TERRITORY AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE NILE VALLEY 1000 BC - AD 1500

1. Introduction

The subject-oriented arrangement of sessions at this Nubian Studies conference is a

welcome departure from the straightjacket of the chronology-driven discussions

characterizing past gatherings of Nubiologists. Francis Geus and I have been asked to

discuss the subject of "territory" in the "Nile Valley" and "Nubia", respectively. Since the

two areas substantially overlap we decided to concentrate on the same geographical zone,

namely the Middle Nile Valley but during different time periods.The purpose of this

particular paper is to present an overview of the study of large units (territories) in the

Nile Valley area between Aswan and the Sudan-Ethiopia border between 1000 BC and AD

1500. Regional scale research is quite common in Nubia, in striking contrast to Egypt,

where emphasis is clearly placed on the site-centred projects. In fact the regional scale field

work lies at the very heart of Nubiology and it was through a series of archaeological

surveys that the ancient cultures of Nubia were identified and the entire discipline came

into being. It is not my purpose, however, to discuss the survey as the means of

archaeological research as this has been already dealt with at the Geneva Conference

(Caneva and Marks 1992) and in an article by Garcea and Sebastiani (1998). Neither do I

intend to list or produce a map showing all the post-New Kingdom sites discovered by the

survey projects. Such maps and lists already exist in the works of Trigger (1965), Vila

(1975-1982), Edwards (1989), Welsby (2001) and others, and there is an even longer list of

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as yet unpublished sites, especially those discovered during the last field campaign.

Moreover, an exhaustive list of sites has already been compiled by F.W. Hinkel and we

must simply await the publication of the Archaeological Map of the Sudan. Rather, the

purpose of this paper is to examine the regional scale research in the Middle Nile Valley

within the context of historical development of archaeology of Nubia and in light of the

new advancements in archaeological methods and theory in general.

2. Territory, region, landscape

Territory is usually defined as a geographical area representing a political, administrative

or natural unit. The synonyms listed in various English dictionaries include terms such as

region, district, kingdom, state, province. In French dictionaries one would find

expressions such as arrondissement, commune, district, йtat, pays, rйgion, domaine espace as

synonyms of territoire. Clearly it is the concept of space that is the common denominator

shared by all these words. In terms of archaeological research this spatial aspect has a long

and distinguished history. It is perhaps best known from the British archaeological

tradition where John Aubrey (b.1626) is seen as the founder of field archaeology meant as

surficial, regional study, as opposed to excavations. Aubrey's unpublished Monumenta

Britannica held in the Bodleian Library provided the detailed description of ancient sites in

Britain and attempted at the reconstruction of past environments (Ashbee 1972:47). This

British tradition of regional and spatial studies involving the non-destructive field surveys

received a major boost through the novel approaches of O.G.S. Crawford who combined

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the purpose-made air photography with actual fieldwork (Ashbee 1972:61-62). Crawford's

pioneering work extended, of course, to the Sudan with his important publications of the

Funj and the sites of the Middle Nile region, although in this case, aerial photography did

not play a major role (Crawford 1951; 1953). This regional-scale research was carried out

in two different, but related, ways: by means of spatial studies (spatial archaeology) and

as regional (or landscape) archaeology. The former, whose best known proponent was

David Clarke (Clarke 1977), was concerned predominantly with the use of spatial

information in archaeology in general. This ranged from a spatial analysis on the micro-

level, beginning with an individual structure such as a house or even a room, all the way to

the macro scale involving urban landscape and regional study. A classic work involving

this type of spatial analysis, drawing both on the British tradition and the American

interest in settlement patterns, was Kent Flannery's 1976 The Early Mesoamerican Village.

This kind of research was also heavily influenced by the New Archaeology and its emphasis

on sampling techniques and statistical studies. The second line of research, namely the

regional study, was more oriented towards empirical analysis. Here the emphasis was

placed on regional survey, extensive fieldwalking, study of the historical geography and the

natural environment. From among many practitioners of this type of archaeology, a group

of researchers from the University of Leicester became most influential and Graeme

Barker, in particular, became the best known proponent of this approach, perhaps

because of his many publications and the fact that he worked not only in Britain but also

in Libya and Italy. Clarke, Flannery and Barker were, in turn, strongly influenced by

Vita-Finzi and Higgs's (1970) concept of the Site Catchment Analysis (SCA). The site

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catchment analysis is primarily concerned with the study of the resource potential within a

spatial context easily accessible to the occupants of the area. Higgs and Vita-Finzi's work

was inspired by both the new developments in geography exemplified in Haggett's

groundbreaking Locational Analysis in Human Geography (Haggett 1965) and by

Chisholm's work on settlements and land use (Chisholm 1968), although the ultimate roots

of the SCA go back to von Thьnen's law of diminishing returns with distance presented in

his 1826 book Der isolierte Staat (see Hodges 1987:119; Clarke 1977:21-22). As Walsh

(1999:1) has pointed out, the SCA concept had enormous impact on field archaeology in

the Mediterranean. This does not seem to be the case in the archaeology of the post-New

Kingdom Nubia, perhaps with the exception of K. A. Ahmed (1984:85-86). Another model

originating in the locational analysis stemmed from Christaller's central-place theory

(Christaller 1933) and analysed the boundaries, site hierarchy, rank and size. It was

applied with great success to the study of the territorial organization of Mesoamerica

(Marcus 1973) and Mesopotamia (Adams 1981). Although Christaller's model was based

on dispersed, hexagonal patterns (see Hodges 1987:124, fig. 1), attempts have been made to

apply it to the linear settlement systems (Flannery 1976a; Reynolds 1976) which are, of

course, more relevant in the Nile Valley. To my knowledge, the only attempt to apply

some of these locational models (network analysis and the gravity model) to Nubian

archaeology was made by Grzymski (1986).

In the 1990's these various types of territorial and spacial studies evolved into what is most

commonly termed "landscape archaeology" (French "archйologie du paysage", Italian

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"archeologia del paesaggio"), although the term "regional archaeology" is also

occasionally used. Both the term and the technique are most commonly associated with

Britain (d'Agostino 1992:19), although historically the application of geographical analysis

to the study of ancient sites and regions was not, of course, a uniquely British phenomenon.

One can be certain that practically everywhere in the world archaeologists have drawn

evidence from the distribution maps, from the toponymical studies and from the study of

the environment (e.g. Dufournet 1978; Trawkowski 1962). In fact, according to Roberts

(1987:78-79), the roots of this kind of research lie in the 1895 study of the German scholar

Meitzen (Siedlung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostgermanen, der Kelten, Rцmer,

Finnen und Slawen). Nevertheless, it is mainly through the work of the British and, in a

somewhat different way, North American archaeologists that during the last decade

"landscape archaeology" became perhaps the most interesting new development in

archaeological theory and practice. It can be seen as a further development and a

replacement of the study of settlement patterns, historical geography, regional and

environmental archaeology and cultural ecology. Many of these approaches are, of course,

familiar to the practitioners of Nubian archaeology and the identification and development

of various methodologies, or rather paradigms, were presented in papers by Trigger (1982)

and Adams (1987). Archaeology, however, is a very dynamic discipline, not only in terms

of the actual fieldwork which seems to be expanding rapidly in Nubia, but also as a branch

of humanities and social sciences where technological advancements (e.g. GPS, GIS,

geophysical survey instruments) offer new possibilities for the collection and interpretation

of data. This leads to the formation of new paradigms, offers new approaches and allows

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the development of new perspectives on Nubian archaeology. It is thus my intention to

review and discuss from the perspective of landscape archaeology the work (both

archaeological and non-archaeological) carried out in Nubia on a regional scale.

Although the concept of landscape archaeology is of a relatively recent date there is

already a substantial literature dealing with the subject (e.g. Ashmore and Knapp 1999;

Bernardi 1992; Gillings, Mattingly and van Dalen 1999; Leveau et al. 1999; Lock and

Stan_i_ 1995; Tilley 1994; Ucko and Layton 1999; Wagstaff 1987), and there even exists a

specialized journal Historical Landscapes. Two issues of World Archaeology (vol. 9, No.3,

1978 "Landscape Archaeology" and vol. 28, No.2, 1996 "Sacred Geography") also covered

this topic. Significantly, there are different understandings of the term itself. Generally

speaking British and European scholars concentrate on the visual, physical landscapes,

while the North American researchers expand the meaning of "landscape" and "landscape

archaeology" to include conceptual and idealized landscapes. Thus, in a traditional and

narrower sense, landscape archaeology is defined as:

"(...) the investigation of the long-term relationship between people and their environment at a regional scale. Such an approach must inevitably be multidisciplinary" (Barker 1992:265).

This is a succinct definition proposed by a field archaeologist and, therefore, emphasizes

the empirical, field-oriented approach; basically an archaeology of a region. This

approach, however, is not entirely satisfactory because, as has been pointed out:

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"Through field surveys, documentary study, and cartographic analysis, as well as selective excavation, it has proved possible to prize apart the different phases of a landscape's development [but] (...) the end product of this kind of analysis is 'a history of things that have been done to the land' which often seems quite remote from the past human lives that were lived in these places." (Thomas 2001:165)

Thus, the more encompassing definition would see landscape as a cultural phenomenon. In

such a case, landscape archaeology is not just a new version of traditional, geographically

inspired spatial study concentrated on topography, resources and land use. This broader

understanding of landscape as a cultural and conceptual entity defines it as a set of

relationships between people and places and the impact these relationships had on the

social, political, cultural, and indeed the daily lives of people. In other words, this kind of

landscape archaeology doesn't treat the environment as the passive backdrop of

archaeological studies, usually presented as a "geographical introduction" to the

traditional culture historical works. It goes also beyond treating the landscape and

environment as the determinant of culture so characteristic of cultural ecology. In this

respect it is instructive to consider Bertrand's definition of landscape (paysage):

"qui n'est pas la seule addition d'йlйments gйographiques disparates, mais, sur une certaine portion d'espace, le rйsultat de la combinaison dynamique, donc instable, d'йlйments physiques, biologiques et anthropiques qui, en rйagissant dialectiquement les uns sur les autres, font du paysage un ensemble unique et indissociable en perpйtuelle йvolution."(Bertrand in Chevallier 1978:5).

Even more all-encompassing is the definition forwarded by Michael Shanks:

"(...) landscape is a syncretic field. The space of landscape is at once cultural and natural,

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connecting values, modes of perception and representation, experiences, artifacts, histories, natural histories, dreams, identities, narratives, memories in networks of cultural ecology. (...) landscape is a multitemporal and complicated, folded cultural topology." (Shanks 2001:293)

In other words, landscape is a holistic term. These various definitions of landscape show

that the concept is quite complex and that the word has different meanings, depending on

the scholars' background and interests. In the field of Nubian studies any discussion on

landscape archaeology would also, of course, reflect a variety of approaches and differing

scholarly traditions. Some 15 years ago, Adams had already conveniently and,

notwithstanding Tцrцk's criticism (Tцrцk 1992:111), quite correctly summed up these

different perspectives on the past as those of a historian, an art historian and a

prehistorian (Adams 1987). The concept of landscape archaeology favoured by the author

of the present paper allows us to bypass, or rather to integrate all these various

perspectives by means of using landscape as a framework for the study of many different

aspects of human life in the Middle Nile Valley. It links the artifacts and the ecofacts to a

specific place and deals with issues of interest not only to historians, art historians and

prehistorians (archaeologists) but also geographers, sociologists, demographers and others.

Thus, the landscape has not only a geographical and ecological meaning but also has an

artistic and socio-symbolic dimension. We can speak, for example, of the "sacred

landscapes" with reference to man-made structures such as temples and sacred districts

(Richards 1999) or the natural features such as sacred groves, caves or mountains. In the

latter case, Jebel Barkal is a perfect example, although there may possibly be others. If we

turn our attention to landscape as "scenery" we can study the depiction and meaning of

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landscapes, or natural features, in Nubian art. This may lead us to quite disparate

investigations such as, for example, the study of ancient fauna (Hofmann and Tomandl

1987; Tigani 1995) or the study of the belief system. In this respect the results of Kendall's

research on interpreting the meaning and function of Jebel Barkal by integrating textual,

iconographic and archaeological data is most illuminating (Kendall 1990:111, 122-123;

1997). In sum, it is this network of connections, not necessarily limited to the

archaeological field studies of a region or a territory, that lies at the heart of the broadly

understood landscape archaeology. Nevertheless, it is the regional field study that often

forms the foundation for interpreting the material and on which one may build the

comprehensive syntheses.

3. Natural landscapes

Within a global or continental perspective the entire Nile Valley represents a unique

natural landscape feature. The Nile is the spine on which rests the entire construct of

ancient and modern life in Egypt and Sudan. The internal division of this river valley in

Egypt is quite well defined: the Nile Delta (Lower Egypt) and the Nile Valley (Upper

Egypt) up to the First Cataract; but it is the region south of Aswan, and which Vercoutter

termed the Middle Nile (Geus 1986:5-6), that concerns us here. This entire Middle Nile

area between Aswan and Khartoum can be subdivided into smaller units (Adams 1977;

Barbour 1961; Lebon 1965). Traditionally, we distinguish between Lower and Upper

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Nubia, although the latter is ill-defined and, depending on viewpoint, ends near Ed Debba,

or at the Fourth Cataract, or at Abu Hamed, or at the Sixth Cataract or even at the

confluence of the two Niles. Many scholars, including this author refer to the region south

of Atbara as Central Sudan, while O'Connor (1993:X-XI) proposed the term Southern

Nubia. Physiographic subdivisions of the Middle Nile Valley outside Lower Nubia are

listed by Adams (1977:25, Fig.5) as Batn el Hajar, Abri-Delgo Reach, Dongola Reach, Abu

Hamed Reach and Shendi Reach, although perhaps an additional term should be used to

describe the region between Atbara and the Fifth Cataract. This physiographic division

reflects to a large extend the geological division of the same area (see Adams 1977:23,

Fig.4) although there are exceptions (Abri-Delgo and Atbara). We might add to this that

the cataracts themselves represent very specific and separate entities.

From the climatic point of view the area can be divided in a different way, namely into

two parts reflecting the rainfall patterns. The dividing line between the dry zone and the

rainfall zone presently lies in the Atbara-Berber-Dangeil region. Climate, however, unlike

geology is more prone to change in the relatively short time span. Moreover, a very slight

fluctuation of rain patterns may have very substantial effects on the natural habitat. This

author personally witnessed such a dramatic, though short-lived, environmental change in

northern Bayuda after the heavy rains of 1988.

While this macro-scale division of the Middle Nile Valley has been universally accepted,

the first hand knowledge of these areas shows that this subdivision will not suffice. It does

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not reflect local conditions and nuances. Any field worker familiar with his/her area of

operation quickly realizes that there are local zones with different geomorphology, unique

microclimates and natural resources, etc. Moreover, the natural landscape is a dynamic

entity and it changes constantly. Perhaps it was the interest in the reconstruction of past

environments that made the archaeologists, rather than geologists or geographers, the

leaders in the geomorphological and palaeoenvironmental studies of Nubia. While the

expertise was provided by the specialists, it was the projects' directors that stimulated this

kind of research (see especially Caneva 1988; Welsby 2001). Changes in the direction of the

Nile channels, desertification, movement of sand dunes, erosion of soil and rock surface,

depositon of Nile alluvium, earthquakes - they all affect site preservation and site

discovery; in turn influencing our identification of settlement patterns and our

interpretation of settlement systems. Considering the enormous size of the potential study

area, we are clearly only at the early stages of research into the changes of the natural

landscape. Additionally, these changes are easier to grasp over a longer time span placing

historical archaeologists interested only in the last two or three thousand years of Nubian

history at a disadvantage. It also seems that prehistorians, who do not have iconographic

and historical data to consult, are more conditioned to study and observe the changes in

the natural landscape. Future archaeological research will have to pay more attention to

the present and past natural landscape of the Middle Nile Valley even when dealing with

the later periods of Nubian history . One can also hope that more colleagues interested in

the environmental studies (I include here geologists, archaeobotanists, archaeozologists

etc.) will carry out research on the natural landscape of Nubia building on the work

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already done by Cartwright (2001), Chaix (1998), De Paepe (1990), Fuller (1998; Fuller

and Edwards 1998), Harrell (1999), Marcolongo and his colleagues (1988; 1997), Tigani

(1996) and others.

4. Economic landscapes

The question of different economic landscapes is closely related to the research on natural

resources. In our attempts to reconstruct ancient subsistence patterns we inevitably end

up relying on relevant passages from Tothill's Agriculture in the Sudan (1948). The types of

soils, the grains, fruits and vegetables grown, the location of lands most suitable for

agriculture, such as the Shendi, Letti, Seleim and Karima basins are all described in this

wonderful publication. What we often forget is that Tothill's compendium describes the

situation as it was in the mid-twentieth century; the archaeologists, however, must also

consider the historical aspect. Techniques of agriculture have changed, different plants

were planted, different animals were raised and/or hunted. A good example would be the

saqiya problem. It is universally agreed that the introduction of saqiya had tremendous

impact on the agriculture of Nubia. Clearly, the expansion of arable land and the resulting

increase of food production must have had a dramatic impact on the economic and social

life. However, if the saqyia was introduced only at the very end of the Meroitic period as

has been recently suggested by Edwards (1996:80-81), then we have a problem of

perception versus reality. The Post-Meroitic period is usually considered to have been a

period of social, cultural and economic decline, yet the spread of the saqiya would be

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expected to result in the increased prosperity. Perhaps our perception is incorrect and it

was indeed during the Post-Meroitic rather than Meroitc period that a truly prosperous

agrarian (and pastoral?) society developed culminating later on in the Classic Christian

period? Yet, intuitively, and despite the presence of rich royal burials in Ballana and

Qustul, and the obtrusive remains of the millions of tumuli in Central Sudan (Lenoble

1992:90-91) we tend to see the Meroitic civilization as representing the peak of cultural

and economic development in ancient Nubia. Indeed, Trigger stated so explicitly by

suggesting the highest population numbers in Lower Nubia during that period (60,000

inhabitants in the Ptolemaic/Roman/Meroitic Nubia vs. 44,000 during the Post-Meroitic

and 50, 000 during the Christian Period, Trigger 1965:160). I have already argued

elsewhere, and for reasons unrelated to the spread of the saqiya, that the population

figures for the Meroitic Lower Nubia were too high (Grzymski 1981). Since much has

been made about the re-occupation of Lower Nubia as a result of the introduction of

saqiya, a re-appraisal of the dating and distribution patterns of the qadus is certainly

overdue, as Edwards has pointed out. If saqiya was unknown to the Meroites, then the

location of Meroitic villages and fields relying solely on the basin cultivation, shaduf and,

in the case of the Island of Meroe, on the rainfall cultivation would be more dependent on

the river than the location of the post-Meroitic settlements. Here, of course, we face

another problem: we have identified many Meroitic and Christian settlements, but very

few Post-Meroitic ones. Is it because the post-Meroites built flimsy rakubas, while the

Meroites and Christian Nubians lived in brick houses? Or were the Post-Meroitic lifestyle

and subsistance patterns substantially different from those of their predecessors and

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successors?

Certainly the economic landscape must have changed dramatically as a result of this

technological revolution. One would expect that the patterns of land use in the pre-saqiya

Napatan and Meroitic society must have been quite different from the saqiya-using Post-

Meroitic, Christian and Islamic societies. Unfortunately this change has not yet been

identified in the archaeological record, perhaps because no one was specifically looking for

the evidence of such changes (see Edwards 1989:21-22).

The location of major political centres of Nubia between 1000 BC and AD 1500 seems to

indicate the dependence on agriculture. Although it would be interesting to speculate why

in different times different areas played the key role, the fact remains that Kawa, Old

Dongola, Napata, Meroe and Soba were all located within or on the edge of a large basin.

There is not much direct evidence for the importance of pastoral lifestyle and animal

husbandry, and the discussions on the subject rely almost exlusively on the comparisons

with the present-day grazing conditions and land use (Ahmed 1984:83-85; 1999:295-304;

Bradley 1986; Edwards 1989:147-154). The hard data coming from archaeological sites of

the period under review are still scarce (Meroe: Carter and Foley 1980; Hambukol:

Grzymski and Anderson 2001:103-107; Debeira: Shinnie and Shinnie 1978:107; Soba:

Chaix 1998a) it is, therefore, difficult to make interregional comparisons. Was hunting an

important element of the economy in some regions but not others? How far north did one

encounter the savannah fauna (elephants, giraffes, rhinoceri, lions, etc.) in the different

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periods and during different seasons? Did it affect the regional lifestyle and/or social

systems? Was the horse and camel breeding a regional specialty? Did the territories of the

nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentary populations overlap and what impact did this have

on their relationships? Perhaps some answers could be provided by means of comparative

studies with other cultures that developed in the arid lands (Barker and Gilbertson 2000)

Very few projects attempted to tackle the regional-scale economic problems as the major

research objective, but there are some exceptions. Apart from the studies of Ahmed (1984)

and Bradley (1992) one must mention M. Hinkel's work on the hafirs in Central Sudan

(Hinkel 1991; 1994; see also Kleinschroth 1986). All these studies were concerned

primarily with the Meroitic period although Bradley's work was really an ethnographic

study of several present-day nomad families. It is a pity that a panorama of economic and

social life in medieval Nubia presented in Ali Osman's doctoral thesis remains unpublished

(Osman 1978). Fortunately, a true treasure trove of information on the economic life of the

twentieth century agrarian Nubian society, and applicable to earlier periods, can be found

in Ali Osman's 1984 publication. There, Osman was also able to use his insider's first-

hand knowledge of his native land to outline the economic life of Nubian farmers, their

various practices and traditions, their attitudes towards and the relationships with the

nomadic people and the patterns of trade and exchange.

Ethnographic analogy remains an important research tool because identifying the actual

evidence of land use in archaeological record is a very difficult task considering the

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geomorphology of the Middle Nile Valley. Ancient fields, palm groves and animal pastures

have never been successfuly identified by means of archaeological fieldwork and/or remote

sensing. We only have the material remains such as the qaduz vessels, various agricultural

tools and implements, as well as plant remains and animal bones, although in the Letti

area we have found at least one emplacement of a medieval saqyia. Several Old Nubian

texts from Qasr Ibrim specifically refer to the land deeds and sales of land and frequently

mention the saqiyas (Brown 1991). Otherwise we have little knowledge about the land use

in the period under consideration. Future archaeological investigations must clearly find a

way to address these problems, perhaps by means of remote sensing, searching the

archives (see e.g. Grzymski and Anderson 2001:5-6) and studying the early travellers

reports.

Another interesting area of investigation would be the industrial landscape. In terms of

technological studies only the Nubian pottery production and Meroitic iron making were

adequately studied. An even more important issue, however, is not the technology per se,

but how factors other than agricultural production, affected the rise and fall of certain

sites and regions. The site catchment analysis is hardly adequate as an explanatory tool for

the non-agricultural situation in the non-market economy of an early agrarian society.

Despite the seeming corellation between the site distribution patterns and the soil one

should seriously consider the possibility of non-agricultural origins of settlements and

political centres in Nubia. As Welsby (1996:137-138) has already pointed out, the

possibility of shipping goods over long distances by means of river transport allowed the

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economic and political, rather than purely environmental factors to affect the location of

settlements. Among such factors we could consider, for example, the extraction of gold

(Dangeil?), iron (Meroe?), ivory (Wad ben Naga?), stones and minerals (sites near the

Cataracts?) and, of course, trade (various sites in Lower Nubia). In the latter case we know

from the Arab accounts that sites like Baqwa (Wadi Halfa?) and Upper Maqs (Akasha?)

served as trade/custom posts (Vantini 1975:325, 603-604)) between the Muslim merchants

and the kings of Dongola. It would seem that in such cases the commercial and military

function was more important for the development of the site/region than was the soil

quality.

The issue of the long-distance trade cannot be addressed in isolation from the local

exchange systems and village markets. The author's personal observations in the present-

day Letti Basin suggest that the system could be quite complex with certain items traded

only in specific places and/or on specific days. In other words, the economic landscapes,

like the natural landscapes must be approached in a multi-scalar way: from the micro-

scale local subsistence agriculture and trade, through the meso-scale regional production

and exchange of goods to the macro-scale analysis of the economy of large territories. Only

the latter have been attempted so far in the field of Nubian studies, namely in the works of

Osman (1978), Ahmed (1998), Edwards (1996:20-48) and relevant chapters in Adams

(1977) and Welsby (1996; 2001).

5. Political landscapes

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Archaeology can help little in identifying the administrative and political entities except by

the fieldwork resulting in the discovery of new textual and iconographic sources. An

occasional exception may be the delineation of political boundries by means of the

distribution of certain classes of artefacts. Such an equation (artifact distribution =

political entity) obviously entails many risks. Nevertheless, there are clasess of artifacts,

such as e.g. inscribed stelae and offering tables that might serve the purpose. An ingenious

way to delineate the extent of the Meroitic Empire was the use of a distribution map of the

archers rings (Hayes 1973). By and large, however, the study of political and

administrative division is clearly the domain of history.

Nothing is known about the political landscape of the post-New Kingdom, pre-Napatan

period Nubia. The political and administrative divisions in the Middle Nile Valley during

the succeeding Napatan and Meroitic periods are, however, better documented. The

relevant hieroglyphic references have been assembled by Zibelius (1972); Egyptian and

later place names have been studied by Priese (1984) and a mass of textual data has been

presented in the volumes of the Fontes Historiae Nubiorum (Eide et al. 1994-2000). The

most detailed analysis, however, was produced by Laszlo Tцrцk (1979). While here and

there one might argue about his identification and/or location of certain places, Tцrцk's

book remains the definitive study of the subject. It would be thus redundant for this paper

to deal with the matter in more than a summary way. According to the information

preserved in various Napatan stelae, especially those found at Kawa, the country was

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divided into nomes. The same system presumably continued throughout the Meroitic

Period although, as Millet (1981:138) has stated, the scarce textual record makes the

attempts to identify the territorial subdivision of the Meroitic Kingdom rather speculative.

This is perhaps an instance where it would be interesting to integrate not only the

Ptolemaic town lists and actual archaeological sites, as Tцrцk has already done in his

territorial reconstruction, but also the information gained through the application of the

central place theory. The district (nome) capitals would presumably be equidistant from

each other, although taking into consideration the nature of the Nile Valley, this distance

may not necessarily be expressed in absolute kilometers. Rather, the placements may

reflect the travel time between two points. We can deduce the existence of such evenly

spaced stations (towns, villages) from the reference to "ten halting places" within medieval

Nobadia (Ibn Selim in Vantini 1975:601). We may recall here Hein's observations

regarding the regular spatial arrangement of Ramesses’ II Nubian temples (Hein 1994).

Another issue of the spatial arrangement of settlements within the linear river systems

concerns the selection of a particular river bank (left-right) for the location of towns and

villages. A study by an American geographer Burghardt suggested that the choice

depended on where the more distant sustaining hinterland was located Flannery

(1976:174). At first glance it would seem that this proposition may be applicable in the

context of Central Sudan and Upper Nubia, but unlikely in the case of Lower Nubia. There

is, however, a possibility that even in a narrow river valley of Lower Nubia, the access to

the desert routes and stone quaries might have played a role in site setting.

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The above-presented discussion of the administrative and political divisions of the

Napatan-Meroitic Nubia relied primarily on the economic and/or purely geographical

factors. When considering the Post-Meroitic times, and perhaps in earlier periods as well,

another variable must also be taken into account, namely the ethnic make up of the

population of the Nile Valley. We know of several different groups such as the Nobadians,

the Blemmyes, the Black Noba and the Red Noba all presumably occupying separate, but

contiguous regions. Assuming that all the major burial grounds of the Post-Meroitic rulers

where located near their capitals one may propose the existence of political centres near

Ballana/Qustul (Gebel Adda or Faras?), El Ghaddar/Baganarti (Old Dongola?),

Zuma/Tangasi (Korti?), Hobagi (Hosh el-Kafir?). One would also expect another regional

centre in the Berber - Dangeil area, but the Post-Meroitic tombs found there so far are

relatively modest in size (Ahmed and Anderson 2000; Anderson and Ahmed, in press).

This location of Post-Meroitic burial grounds may well help explaining the rise of Faras

and Dongola as major centres of Christian Nubia. They would have been the seats of local

pre-Christian rulers buried in the tumuli nearby. Soba, however, remains the odd site out.

The political and administrative division of Christian Nubia is much better known thanks

to the accounts of various Arab travellers and therefore all the standard publications

dealing with Christian Nubia discuss the topography (most recently Welsby 2002:83-88).

The three Christian Kingdoms included Nobadia (Lower Nubia and Batn el Hajar),

Makuria (Upper Nubia) and Alwa (Central Sudan). At some point Nobadia became part of

the Makurian (Muqurra) Kingdom and was known to the Arabs as the province of Maris.

20

According to Ibn Selim, the frontier between the two parts lied at the Third Cataract, thus

coincinding with the modern frontier between the Mahas and Dongolawi-speaking people.

This medieval, and perhaps also earlier frontier apparently was also the frontier between

the Ottoman Empire and the Funj Kingdom in the Islamic Period, although it by no

means remained stable (Alexander 1995).

It is interesting to note that Maris, former Nobadia, incorporated both the

Dodekaschoinos, previously lying outside the Meroitic realm, and the Triakontaschoinos,

which politically was a Meroitic territory. Administratively Maris comprised two districts:

Maris proper, between Al-Qasr, near Aswan, and Upper Maqs (Akasha) and Sagludha.

Within Makuria we know of districts such as Baqun (Kerma and Seleim Basins) and Safad

Ba'al (Letti Basin). Further up-river there were the districts of Shankir (Abu Hamed?)

and Abwab (Abadiya-Atbara region?) It is unclear whether any of these districts, or parts

thereof, were ruled by one of the thirteen kinglets under the supremacy of the great king

reigning in (Old) Dongola, the capital of Makuria as mentioned in the eighth century

sources (John the Deacon in Vantini 1975:44). It is also unclear whether the Lower Nubian

kingdom of Dotawo centred around Jebel Adda was one of them as well. The sources date

to different periods during which the internal divisions might have changed several times.

On the other hand there is some evidence for the continuity of territorial divisions.

Jakobielski (1972:27) has pointed out that the church administration followed the ancient

secular divisions of the land. In the Dodekaschoinos, where there were two old toparchies,

we have two bishoprics (Kalabsha and Qurta). In the Triakontaschoinos there were also

21

two bishoprics (Qasr Ibrim and Faras), presumably reflecting an earlier administrative

and/or political division. Further south, the five districts mentioned by Ibn Selim

(Saghluda, Baqun, Safad Ba'al, Dongola and Shankir) are presumably identical with the

five known dioceses (Sai, Merke, Kallama, Dongola and Suenkur). In contrast to Makuria,

the internal division of the southernmost kingdom of Alwa remains a mystery. If the

ecclesiastical divisions did indeed reflect the secular, administrative entities, then the six

bishoprics of Alwa recorded by Vansleben (Welsby 2002:99) must have been the equivalent

of six Alwan provinces .

The large number of administrative titles known from the Meroitic and Christian periods

suggest further subdivisions. These smaller districts may eventually be identified through

spatial analysis once site distribution maps resulting from archaeological fieldwork are

produced. Another potential source of information will be the new finds of textual material

mentioning place names and territories. It is a pity that very few Christian Nubian sites

are presently being excavated (Qasr Ibrim, Hambukol, Old Dongola, Sinada).

6. Cultural landscapes

From its very beginning, the archaeology of Nubia was the study of cultural history and

the very framework on which this cultural history was built was the result of a regional

survey conducted by Reisner on behalf of the Egyptian government. Reisner and Firth's

22

astonishing success in creating a cultural-chronological framework and discovering

remarkable remains of Nubia's many civilizations set the path for future fieldwork in the

Middle Nile Valley. The use of surveys for achieving major research goals was never

questioned and, in fact, has become a standard element of archaeological investigations in

Nubia and Central Sudan (Caneva and Marks 1992; Garcea and Sebastiani 1998:61-63).

These post-Reisner surveys confirmed the overall correctness of his general outline of

Nubia's cultural groups, although many gaps remain to be filled. Some of the gaps simply

reflect the fact that many sections of the Nile Valley are still unexplored. Others, like the

real or apparent hiatus in the occupation of Lower Nubia, the lack of data for the post-

New Kingdom/pre-Napatan period and the absence of the post-Neolithic/pre-Kushite

material in Central Sudan remain to be solved. While the excavation of an individual site

might help in solving some of these enigmas, it is the regional study that will likely be the

most suitable approach in finding the answers. The examination of regional surveys in the

Middle Nile Valley suggests that, despite some overlaps, they all can be grouped in three

main classes:

I. salvage surveys

II. locational surveys

III. surveys of regions

I. Salvage surveys

These projects represent the very foundation of Nubiology. Indeed, the concept of

23

recording and/or salvaging ancient heritage, now taken for granted all over the world, was

born in Nubia. Although the credit is usually given to Reisner, the actual idea was

conceived by the Government of Egypt and the Egyptian Antiquities Service under

Maspero with the preliminary work carried out by Weigall (1907). Reisner's greatest

achievement was, of course, the identification of various Nubian cultures. His other

important contribution was designing the logistics of such a project and introducing

standard forms for data recording (Adams 1977:71) As is commonly known, this

pioneering salvage campaign was conducted in response to the destruction of the

antiquities of Lower Nubia caused by the heightening of the Aswan Dam. The Temples

immergйs series, the volumes of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia, and a survey of

Christian antiquities (Clarke 1912) were the first regional salvage projects in the Middle

Nile Valley. They were followed by similar surveys carried out by Emery and Kirwan, and

Monneret de Villard, in response to the second heightening of the dam. The often-

discussed UNESCO Nubian Camapaign may be considered a single project, although

within this massive enterpise many separate regional salvage surveys were carried out (e.g.

work of the UNESCO/ Sudan Antiquities Service mission, the activities of the

Scandinavian Joint Expedition etc.). In the Sudan, one of the practical long-term effects of

these salvage operations was the establishment of the French Archaeological Unit within

the Sudan Antiquities Service with a specific mandate to carry out archaeological rescue

projects. The publications of these three major salvage campaigns resulting from the

construction of the Aswan dams are too numerous to be listed here and in any case are well

known to the participants of this conference.

24

Having been conditioned by such a distinguished tradition of international cooperation in

rescuing ancient Nubian cultures, practically every foreign expedition operating presently

in the unflooded part of the Middle Nile Valley conducts from time to time local-scale

rescue operations at the request of the antiquities' authorities. This is, of course, in

addition to the activities of the Egyptian and Sudanese authorities which often must react

on short notice to unexpected emergencies. There are, however, new and bigger challenges

and new salvage surveys are being carried out. In Egypt, the work is related to the

construction of the Toshka canal, but to the best of my knowledge no finds of the period

covered in the present paper have been reported. In the Sudanese Nile Valley the

following rescue surveys took place:

(1) The Kadada irrigation scheme with survey and excavations conducted by French and

Sudanese archaeologists from the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums

(NCAM) (overviews in Geus 1984; Reinold 2000:120-124);

(2) The Khartoum-Atbara road (Mallinson et al. 1996; Paner 1997)

(3) The Omdurman-Ganetti road (Mallinson 1998)

(4) The Hamadab Dam project in the Fourth Cataract has already involved the

participation of several teams from NCAM (Hakem 1993), University of Dongola (Abdul

Rahman and Kabbashi 1999), Rome University (Caneva 1988; Donadoni 1997) UNESCO

(Leclant 1990) Sudan Archaeological Research Society (Welsby 2000) and Gdansk

Archaeological Museum (el-Tayeb 1998; Paner 1998). Early investigation carried out on

25

behalf of the Steering Committee also resulted in a number of unpublished, internal

reports (El-Nur, Reinold, Grzymski);

(5) The resettlement area upriver from Ganetti on the left bank of the Nile; the project,

carried out by NCAM, began in 2001/2002 season and is ongoing.

(6) Dinder National Park, 2000 (NCAM)

Additionally, projects such as the Mahas Survey (Edwards and Osman 1992; 1994; 2000)

and the Khandaq to Tombos Survey directed by Smith may potentially turn into salvage

surveys should the proposed Kajbar Dam project take place.

There are certain aspects of the salvage surveys that are relevant to all the projects,

whether involving the preservation, documenation or excavations. These chief

characteristics of surveys conducted as part of a salvage operation are (a) an attempt to

register and, if possible, to preserve all the records of human presence in the given area;

(b) the inclusion of sites from all the time periods; (c) limiting field operation to the

geographical parameters of the threatened area, and (d) prioritizing field activities

according to the time schedule of the developmental activity.

II. Locational surveys

This class of regional survey projects is most common and the main objective may be

described as the "let's see what's there", which is not meant in a negative way. On the

contrary, these projects play an extremely important role in locating and identifying the

26

sites in previously unknown regions and are, therefore, the bread-and-butter of the

landscape archaeology. One may also include in this category the work of early scholars

such as Cailliaud, Champollion and Rosellini, Linant de Bellefonds, Lepsius and others.

The reports written by these early explorers clearly show the importance of these

"locational surveys"; they are often the only records of sites and areas now long gone. The

projects carried out in more recent times are not only of scholarly importance, but also

serve as a basic tool for the cultural resources management, allowing the appropriate

authorities to take the necessary protective measures and mitigating actions. One

characteristic of these locational projects is their concentration on the archaeological

component and the team composition is, therefore, rarely multidisciplinary. This, however,

is changing and in this respect the recently completed Northern Dongola Reach Survey

(Welsby 2002) set a new standard. Another typical aspect of the locational surveys is that

they often serve as preliminary studies of the areas, undertaken with a view towards

future excavations of selected site (or sites). The study area is usually delineated in an

arbitrary way reflecting the modern administrative boundries or limits imposed by the

license requirements, rather than a natural or cultural region. The "salvage archaeology"

aspect is often present, but is not the main factor in the execution of the project.

Occasionally, only specific time periods are considered (e.g. surveys directed exlusively at

prehistoric or Meroitic sites). This "locational survey" category would include the

following projects dealing with the material of the time periods covered by this paper

(1000 BC to AD 1500):

27

(1) Archaeological Survey South of the Dal Cataract (Vila 1975-1982)

(2) Mahas Survey (Edwards and Osman 1992; 1994; 2000); but see also comments below

(3) Khandaq - Tombos Survey (S.T. Smith, personal communicatoin)

(4) Northern Dongola Reach Survey (Welsby 2002); but see also comments below.

(5) Dongola Reach Reconnaissance (Grzymski 1987)

(6) Khandaq - Debba Reconnaissance (Reinold 1993)

(7) Southern Dongola Reach Survey (_urawski 1998)

(8) Napata Region (Garcea and Sebastiani 1998)

(9) The Fourth Cataract (Gray 1949)

(10) Abu Hamed Reach (Jackson 1926)

(11) Mograt Island (Abbas 1971)

(12) Fifth Cataract (Elamin and Edwards 2000)

(13) Berber-Abidiya (Ahmed and Anderson 2000)

(14) Butana Project (Hintze, 1959)

(15) Island of Meroe (Crowfoot 1911)

(16) Western Butana (Ahmed 1984; Bradley 1992)

(17) White Nile Project (Eisa 1994)

(18) Shilluk Mounds (Kleppe 1982)

III. Surveys of regions

The difference between this group and the previous one is that it is the study of a region

rather than a regional study. The study of a region covers all aspects of the natural,

28

political, economic and cultural landscapes of a well defined territory, be it a geographic,

political or cultural entity (e.g. the Letti Basin or the Kingdom of Dotawo). Regional

studies, on the other hand, are locational surveys whose main objective is simply to locate

archaeological sites in an arbitrarily selected area usually delimited by a SCA or NCAM

license (e.g. surveys south of the Dal cataract or in parts of the Dongola Reach) and

disregarding the geographical or cultural units (regions, territories). Obviously, the most

difficult task is to define what constitutes “a region” and how to handle the issue of scale.

One could, for example, consider the works of Trigger (1965), Edwards (1989) and Khidir

A. Ahmed (1984) as representing the studies of regions as they clearly dealt with macro-

regions such as, respectively, Lower Nubia, Upper Nubia, and the Island of Meroe, and

relied on a wide variety of data, which included but were not limited to the archaeological

material. Interestingly, all three studies were originally produced as university theses and

only one (Ahmed) was designed as a field study. The recently completed Northern Dongola

Reach Survey is also difficult to classify. Its stated goal of simply assessing the

archaeological potential of the concession area (Welsby 2002:1) puts the NDRS into the

"locational survey" category, but the use of a multidisciplinary team and the resulting

richness of data collected distinguish it in many respects from the traditional surveys.

Much of the material gathered, and promptly published, will take a long time to be

absorbed. At this point, the publication is more a collection of reports, than a regional

synthesis. This should not be construed as criticism, especially since the NDRS was not

conceived as a regional study. The area of operation was an arbitrarily outlined concession.

Paradoxically, through the discovery of the paleochannels of the Nile the NDRS has, in

29

fact, identified previously unsuspected geomorphological units. This project went beyond

the simple aspect of locating and dating the sites; it also provided a large quantity of data

for the reconstruction of the natural and cultural landscapes and, thus, it blurred the lines

separating the two categories. Irrespectively of this somewhat artificial taxonomic

problem, the NDRS stands out among the area-scale projects.

The list of projects that were consciously conceived as studies of well defined regions is

very short, especially when covering the historical time frame that interests us here (i.e.

post-1000 BC):

(1) The El Geili Region Project (Caneva 1988)

(2) The Sai Project (Geus 1998)

(3) The Letti Basin Project (Grzymski 1997)

(4) The Study of the Kingdom of Kokka (Osman 1982)

While Vila and his Franco-Sudanese team working south of the Dal Cataract started the

modern-era, post-UNESCO locational surveys in Nubia, Caneva may be considered a

pioneer of the landscape archaeology in the Sudan with her specific, region-oriented

research objectives and design. Although the project concerned itself primarily with the

dynamics of the human - environmental interaction and ecological adaptations in the Geili

region up to the Islamic period, the emphasis was clearly put on prehistory. This was not

the case with Sai. The island of Sai is usually treated as a single site but, in fact, it is a well

30

defined region containing cultural material from all the phases of ancient Nubia's history.

Furthermore, the work of the French mission encompasses many different facets of life

and culture. While I have not come across any specific references to the over-all goals of

the project, the composition of the team and the quality and variety of the material

published place the Sai Island project within the realm of the study of a region. My own

project in the Letti Basin is an outgrowth of a rapid reconnaissance conducted in the

central part of the Dongola Reach. It began as a rescue operation to locate and investigate

sites threatened by the expansion of settlements and new irrigation schemes (Grzymski

1997a), but gradually transformed into a total survey of the well defined natural region

which may perhaps also represent a political entity (assuming that the Safad Ba'al = Letti

equivalence is correct). The original objective of eliciting the cultural history of the region

evolved into the study of the natural and cultural landscape. Environmental adaptation

and interaction, changes in the dietary patterns, analysis of the architectural landscape,

and the search for the identifiers of the local cultural landscape are all parts of the project.

Some aspects have been studied, others remain on the wish list for the reasons frequently

overlooked by the armchair theoreticians of archaeology, namely the logistical difficulties

and prohibitive costs of operating a multidisciplinary team. Incidentally, these rarely

mentioned but extremely important factors make many, of what the archaeological theory

considers to be highly desirable objectives difficult to achieve. Such practical

considerations certainly affected my own work in the Letti Basin and I am certain it was

also the case with other projects. The prevalence of the conceptually simple locational

surveys over the study of regions may, to a large extent, reflect the difficult reality of

31

funding problems rather than represent intellectual choices. There is, however, one

element favourably distinguishing Nubian archaeology from research carried out in other

parts of Africa: namely the tendency of the practitioners of Nubian archaeology to commit

themselves to the long-term study of a specific region. This is an important and highly

desirable aspect of landscape archaeology (Bower 1988: 38). It may be worth mentioning

here that an important, informative and highly influential study of a medieval English

village and rural land use was carried out over a forty-year period (Beresford and Hunt

1990). In the Middle Nile Valley context such long-term commitment to a site and,

effectively, to its hinterland paid off, for example, in Kerma; and it is also evident, not only

in the ongoing work at Sai and in Letti, but also in another region-oriented,

multidisciplinary study of a well-defined area, namely the Mahas survey. The latter, which

makes such an extensive use of the oral tradition, historical, ethnographic, linguistic and

archaeological data (Hashim and Bell 2000) is also an outgrowth of an earlier research

project, namely the above-mentioned study of the post-medieval kingdom of Kokka. This

particular research project is especially noteworthy because, unlike most of the other

regional studies which tend to be ecologically oriented, it relies on the use and application

of data originating from various humanities and social sciences disciplines (Osman 1992).

A separate and rather heterogenous group is formed by projects concerned with a specific

category of sites and/or structures undertaken from a regional perspective. In this kind of

project much of the material gets gathered through library research, although ultimately

the data come from the field research. This shows that while the archaeological field

32

surveys are by their very nature regional in character, not all regional projects need to be

field surveys. Indeed, they can use the data drawn exclusively from excavations of

individual sites, providing the approach is territorial in scope. Some of these projects

represent overviews and analyses of the cultural history of a given region, while others

concentrate on identifying the distribution patterns of a particular class of site or

structure; many of these projects produced extremely useful distribution maps and

extensive site gazeteers. One could include here the following:

(1) Castles and churches of the Middle Nile (Crawford 1953)

(2) Settlements and cemeteries in Lower Nubia (Trigger 1965)

(3) The 1st millennium AD settlements and cemeteries in Upper Nubia (Edwards 1989)

(4) Christian Period settlements in the Middle Nile Valley (Anderson 1996)

(5) Roman military camps (Welsby 1998)

(6) Hafirs of Central Sudan (M. Hinkel 1994)

(7) Amun Temples in Upper Nubia (Zach and Tomandl 2000)

(8) Islamic Qubbas of Eastern Sudan (Elsadig 2000)

(9) Islamic Qubbas of Central Sudan (el-Zein 2000)

(10) Post-Meroitic tumuli of Central Sudan (Lenoble 1994)

(11) Christian castle-houses (Adams 1994)

(12) Meroitic settlements in the Butana (Ahmed 1984)

(13) Meroitic Lower and Upper Nubia (Williams 1985)

(14) Christian sites and architecture in Lower Nubia (Deichmann and Grossmann 1988)

33

What sort of cultural landscapes can we draw from these disparate ways of searching for

and collecting data on the regional level? Having already made a point that it was through

the large-scale regional surveys that we came to understand the culture history of Nubia, I

would like to suggest now that the time has come to concentrate on the studies of small-

scale areas in order to identify regional differences. We can easily recogize the macro-scale

regional differences in the natural landscape and the material culture, the arts and the

economy (with the old North vs. South dichotomy being the usual focus of discussions and

regional comparisons). This also applies to the recognition of the regional (territorial)

linguistic differences between various modern Nubian groups which was also certainly the

case in medieval times. There are even some indications of the regional variations in

Meroitic language. In the realm of art we can occasionally identify different regional

artistic traditions. An excellent example of the identification of regional art styles and

production centres is provided by the study of Meroitic globular bottles. The painted

globular bottles with long necks were identified by Leclant (1985) as a product

characteristic of the Second Cataract region. Lenoble (1995:154-155) was able to show that

in another region, namely the area of Meroe, the functional equivalent of the long-necked

bottles were small, black-ware bottles. Another example is Wenig's identification of

regional pottery painting styles (Wenig 1979), which clearly shows the existence of regional

artistic traditions. Adams (1986), of course, also makes frequent comments regarding the

regional distribution of certain ware types. Other vessel types reflecting different regional

traditions can be mentioned here: the Post-Meroitic Alwa ware beer jars and the

34

characteristic Christian Period Soba wares. Apart from ceramics, it is the wall paintings

that show potential for regional (territorial) analysis. The discovery of the astonishing

collections of medieval wall paintings at Old Dongola (Martens-Czarnecka 1998;

Jakobielski, personal communication) and Sinada (_urawski, personal communication) is

bound to lead eventually to a comparative study of the Nobatian and Makurian painting

traditions in an attempt to distinguish regional styles and variations.

The overall impression one gains from this review of regional surveys and cultural

landscapes is that, like in the case of the natural and economic landscapes, we have a well

developed understanding of larger regions; yet when it comes to the small-scale regional

variations much remains to be done. This does not necessarily mean more surveys. The

syntheses are based on data collected in various ways. As Barker put it:

"Excavations and surveys must go hand in hand in any regional archaeological study, each infinitely the poorer without the other" (Barker 1991:7)

7. Sacred landscapes

One important fact emerging from the discussion of the past research on these various

landscapes of the ancient Nubian territory is an overwhelming reliance on ecological

arguments in explaining the past adaptation strategies. Clearly, in a land where the

amount of the arable soil is limited, where the rainfall is either non-existent or affecting

directly only parts of the study area, this emphasis on the ecologically-driven explanations

of cultural development is understandable. The patterns of resource exploitation were and

35

are seen as the driving force explaining the behaviour of the ancient inhabitants of the

Middle Nile Valley. This materialistic, ecosystems approach is prevailing in our

interpretation of the Nubian culture, but it ignores the way the ancient Nubian societies

conceptualized their land. It is, of course, a very difficult undertaking to investigate

ancient concepts of the landscape, especially when the amount of written data is very

modest. The use of the ethnohistoric comparisons is also constrained by the sparsity of

anthropological studies and the fact that the pre-Islamic societies might have had different

concepts and understanding of their landscape from those of the modern Islamic societies.

Yet it is not entirely beyond our capability to identify ancient cultural constructs and

meanings. This was admirably done by Lenoble in his studies of the mortuary customs.

Careful analysis of the physical arrangement of the archaeological material in the funerary

context was interpreted by means of Isiac beliefs, whose tenets were known to us from

ancient texts. The use of the ehnographic data as an explanatory tool was also succesfully

applied in the Nubian contexts in the studies by Bradley and Osman. Finally, we can also

rely on comparative studies using the information obtained from the better known

traditions of ancient Egypt (in case of the Napatan-Meroitic period) or the Christian

Eastern Mediterranean (Medieval Period). In the latter case _urawski's 1987 study of the

vernacular Christian Nubian traditions and superstition is comparable to Lenoble's.

Having established that it is possible to reconstruct the conceptual landscapes, I would like

to concentrate on the recognition of sacred landscapes in the Middle Nile Valley. The need

to study the man-made expressions of such sacred landscapes (temples and pyramid fields)

36

in the Napatan-Meroitic Nubia has been recognized by a number of scholars, notably

Kendall (1990; 1997) and F. Hinkel (2000). This is a good beginning but much more has to

be done. I am convinced, that like the Greeks, Romans, Germans, Slavs and Mayas, the

Kushites also had their sacred groves, caves and water springs. The importance of Jebel

Barkal (and I am referring here to the mountain itself) is universally recognized and we

even know its ancient Egyptian name explicitly stated its sacred status. Another example of

an archaeologically identified sacred natural feature is the rock niche in the Satet temple

at Elephantine (Dreyer 1986). One is tempted to suggest that such conspicuous elements of

the natural landscape as Jebel Adda, Jebel Adu (Sai), Jebel Ghaddar (Letti) or Jebel Qeili

(Butana) might also have been recognized as sacred areas. An intriguing possibilty for

explaining the layout and orientation of the Amun Temple and the Processional Way at

Meroe would be to suggest that it is aligned to a still-unrecognized sacred natural feature,

perhaps in the neighbourhood of Jebel Qudeim or Jebel el Hadjies (see the map in Hinkel

2000:13, fig.1).

Although, in contrast to the Kushite temples which served as dwellings of the gods, the

Christian churches and Muslim mosques are gathering places for the congregation, they

also represent sacred landscapes as do the monasteries which even physically separate the

secular and spiritual worlds. In Christian Nubia, there certainly must have been local

centres to which the faithful would make a pilgrimage, just like Philae in the Meroitic

times. All of us are familiar with the fact that the qubbas and baniyas of various Muslim

sheikhs are often visted by pilgrims. Such a sacred ground with which I am most familiar

37

is the Islamic cemetery of Old Dongola with its famous tomb of Swar ad-Dahab. The study

of the sacred landscape is still in its infancy, but deserves to be taken into account when

investigating the ancient Middle Nile Valley civilizations. Furthermore, the study of sacred

landscapes need not be limited to the religious aspects. It can also help with the

interpretation of such things as social change, best exemplified in Roth’s study of the

spatial organization of the Giza necropolis (Roth 1993).

8. Back to the future

Looking back at the work accomplished over the last decade or so, we can see not only

what and how research was done, but also where the future lies. The dramatic increase in

the field and library research, combined with the influx of new scholars with different

backgrounds and novel ideas, is bound to produce new, exciting results. Some new trends

are already emerging. Taking into account these new developments and looking at the past

activities involving the area-study one reaches rather obvious conlusions.

1. The vagaries of the economic development in the Middle Nile Valley (mainly the

construction of the dams) resulted in a true flourishing of regional archaeology. The

paradox, however, lies in the fact that the most intensively studied areas were, or will be,

what can only be described as the marginal regions: Lower Nubia and the badlands of the

Fourth Cataract.

38

2. Since the mid 1990's certain parts of the Sudanese Nile Valley have become particularly

popular with a number of archaeological teams conducting both the surveys and

excavations. These emerging clusters of increased scholarly activity, which will eventually

help with the better understanding of the affected regions (territories) are: (a) the Third

Cataract to Kawa area, (b) Old Dongola and its hinterland, (c) Napata and the Fourth

Cataract area, and (d) the Island of Meroe.

3. Although, as Trigger (1970:347) has pointed out, much of the work done and

information gathered through the regional projects is repetitive. I, unlike Trigger, see it as

a good thing. There is strength in numbers. Interpretations and assessments of the Middle

Nile Valley cultures based on similar type of material collected in a similar way can only

gain legitimacy still lacking in statistical sampling. The case for the full-coverage surveys

has been powerfully made in studies compiled by Fish and Kowalewski (1990) and need

not be repeated here.

4. Over the last decade the technological advances and the multidisciplinary composition of

teams directly affected the quality of field work and interpretation: the use of the Global

Positioning System (GPS), remote sensing (satellite photography), geophysical,

archaeozoological, archaeobotanical, geomorphological, petrographic and other analyses is

gradually becoming a new standard in archaeological research.

5. The emergence of the concept of landscape archaeology as a unifying force integrating

39

the data and approaches based in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities

will lead to the reappraisal of our understanding of the Nubian past. Moreover, much of

the information gathered through this research is of relevance to contemporary situations

(land use, demographic trends, the role of heritage sites). It is noticeable that the European

Union, within the context of the POPULUS project (EU Human Capital and Mobility

programme), has funded a massive, international landscape archaeology project in the

Mediterranean and the subsequent five volume publication of its results.

6. New methods of data processing and manipulation, such as the Geographic Information

Systems (GIS) will have enormous impact on our way of interpreting the material.

Presently GIS in archaeology are still mainly used for the presentation and display of

results ("pretty pictures" of Baena Preysler et al. 1999:133), but even these can be of

scholarly value. We are already familiar with the three-dimensional computer

reconstructions of the Jebel Barkal temples (Kendall 1990:108-109). Now we can expect

the use of virtual reality (VR) systems in our scholarly analyses. What was limited to the

computer games and computer reconstructions made by film-makers will become a tool of

serious research. Through computer simulations and data manipulation we will be able to

reconstruct ancient lifestyles and produce three-dimensional images of ancient sites and

landscapes, an exciting and promising way of testing our hypotheses.

While awaiting this radiant future we should enjoy the fact that, in the continental

perspective, the past and present achievements and experiences of the Middle Nile Valley

40

archaeology can serve as an inspiration to colleagues working in other countries. In terms

of regional (territorial) research more is being done in Nubia than in any other part of

Africa. The challenge is to maintain the momentum and to integrate all the new

intellectual and technological advances into our work.

Krzysztof GrzymskiToronto30 May 2002

POSTCRIPTUM

The most recent and extremely important book by Laszlo Tцrцk (2002) has reached me

after this paper was completed. The publication deals extensively with the concept of

“place” and in particular the sacred landscape in Nubia. A quick glance at this massive

(500+ pages) work has convinced me that Tцrцk has in many ways succeeded in

“reconstructing the cognitive relationship between ancient society of Nubia and its natural

and artificial surroundings” (Tцrцk 2002:9), and especially the latter.

41

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