PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
April 2015
265
“A
rchaeological excavation of sites on the
Nile above Aswan has confirmed human
habitation in the river valley during the
Paleolithic period that spanned more than 60,000
years of Sudanese history. By the eighth millennium
B.C
., people of a Neolithic culture had settled into
a sedentary way of life there in fortified mud-brick
villages, where they supplemented hunting and
fishing on the Nile with grain gathering and cattle
herding. Contact with Egypt probably occurred at a
formative stage in the culture’s development because
of the steady movement of population along the
Nile River. Skeletal remains suggest a blending of
negroid and Mediterranean populations during the
Neolithic period (eighth to third millenia
B.C.
) that
has remained relatively stable until the present,
despite gradual infiltration by other elements.
Northern Sudan’s earliest historical record comes
from Egyptian sources, which described the land
upstream from the first cataract, called Cush, as
“wretched.” For more than 2,000 years after the Old
Kingdom (ca. 2700-2180 B.C.), Egyptian political
and economic activities determined the course
of the central Nile region’s history. Even during
intermediate periods when Egyptian political power
in Cush waned, Egypt exerted a profound cultural
and religious influence on the Cushite people.
“
Over the centuries, trade developed. Egyptian caravans
carried grain to Cush and returned to Aswan with ivory,
incense, hides, and carnelian (a stone prized both as jewelry
and for arrowheads) for shipment downriver. Egyptian traders
particularly valued gold and slaves, who served as domestic
servants, concubines, and soldiers in the pharaoh’s army.
Egyptian military expeditions penetrated Cush periodically
during the Old Kingdom. Yet there was no attempt to establish
a permanent presence in the area until the Middle Kingdom
(ca. 2100-1720 B.C.), when Egypt constructed a network
of forts along the Nile as far south as Samnah, in southern
Egypt, to guard the flow of gold from mines in Wawat. Around
1720 B.C., Asian nomads called Hyksos invaded Egypt, ended
the Middle Kingdom, severed links with Cush, and destroyed
the forts along the Nile River. To fill the vacuum left by
the Egyptian withdrawal, a culturally distinct indigenous
REPUBLIC OF
kingdom emerged at Karmah, near present-day Dunqulah.
After Egyptian power revived during the New Kingdom (ca.
1570-1100 B.C.), the pharaoh Ahmose I incorporated Cush
as an Egyptian province governed by a viceroy. Although
Egypt’s administrative control of Cush extended only down to
the fourth cataract, Egyptian sources list tributary districts
reaching to the Red Sea and upstream to the confluence of the
Blue Nile and White Nile rivers. Egyptian authorities ensured
the loyalty of local chiefs by drafting their children to serve as
pages at the pharaoh’s court. Egypt also expected tribute in
gold and slaves from local chiefs. Once Egypt had established
political control over Cush, officials and priests joined military
personnel, merchants, and artisans and settled in the region.
The Coptic language, spoken in Egypt, became widely used in
everyday activities. The Cushite elite adopted Egyptian gods
and built temples like that dedicated to the sun god Amon at
Napata, near present-day Kuraymah. The temples remained
centers of official religious worship until the coming of
Christianity to the region in the sixth century. When Egyptian
influence declined or succumbed to foreign domination, the
Cushite elite regarded themselves as champions of genuine
Egyptian cultural and religious values.
“
By the eleventh century B.C., the authority of the New
Kingdom dynasties had diminished, allowing divided rule
