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.
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.
The Philae temple complex is an island-based temple complex in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt.
Qasr Ibrim is an archaeological site in Lower Nubia, located in the modern country of Egypt. The site has a long history of occupation, ranging from as early as the eighth century BC to AD 1813, and was an economic, political, and religious center. Originally it was a major city perched on a cliff above the Nile, but the flooding of Lake Nasser after the construction of the Aswan High Dam – with the related International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia – transformed it into an island and flooded its outskirts. Qasr Ibrim is the only major archaeological site in Lower Nubia to have survived the Aswan Dam floods. Both prior to and after the floods, it has remained a major site for archaeological investigations.
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 Blemmyes were an Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources from the 7th century BC until the 8th century AD. By the late 4th century, they had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state.
The terms African civilizations, also classical African civilizations, or African empires are terms that generally refer to the various pre-colonial African kingdoms. The civilizations usually include Egypt, Carthage, Axum, Numidia, and Nubia, but may also be extended to the prehistoric Land of Punt and others: Kingdom of Dagbon, the Empire of Ashanti, Kingdom of Kongo, Empire of Mali, Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Songhai Empire, the Garamantes the Empire of Ghana, Bono state, Harla Kingdom, Kingdom of Benin, Ife Empire and Oyo Empire.
The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, also known by its designation Philae 436 or GPH 436, is the last known ancient Egyptian inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, carved on 24 August 394 AD. The inscription, carved in the temple of Philae in southern Egypt, was created by a priest named Nesmeterakhem and consists of a carved figure of the god Mandulis as well an accompanying text wherein Nesmeterakhem hopes his inscription will last "for all time and eternity". The inscription also contains a text in the demotic script, with similar content.
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.
The Temple of Kalabsha is an ancient Egyptian temple that was originally located at Bab al-Kalabsha, approximately 50 km south of Aswan.
Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located Western Egypt, near the Libyan Desert remained the only oracle of Amun throughout. With the 11th Dynasty, Amun rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Montu.
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, or simply Kush, was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
The geographical region of ancient Nubia covers the area from the First Cataract at Aswan in the north, to the Blue and White Niles at Khartoum in the south, and adjacent deserts. The region includes the Nile Valley of lower Egypt and nowadays Sudan. The earliest history of Nubia dates to the Paleolithic period, and the civilization of ancient Nubia developed alongside ancient Egypt on the Nile valley. Both Egypt and Nubia are characterized by their distinct cultural identities and had lots of interactions—military, political, and commercial—throughout history. Prior to Roman contact, Kush had trade relations with Ptolemaic Egypt. The early interaction between Rome and the kingdom of Kush in Nubia was full of tensions and conflicts before Caesar Augustus established a peace treaty with Kush. Nubia thereby flourished for nearly three centuries through trade with Roman Egypt. Archaeological excavations and written accounts by Classical authors such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Diodorus are important sources of information about Roman relations with Nubia.
The Triakontaschoinos, Latinized as Triacontaschoenus, was a geographical and administrative term used in the Greco-Roman world for the part of Lower Nubia between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile, which formed a buffer zone between Egypt and later Rome on the one hand and Meroë on the other hand. The northern part of this area, stretching from the First Cataract south to Maharraqa, was known as the Dodekaschoinos or Dodecaschoenus. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods the Dodekaschoinos was often annexed to Egypt or controlled from it, and the rest of the Triakontaschoinos sometimes was as well.
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.
Yesebokheamani was the king (qore) of Kush in the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. He seems to have been the king who took control of the Dodecaschoenus after the Roman withdrawal in 298. This enabled him to make a personal visit to the temple of Isis at Philae.
Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile as well as the confluence of the blue and white Niles or, more strictly, Al Dabbah. Nubia was the seat of several civilizations of ancient Africa, including the Kerma culture, the kingdom of Kush, Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia.
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.
