43″E / 21.066111°N 30.661944°E / 21.066111; 30.661944

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Kamil1996-1] Kamil, Jill (1996). The Ancient Egyptians. Life in the Old Kingdom. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. p. 123. ISBN 977-424-392-7.

[PedenPeden2001-2] Peden, Alexander J.; Peden, Alison (2001). The Graffiti of Pharaonic Egypt. Scope and Roles of Informal Writings (C. 3100–332 B.C.). Probleme der Ägyptologie 17. Leiden: Brill. p. 12. ISBN 90-04-12112-9.

[Nasir-3] Nasir, Malik en. "Survey of the Christian Monuments in Nubia and the Northern Sudan". German Archaeological Institute Cairo.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[1]

[2]

[3]