on a nubian frontier — landscapes of settlement on the third cataract of the nile, sudan

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On a Nubian frontier — landscapes ofsettlement on the Third Cataract of theNile, SudanDavid N. Edwards a , Ali Osman b , Yahia Fadl Tahir b , AzhariMustafa Sadig c & Intisar Soghayroun el-Zein ba School of Archaeology and Ancient History , University ofLeicester , LE1 7RH , United Kingdomb Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts , University ofKhartoum , P.O. Box 321, Khartoum , Sudanc College of Tourism and Archaeology , King Saud University , P.O.Box 2627, Riyadh , 12372 , Saudi ArabiaPublished online: 13 Nov 2012.

To cite this article: David N. Edwards , Ali Osman , Yahia Fadl Tahir , Azhari Mustafa Sadig &Intisar Soghayroun el-Zein (2012) On a Nubian frontier — landscapes of settlement on the ThirdCataract of the Nile, Sudan, Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 47:4, 450-487, DOI:10.1080/0067270X.2012.727615

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On a Nubian frontier * landscapes of settlement on the Third Cataractof the Nile, Sudan

David N. Edwardsa*, Ali Osmanb, Yahia Fadl Tahirb, Azhari Mustafa Sadigc and

Intisar Soghayroun el-Zeinb

aSchool of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, LE1 7RH, UnitedKingdom; bDepartment of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum, P.O. Box 321,Khartoum, Sudan; cCollege of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2627,Riyadh 12372, Saudi Arabia

Through the twentieth century much of the Nubian Nile Valley has seenarchaeological survey and excavation, largely in response to its destruction bysuccessive dams built at Aswan. The Mahas Survey Project of the University ofKhartoum has continued this work on the Third Cataract approximately 700 kmupriver of the First Cataract, within a survey concession extending over some80 km of the Nile and its immediate hinterlands, an area now under threat by theconstruction of a dam at Kajbaar. We present here an outline of the long-termdevelopment of the region’s settlement landscapes, broadly conceptualised, andtheir relation to those encountered in adjoining regions. It is possible to draw outsome aspects of its cultural distinctiveness at a regional or larger scale, as well asthe varying role of the Third Cataract as a cultural and political frontier in differentperiods. A contextual approach to its rock art suggests some fresh insights into thelatter’s likely significance. A complex and varied settlement history is beginning toemerge which both challenges representations of a uniquely timeless and ancientoccupation of the land by autochthonous ‘Nubians’, while raising many newquestions concerning the history of this frontier land.

Keywords: Nubia; Mahas; landscape archaeology; frontier; settlement

La majorite de la vallee du Nil nubienne a, au cours du vingtieme siecle, faitl’objet de prospections et de fouilles, largement en raison de sa destruction par lesbarrages successifs batis a Assouan. Le Mahas Survey Project de l’Universite deKhartoum a poursuivi ce travail sur la Troisieme Cataracte, a environ 700kilometres en amont de la Premiere Cataracte, au sein d’une concession deprospection qui s’etend de part et d’autre du fleuve sur environ 80 kilometres,zone a present menacee par la construction d’un barrage a Kajbaar. Nouspresentons ici un apercu du developpement a long terme des dynamiquesd’occupation de la region, concues largement, et leur relation avec celles quel’on trouve dans les zones voisines. Il est possible d’isoler certains aspects despecificite culturelle a l’echelle regionale ou a une echelle plus vaste, et de revelerle role variable que prit a differentes periodes la Troisieme Cataracte en tant quefrontiere culturelle ou politique. Une approche contextuelle de l’art rupestrefournit de nouveaux elements sur la probable signification de cette derniere. Unesequence d’occupation complexe et variee commence a emerger, qui remet enquestion l’idee d’une occupation par des populations ‘nubiennes’ autochtonesdepuis les temps immemoriaux, et qui souleve bien des nouvelles questions quanta l’histoire de cette zone-frontiere.

*Email: [email protected]

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

Vol. 47, No. 4, December 2012, 450�487

ISSN 0067-270X print/ISSN 1945-5534 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2012.727615

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2012.727615

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Introduction

Through the twentieth century much of the Nubian Nile Valley has seen

archaeological survey and excavation, largely in response to the destruction of its

landscapes by successive dams built at Aswan. The reservoir of the High Dam,

completed in 1970, completed the inundation of some 480 km of the river valley.

Building on two exploratory survey seasons in the early 1990s, the Mahas Survey

Project of the University of Khartoum has continued the archaeological exploration

of Sudanese Nubia. Supplementing fieldwork south of the Dal Cataract in the 1970s

(Vila 1979), the project has extended archaeological survey upriver to the Third

Cataract. With a survey concession extending over approximately 80 km of the Nile,

from the southern end of the Third Cataract (Hannik-Tombos) to Delgo (Figure 1),

only about 70 km (of the northern Mahas region) between the Third and First

Cataracts have yet to see any field survey. The imminent threat of further dams

at Kajbaar and perhaps Dal may, however, complete the destruction of most of this

700 km-stretch of the Nile Valley.While the Department of Archaeology of the University of Khartoum has carried

out student field training in the region since the late 1980s, the support of the

Haycock Fund of the British Institute in Eastern Africa allowed the research

objectives of the project to be extended, supporting fieldwork seasons in 2000, 2002

and 2005 and the collaboration of expatriate researchers. In addition to archae-

ological survey, research was extended into Nubian language-use, linguistics and

toponymy (Bell 2000; Hashim and Bell 2000; Bell and Hashim 2002) and

palaeoenvironmental conditions (Tahir 2010). Earlier studies had explored aspects

of its ‘traditional’ farming regimes (al-Batal 1994a, 1994b) and folklore (Osman

1992). Various intensities of pedestrian survey were employed in the main riverine

focus of the survey, in later phases greatly aided by freely available high-resolution

satellite imagery, which proved especially valuable in more open ‘hinterland’

landscapes. Some significant lacunae are known to exist, especially within areas of

modern settlement and their fields, and are outlined in more detailed published

reports elsewhere (Osman and Edwards 2012, 33�36).

Notwithstanding our varied research interests, by the later 1990s a further

imperative was emerging with the development of plans for a dam at Kajbaar at the

downstream end of the Third Cataract, construction of which threatened to inundate

large parts of the southern Mahas region. These plans were temporarily shelved with

the decision to build the Merowe (Hamdab) Dam on the Fourth Cataract, which was

completed in 2008. However, in 2012 the prospects for the construction of the

Kajbaar Dam again seem high (Haaland et al. 2011). Following several seasons of

field survey in the region, data relating to more than 690 registered ‘sites’ or other

features (Osman and Edwards 2012) now provide us with a basis for developing

strategies for responding to dam construction. Enough data have, however, already

been collected to present an outline of the long-term development of the region’s

settlement landscapes. Such regional patterns may also be related to those

encountered in adjoining regions to the north (in Lower and Middle Nubia) and

south (the Dongola Reach and the Fourth Cataract region).

From the project’s outset it has been clear that the survey area has a number of

features that enhance its interest as a focus for a regional survey. Set astride some

60 km of rapids and rocky islands that together form the Third Cataract, the

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 451

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southern Mahas represents the southern end of a much larger Middle Nubian

landscape dominated by its rugged geology (Precambrian basement complex). In

many periods this has clearly marked a zone of transition, with both political and

cultural frontiers coalescing at times around the physical barrier of the cataract. The

very marked physical manifestations of the geology also allow clear contrasts to be

drawn with neighbouring regions. This is particularly evident in relation to the basin

lands of the Dongola Reach immediately to the south, and indeed the open plains

that form much of northern and central Sudan. Throughout the later Holocene the

Figure 1. The Mahas region and the Third Cataract zone, Sudan.

452 D.N. Edwards et al.

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margins of the braided river channels of the fertile Kerma Basin supported a densely

populated landscape (Welsby 2001). With the ongoing desiccation of northern Nubia

(which lay within the expanding Saharan zone), these environmental contrasts only

became more pronounced, with areas to the north of the Third Cataract becomingincreasingly inhospitable.

The later prehistoric archaeology

Sparse populations were reappearing in this region during the early Holocene, after

many centuries of what may have been near total abandonment in the face of extreme

aridity. Even at this early date the Kerma Basin was becoming a focus for settlement.

Recent survey has mapped many sites on the eastern margins of the Kerma Basinwith both Mesolithic occupation (dating to c. 8000 BC or earlier [we use calendar

years throughout this paper])) and a (predominantly pastoral) Neolithic presence

from the early sixth millennium BC. Recent work suggests the presence there of

domesticated cattle within settlements as early as 7200�6500 BC (Honegger 2011, 4),

with cattle found associated with a cemetery dated to c. 5750 BC (Honegger 2005).

The moister conditions of the early Holocene introduced a grassland and scrub

mosaic to the region, although by the mid-Holocene (6000�5000 BP) conditions were

again becoming drier, with denser vegetation likely to have been increasinglyrestricted to the wadis of the hinterland. By such times, distinctions between riverine

areas and their ‘hinterlands’ were becoming more pronounced.

Within the survey area, a number of mid-Holocene sites have been encountered

(Figure 2), although most occupation may be expected to lie beyond the riverine

areas where most survey work has been focused to date. Where the ‘hinterland’ has

begun to be explored, for example along the Wadi Farja, such a mid-Holocene

presence is very evident, reflecting very different environmental conditions from now.

Dated samples of Nile oyster shells (Etheria elliptica) from the central wadi areasuggest abundant, probably flowing water along the wadi in the mid-seventh

millennium BC (Wk-20617: 7617950 BP; Wk-20618 7687950 BP). One further

interesting relic of this more ancient landscape can be recognised in the burnt out tree

lines, most commonly along ancient watercourses/palaeochannels (Figure 3). These

manifest themselves as raised mounds of hard-fired (sometimes vitrified) red clay/

soil. Similar burnt trees have been identified in the Wadi Hariq, some 400 km to the

west of our survey area, where examples of ‘entire trees with their top and branches

and almost 1m thick trunks’, dateable to the third millennium BC, have been founderoding out of playa sediments (Jesse et al. 2004, 124).

Along the main river channel there are numerous indications of significantly

higher river levels during the early-to-mid Holocene and the existence of several

palaeochannels and/or swampy embayments. These survive today as often prominent

silt/gravel terraces, commonly up to 1 km from the modern river channel. North of

Kajbaar, in the Kokke area, some such terraces lie 3�4 km west of the modern river

in areas now disappearing beneath agricultural schemes. Extensive thin spreads of

stone tools have been noted in this general area. As was found in the Fourth Cataractregion (Gabriel and Wolf 2007), the distribution of sites reflects these hydrological

regimes. In particular, riverine early-to-mid Holocene sites may be expected to lie

above the high flood levels of the period, that is above a contour of 214�216 m asl

(the 216 m contour is the likely reservoir level for the proposed Kajbaar Dam).


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Relatively high flood levels may have persisted, at least intermittently, as late as the

third or even second millennia BC, as Kerma period sites are also generally found

located on raised ground approaching such levels.

Until relatively recently, debates centred on specific sites in the eastern Sahara,

notably those around Nabta Playa (Wendorf and Schild 1998), have perhaps unduly

Figure 2. Late prehistoric sites (Neolithic and ‘Kerma’) in survey area.


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dominated our understandings of the ‘Mesolithic-Neolithic’ transitions played out

over large landscapes of today’s Sahara and Sahel. Notwithstanding controversial

claims for an exceptionally early domestication of African cattle in that region

(Wengrow 2006, 47�48), we now have growing evidence for the widespread

appearance of herding in the centuries after c. 6000 BC, the defining characteristic

of this regional ‘Neolithic’ as in much of the rest of Sudanic Africa (Marshall and

Hildebrand 2002). Ceramic studies of the ‘Khartoum Variant’ tradition (notably

Gatto 2006) have now established a credible basis for tracing the development of the

‘Dotted Wavy Line’ (Impressed Wavy Line) pottery of this region’s hunter-fisher-

gatherer (Mesolithic) populations through to the ‘Early Neolithic’ of riverine

northern Sudan. A sequence of later sites of the fifth to third millennia BC is now

known from the northern Dongola Reach region (Honegger 1999, 2004b; Reinold

1987, 2001; Welsby 2001; Salvatori and Usai 2008). Survey and excavations there

have identified the presence of substantial cemeteries associated with what may have

been several active Nile channels, east of the present Nile. Some developed into long-

lived landscape features, with some larger examples (]1000 burials) potentially

remaining in use for 500�600 years.

The focus of relatively sedentary pottery-using hunter-fisher-gatherers in more

favoured, mainly riverine environments in north and central Sudan is now well

recognised (Edwards 2004, 26�31). The margins of the rich alluvium of the Kerma

Basin lands just to the south was clearly one such focus for settlement from the mid-

Holocene, and settlement sites are now being found with structural remains and

perhaps burials dated as early as c. 7200�6500 BC (Honegger 2011). Mesolithic or

Early Neolithic presence outside the basin lands appears more limited, with only a

small number of sites, all found within the cataract region. Where tested, such sites

Figure 3. ‘Burnt mounds’ representing ancient tree lines along Wadi Farjar.


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seem to be heavily deflated and restricted to surface deposits. This includes material

quite comparable with that from the ‘Mesolithic’ occupation (c. 7300 BC) at Barga

(Honegger 2004a, 2005, 243), while several other sites seem likely to date to the first

half of the sixth millennium BC. Exploratory work away from the modern Nile,

especially along the Wadi Farja, has also made clear the importance of extending

research into what are today the river’s arid hinterlands if we are to gain an

appreciation of the full extent of later prehistoric landscape use. Such material is

most abundant in the central Wadi Farja, an area dominated by some quite well

defined contours along the ancient watercourse. Examples of small sub-circular

stone features about 1.5 m in diameter have also been recorded. They are reminiscent

of the ‘Steinplatzen’ commonly encountered in the Sahara and usually interpreted as

fireplaces (Gabriel 2001; Paner and Borcowski 2005, 104). Neolithic cemeteries have,

however, so far proved elusive. One possibility is that the cemeteries of the Kerma

Basin lands were used by populations with quite a wide landscape range. The quite

common occurrence of very tightly flexed burials indicative of the tight wrapping/

binding of Neolithic bodies would, of course, be consistent with the practical

requirements of transporting the dead to such established places of burial. Only in

the very late Neolithic have indications of local burials been encountered, in the form

of some ‘cleft burials’, with bodies being inserted into open spaces on exposed

sandstone terraces (e.g. behind Mashakeela village-MSK003).

A small number of sites were located that may be dated to the ‘Late Neolithic’ of

this region (also known as the ‘pre-Kerma), during the later fourth/early third

millennia BC. Their distinctive pottery shows many correspondences with the long-

known ‘A-Group’ of Lower Nubia (Honegger 2004a, 2004b; Edwards 2004, 66�68).

Test excavations at Arduan (ARD002) suggest the presence of a large site there with

Figure 4. Late prehistoric ‘wall’ along Wadi Farjar.


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large numbers of storage pits, containing large quantities of pottery, as well as post-

built structures. Similar pits dating to the early third millennium BC are known from

Sai Island, where well-preserved examples contained barley and emmer wheat, as

well as millets and fruit stones (Hildebrand 2007). Pottery from the Arduan site

compares well with material published from recent excavations of a ‘pre-Kerma’

settlement at Kerma (Privati 1988; Bonnet 1990, figure 108; Honegger 1999, 2004b)

currently dated to around 3000 BC. Such sites provide some of our earliest evidencefor significant agricultural production in the region that built on earlier pastoral

traditions; a full investigation of this site will be a priority for future work. The

location of the Arduan site remains slightly puzzling as the seasonal island otherwise

shows little evidence of later prehistoric occupation. That the choice of location may

relate to very early riverine trade is one possibility that might be considered.

Another important consideration is that Neolithic exploitation of the landscape

outside the fertile Kerma Basin lands may also have continued to use these areas for

hunting (and gathering?) as much as for herding. Late prehistoric hunting may be

manifested in the form of often extensive networks of stone ‘walls’ encountered

across much of the Third Cataract region, likely to represent hunting drives or traps.

A broad mid-Holocene date seems likely, although it is quite possible that some may

have continued in use as late as the third/second millennia BC. Similar structures

have been recorded in Egypt’s Western Desert (Hester and Hobler 1969; Riemer

2004, 2009). Comparisons may be drawn with known hunting traditions recorded in

both Egypt and Arabia that are sometimes associated with pit traps and snares(Edwards 2006a) or with hunting methods documented in the Kanem and Bahr el-

Ghazal regions of the Chad Basin (Chapelle 1957, 202; Nicolaisen 2010).

The recognition of these ‘walls’ has prompted an interest in their wider

distribution (and the forms of hunting with which they may have been associated)

in the landscapes of Northeast Africa. Following their recognition within the rocky

landscapes of both the Third and Fourth Cataract regions (e.g. Wolf and Nowotnick

2006, 29) the availability of satellite imagery has made further investigation of their

distribution possible, confirming their presence further north toward the Second

Cataract, most commonly on the west bank of the Nile. They are not visible today,

however, further north or in Egyptian Lower Nubia, where the width of Lake Nubia

is wider. As such, they were clearly once very widely encountered in large areas of the

Egyptian Western Desert, as well as within the cataract landscapes of northern

Sudan. Interestingly, however, no examples have yet been identified elsewhere in

Sudan.

If such ‘hunting walls’ relate to a more extensive form of land use in the laterprehistoric period, from the third millennium BC settled occupation becomes more

visible in the form of at least 70 Kerma period (c. 2500�1500 BC) sites (Figure 2).

While most are close to the river, some continuing wadi-focused occupation is also

perhaps signalled by the clustering of sites near the two ends of the Wadi Farja, as

well as along other ancient palaeochannels. Some occupation has been found on the

islands of Simit and Musul, although not, as yet, on Arduan Island. Along the Nile

bend a further series of sites was identified along the edge of embayments in the

Jawgul area on the lower terraces about 1 km or more from the modern riverbank.

Around the Kajbaar Cataract, the area of Jebel Wahaaba seems likely to have been

another focus of activity, with evidence for a Kerma presence on the hilltop (masked

by several later phases of occupation) and a large cemetery below.


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As yet we probably do not know the full landscape range of Kerma populations,

elements of which may still have been ranging significant distances away from the

river in search of grazing, at least on a seasonal basis. While it is certainly tempting to

see this period as one of growing populations with a more permanent occupation of

at least parts of the landscape, it is also apparent that the scale of population within

the region remained considerably less than in the more welcoming landscapes of the

Kerma Basin just to the south, which seems to have been quite densely occupied by

permanent agricultural settlements (Gratien 1998; Gratien et al. 2003).

The broad focus of occupation relatively close to the Nile by this period remains

clear. However, as work along the Wadi Farja has also shown, some use was still

being made of inland areas, probably mainly for relatively short-term (seasonal?)

herding (and perhaps hunting). That, however, some may have maintained a more

permanent presence away from the river may be suggested by the occasional clusters

of graves located in this hinterland (Figure 5). This raises interesting questions

concerning possible social distinctions between groups buried in riverine zones and

those in the interior, sometimes 5�6 km from the Nile, set apart from larger riverine

cemeteries. Such spatial variability amongst the Kerma period population may reflect

distinctions between those who were more agriculturally focused and those who

favoured a more pastoral lifestyle. Potentially similar distinctions have previously

been identified in more northerly parts of Middle Nubia, there perceived as two

populations, ‘differenciees par la technologie et la status social’ (Vila 1979, 34�35).

Interesting parallels may perhaps be drawn with patterns of recent landscape

occupation in the Fourth Cataract region where more mobile pastorally oriented

groups locate their dry-season settlements some distance (1�2 km) from the river

(Wolf and Nowotnick 2005, 28), while ranging into the interior following the rains.

Figure 5. Cluster of Kerma burials (c. 1800�1500 BC) along Wadi Farjar, some 6 km from theNile.


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While most settlement sites survive as surface scatters much eroded by

deflationary processes, a small number of sites with surviving architecture have

been located on the east bank north of the Kajbaar Cataract. As rectilinear buildings

built of mudbrick and stone, such structures are very similar to examples

encountered in the Kerma Basin (Gratien et al. 2003), as well as further north

(Vila 1979, 35). The chronological span of pottery from the sites suggests long-term

occupation of these locations. On the west bank downstream of Kajbaar mostpermanent occupation may well have been located well to the west of the current

river channel, above the levels then still liable to seasonal flooding. The open plains

to the west of Sesi will also have offered opportunities for grazing and hunting.

However, to date, it is only at the extreme north end of the survey area around

Handikke that Kerma sites have been located. Ongoing excavations will hopefully

confirm whether the Egyptian colony town of Sesibi was established on the site of an

existing Kerma settlement (Spence et al. 2009, 2011).

An awareness of the differences between the physical landscapes of the Kerma

Basin and our survey area also draws attention to the ways in which the physical

form of the landscapes may have shaped cultural practices and, in turn, our

perceptions of cultural variability. This is most obvious, perhaps, in the variable

construction of Kerma grave superstructures, where both pebble-covered earth

tumuli and stone superstructures are encountered. In the literature, such different

forms of burial superstructure continue to be associated with different Kushite

cultural traditions, for example distinguishing ‘early Kerma’ from ‘early C-Group’burials (Gratien 2011, 228). However, we note that graves in the northern Dongola

Reach/Kerma Basin (where pebble-covered tumuli are the norm) lie in an area

generally lacking surface stone. Stone superstructures begin to be found within the

Third Cataract region wherever surface stone becomes available (as indeed they are

in the rocky Fourth Cataract region). Rather than representing a significant cultural

choice, such variability might perhaps therefore be more convincingly interpreted in

terms of a pragmatic engagement with available local materials.

Another prominent manifestation of the later prehistoric inhabitation of the

region may be found in the numerous rock engravings found in more than 30 ‘sites’

(varying from single images to large panel complexes of multiple images). The later

prehistoric rock art probably includes a large proportion of the zoomorphic designs,

especially those with cattle, and their herders (Figure 6). There is little to suggest an

earlier (Neolithic) date for many of these. Much similar material may be found

amongst the large corpora of rock art previously recorded in northern Nubia (e.g.

Hellstrom 1970; Otto and Buschendorf-Otto 1993) and more recently in the Fourth

Cataract region (Kleinitz 2004, 2008). This mass of data clearly invites much moresystematic analysis, but initial studies certainly suggest that a large proportion of the

approximately 12,000 drawings so far recorded between the Third and Second

Cataracts are likely to be associated with Kushite (Kerma and C-Group) occupation

during the third and second millennia BC. This growing body of material also clearly

invites inter-regional comparative studies, both within Nubia and between riverine

areas and adjoining Saharan regions.

While attributing ‘meanings’ to such engravings must remain speculative, the

possibility that they might usefully be conceptualised as forms of ‘shrines’ has

suggested some interesting lines of research that could be developed further. That

their common emphasis on cattle may also be related to a developing ‘bovine


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aesthetic’ in this period also merits exploration (Edwards 2006b). This, in turn, may

suggest something of the potential role of rock art in enculturing the landscape. That

rock engraving sites can function as shrines is clear. Within this region examples are

known of modern shrines associated with ancient rock drawings, while ethnographic

records exist of rock drawings in use as active shrines elsewhere in the Sudan (e.g.

Balfour Paul 1956). We may also recall Evans-Pritchard’s (1940, 209) evocative

description of how a Nuer’s ‘beasts dedicated to ghosts and spirits are his wandering

shrines’. Where cattle may be dedicated to protective spirits and ancestral ghosts, the

spirits and ghosts are in turn present within the herds. In such terms, it may be not

too fanciful to envisage mobile ‘beasts as shrines’ transformed into static shrines.

Through rock art, the animals, their protective spirits and ancestral ghosts may all be

fixed in place.

Such a line of interpretation raises, of course, many further interesting questions

concerning the relationship of such practices to more general ritual practices and the

‘domestication of the landscape’ (Mather 2003). If, by its nature, the production of

rock art is constrained by the geology that allows its creation (and survival), how

may it be related to ritual practices performed within different landscapes? To what

extent should we perceive the making of rock art as a (significantly?) different form

of practice, rather than merely an unusually durable manifestation of more

generalised forms of practice? Did the boulders of the cataract regions simply

provide a new medium for celebrating and inscribing on the landscape the special

significance of cattle, or indeed other natural wonders? Did the (hypothetical) shrines

Figure 6. Rock drawings of cattle and herders at Sabu (third/second millennia BC).


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simply take on new forms? In the open plains of central Sudan, and indeed much of

Sudanic Africa (e.g. Dawson 2009), ancient and long-lived trees may, for example,

have performed potentially similar roles as ‘powerful places’ for ritual performances,

and have continued to do so into recent times.

On a colonial frontier

The mid-second millennium BC imposed a new political structure on the region’s

landscape. The revived Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaonic state reconquered Lower

Nubia and, within a few generations, struck south into the heartland of Kush and its

capital at Kerma. From the reign of Tuthmosis I (1504�1492 BC), Egyptian military

campaigns penetrated south of the Third Cataract to Kerma itself, with a morecomplete defeat of the Kushites achieved under Tuthmosis III (c. 1450 BC). The

Mahas region sat astride the northern approaches to Kerma and here too the

Egyptian imperial power anchored its southern boundary in the mid-second

millennium BC. An Egyptian viceregal administration was created in the conquered

territories of Middle and Lower Nubia, the headquarters of the idnw of Kush being

located north of the Third Cataract, first at Soleb and then at Amara West. The

Egyptian presence in the landscape was centred on these and a small number of other

substantial settlements, potent material expressions of a new Egyptian spatial order.Of these, the site of Sesibi is still the southernmost yet identified, although a number

of Egyptian temples were constructed further south (Bonnet 2008; Kendall and Wolf

2011). Notwithstanding such activities, the Third Cataract marked a significant

frontier south of which an Egyptian presence was much more poorly defined.

This Egyptian presence in northern Nubia and its impact on existing settlement

landscapes has a considerable interest as an early imperial and colonial enterprise

(Smith 2003). The construction of large enclosed settlements certainly introduced

new landscape foci in Middle Nubia, although the extent to which the colonialpresence introduced a new spatial order to the larger region remains to be fully

determined. That this may have required the relocation/resettling of local popula-

tions, who survived the campaigns of conquest populations, seems not unlikely. The

regional focus of the Egyptian presence was the town site of Sesibi, in an enclosed

settlement covering about 5.4 ha, set within massive mudbrick walls. Excavated in the

1930s, this was not further examined by our project and a new fieldwork project has

recently been established there (Spence et al. 2009, 2011). While such work promises

to throw much new light on the place and role of Sesibi within the wider regionallandscape, a number of observations can be made now. The choice of location may

partly have been determined by the local availability of agricultural land. Sesibi also

lies at the south end of a �45-km stretch of exceptionally rocky and broken

landscape that continues to near Soleb, the site of the next large Egyptian centre. A

more specific imperative for the choice of location may perhaps be found in the local

geology and gold-bearing properties of the nearby hills. That the function of Sesibi

was, in fact, at least partially linked to mining activities seems clear from discoveries

made during the 1937 excavations of a ‘work-room in which quartz had beencrushed’ (Fairman 1938, 153). Recent fieldwork at the site (Spence et al. 2009) has

recovered further evidence relating to gold-production.

While the existence of the New Kingdom settlement at Sesibi and of royal and

official inscriptions at Tombos and Nauri has been known since the nineteenth


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century, further survey has only identified a small number of additional sites. The

distinctiveness of New Kingdom pottery suggests that this is not a factor of

inadequate survey and the scarcity of sites dated to the second half of the second

millennium BC is itself noteworthy. The most important discovery was of a cemetery

at Tombos, close to several Eighteenth Dynasty inscriptions (Davies 2008, 2009) and

some adjoining granite quarries known to be the source of a number of New

Kingdom objects (Harrell 1999). Work at the site has since been passed to Dr S. T.Smith of the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose ongoing excavations

have confirmed that this is a most unusual site containing burials of both Egyptian

colonial officials (e.g. one Siamun ‘Overseer of Foreign Lands’ and his wife Weren)

and Nubians (Smith 2003, 2008; Buzon et al. 2007). Established in an early phase of

the New Kingdom ‘colonial’ adventure in Nubia, the cemetery may have been in use

over at least 200 years, an Egyptian presence of some eight to ten generations. The

location of this enigmatic site is perhaps itself indicative of a specifically frontier role.

Some 75 km upriver of the fortified colony town at Sesibi, it is also set apart from

(outside) the ‘Nubian’ heartlands of the Kerma Basin.

Little other evidence for a more general Egyptian presence within the cataract

zone has been encountered. Nauri is long known as the site of a large formal

inscription of Sethos I (1294�1279 BC), on the easternmost of two prominent hills.

Only two further, probably associated, sites have otherwise been found, both on the

east (right) bank about 20 km downriver of Tombos. A settlement site (Habaraab-

HBB017) consists of a complex of stone-built structures covering about 1 ha.Lacking an enclosure wall, the architecture of the complex would seem to be within

indigenous traditions although the abundant surface pottery seems entirely

‘Egyptian’. A cluster of five Egyptian graffiti some 700 m away and close to the

river may also hint at some sort of riverine connection for the site.

Elsewhere, a few other Egyptian inscriptions/graffiti have been found nearer the

Kajbaar Cataract, in an area already marked by large numbers of rock drawings by

the mid-second millennium BC. Like similar graffiti in Egypt and Lower Nubia, such

texts were left by Egyptian officials passing along the river. Relatively few have been

found south of the Second Cataract, but an association with areas where rapids (as at

Tanjur) interrupted river movement may be suggested (Hintze and Reineke 1989;

Peden 2001, 93�94). Similar associations may perhaps account for the presence of

these graffiti close to the Kajbaar Cataract, intertwined with cultic practices in a

location already marked by many rock drawings as a ‘special place’. The ritual

importance of prominent landscape features may be seen demonstrated at a much

greater scale at places such as Sehel Island at the First Cataract (Gasse and Rondot

2008), where some of the same individuals also carved their names. A carvedcartouche of Ahmose I (reigned 1550�1525 BC) was also found on the hilltop

overlooking the rapids. This provides an intriguing indication of some form of

Egyptian presence this far south in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, nearly a century

before the conquest of Kerma. More enigmatically, a single New Kingdom tomb

(DFF012) was has been found on the west bank just above the Kajbaar Cataract.

Why this should be set apart from cemeteries at Sesibi only a few hours travel to the

north is unclear.

The limited extent of an Egyptian presence south of Sesibi and within the

cataract zone further brings into focus the unusual nature of the Egyptian presence

at Tombos, interpreted by Smith (2008, 99) as ‘a diplomatic enclave and watch-post


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outside of the temple-town system . . . farther to the north’. In general terms, the

absence of even New Kingdom sherd material outside the few better-defined sites

might suggest a real ‘emptiness’ on the southern margins of the viceregal province.

Landscape in transition in the first millennium BC?

Following the Egyptian withdrawal from Nubia in the last centuries of the second

millennium BC very little is known of the region’s history until the re-emergence of a

revived Kushite state in the early first millennium BC. During the first half of that

millennium, we now have growing evidence for quite widespread Napatan occupa-

tion throughout the northern Dongola Reach, especially on the east bank with major

centres at Kawa and Tabo, as well as in the vicinity of the old second millenniumcentre of Kerma, which again emerges as a significant settlement focus in the

Twenty-Fifth Dynasty/Napatan period (Bonnet and Valbelle 2006, 34�39).

While a number of broadly dated Napatan sites have now been identified further

north in Lower and Middle Nubia, occupation seems to have remained sparse. The

relatively widespread settlement evident in the early second millennium BC was never

re-established. Some areas seem to have been largely devoid of occupation sufficient

to leave archaeological traces, although between the Third and Dal Cataract, several

settlements are known (e.g. Sedeinga, Sai, Abri and Amara). The character anddistribution of such northern sites may perhaps best be explained by the political and

perhaps economic concerns of the state, maintaining a necessary presence along the

otherwise inhospitable river corridor linking the Kushite heartlands with Egypt. This

established a pattern that seems to have been maintained throughout the Kushite

period into the first millennium AD.

Survey work within the Third Cataract region further confirms this picture

through the first millennium BC. Virtually no traces of Napatan occupation have

been found within the broken landscape of the cataract zone north of Tombos-Hannik. While the Tombos quarries supplied many Napatan royal statues of the

seventh and eighth centuries BC (Bonnet and Valbelle 2006), this in itself does not

presuppose significant permanent settlement in the locality, as the quarries were

easily accessible from the Kerma area, even though two Napatan cemeteries have

been located close by. One such statue was abandoned in the quarry, becoming a

prominent landscape feature (with its own folklore) that has remained into modern

times.

North of the Kajbaar Cataract one significant discovery in the early years of theproject was of a previously unrecognised Napatan presence within the walls of the

old Egyptian settlement at Sesibi (SES002) and the adjoining cemeteries, marked by

spreads of Napatan pottery. Subsequent fieldwork has confirmed this presence

(Spence et al. 2009, 2011). The choice of Sesibi may reflect its continued presence as a

very visible landscape feature as much as a continuous history of occupation. Its

temple was almost certainly a prominent upstanding ruin, perhaps still quite well

preserved in the early centuries of the first millennium BC. Sesibi was also well

placed as a way station on the Nile route north.The extent to which the Kushite state maintained a continuous presence in

Middle and Lower Nubia throughout the first millennium BC remains uncertain. If

occupation appears very limited in the early first millennium BC, by the last centuries

of the millennium some Meroitic presence begins to be evident, still quite limited in


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scale, but suggesting differences with what had gone before. While little evidence for

permanent settlement within the cataract zone has yet been found, a few sherd

scatters indicate at least some presence in several areas. More interestingly, a

Meroitic cemetery was found near Arduan village on Arduan Island and test

excavated in 2000 (Edwards and Osman 2000). Further investigation of this

potentially important site and its environs is highly desirable.

North of the Kajbaar Cataract, no Meroitic material has yet been identified on

the west bank in or around Sesibi or on Jebel Sesi. That the Napatan (re-)occupation

of Sesibi was not maintained into the Meroitic period suggest a further transforma-

tion in the region’s settlement landscape in the later first millennium BC. This break

is accentuated by a shift in occupation to the opposite bank of the river, about 9 km

below the Kajbaar Cataract, where a substantial settlement was established at

Kidurma (Figure 7). In modern times this part of the east bank has been sparsely

populated. The presence of a temple on the site seems likely and there is an extensive

cemetery beside it. Surface survey and some limited salvage excavations in disturbed

areas have confirmed that much of the site is very well preserved with some

potentially excellent conditions of preservation in the arid Nubian environment.

While drifting sand obscures many areas, the site contains large mudbrick structures

suggestive of ‘official’ functions, as well as more lightly constructed buildings.

Possible industrial areas were also identified, including at least one circular pottery

kiln, which compares well with examples found in the Meroitic heartlands. Pottery

from the site includes a wide range of typical Meroitic material, including some

imports and decorated finewares. Some of it seems likely to represent products of a

still unidentified regional production centre, producing some very distinctive

Figure 7. Large mudbrick Meroitic structure (partially cleared in 1930s) at Kidurma.


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decorated wares. Other finds (e.g. imported glass, loomweights, ostraca) compare

well with the range of material encountered at other sites in Middle and Lower

Nubia and Kidurma was clearly an important and substantial settlement, probably

established in the second-first centuries BC.The limited extent of both Napatan and Meroitic settlement within the cataract

zone through the first millennium BC is likely to reflect its limited attractions in a

period when the landscape was becoming increasingly inhospitable. That the

northern Kerma Basin will have presented far greater opportunities for all forms

of existence cannot be doubted, with few incentives to settle in more northerly areas.

No evidence has yet been found for any Meroitic presence in the rangelands of the

interior. The discovery of the Meroitic presence on Arduan Island is, however, of

interest, not least because of its relatively isolated position within the widerlandscape. That its location may best be explained in relation to the management

of river transport through the cataract zone seems likely. Downstream of the Kajbaar

Cataract, the early (Napatan) focus on Sesibi, and subsequent shift to the east bank

at Kidurma, raises further interesting questions. The substantial Meroitic settlement

at Kidurma has much in common with Meroitic settlements encountered throughout

Middle and Lower Nubia. The indications of an ‘official’ character again suggest

that, like most northern settlements, it was established through state-sponsorship.

That it in fact stands apart from (west bank) areas where we might expectagricultural settlements to have been located is especially noteworthy, while it does

not appear to have survived beyond the Meroitic period.

Post-Meroitic transitions * a new beginning?

The survey area has a particular interest in relation to the development of the new

‘Nubian’ political structures that emerged during the early to mid-first millennium

AD, out of which developed the medieval kingdoms of Nobadia, Makuria andAlodia. In al-Aswani’s tenth-century description of Nubia, the Third Cataract was,

by that time, recognised as both a linguistic and administrative frontier, the

boundary between Makuria proper and its northern province (al-Maris to the

Arabs), after Nobadia came under the rule of kings of Dongola: ‘from this place to

the frontier of the Muslims the language of the people is the Marısı, and this

(al-Marıs) is the last (most northerly) district of their king’ (Vantini 1975, 605).

However, how and when this frontier may have first developed at this point are

clearly questions of considerable interest. That such a frontier could have emerged inthe formative years of the kingdoms of Makuria and Nobadia, perhaps during the

fifth to sixth centuries, has certainly seemed likely.

The possible existence of a significant cultural frontier in this area during the

post-Meroitic period had already been suggested when this project began, Sesibi

being the southernmost site where ‘Nobadian’ (‘X-Group’/Ballana) pottery had been

found (Kirwan 1939). Such material is readily distinguishable from contemporary

post-Meroitic wares produced further south in the Dongola Reach. While one or two

examples of ‘northern’ pottery types have since been found in the Dongola Reach,for example at ez-Zuma (El-Tayeb 2010, Figure 13, top left) it seems increasingly

evident that their distribution does respect the Third Cataract ‘frontier’. That

emerging political boundaries may have been manifested materially in such a way in

these formative centuries seems likely, although the dating evidence suggests that this


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Nobadian presence appears in the area of the Third Cataract relatively late in this

period, only in the sixth century. The virtual absence of post-Meroitic pottery of

recognisably ‘early’ or ‘classic’ forms in Middle Nubia (including the Third Cataract

region) leaves unanswered questions about the nature of any occupation during the

fourth and fifth centuries.

Research in the 1990s had suggested that there were major changes in the

character of settlement in northern Nubia during the first millennium AD, suggestive

of significant differences between the Meroitic and post-Meroitic settlement regimes

(Edwards 1996). The (albeit sparse) evidence from this region would seem to further

confirm this. No more than seven sites can be dated to this period with any

confidence, but some potentially significant changes in the character and distribution

of settlement may be suggested when compared with the Meroitic presence. While the

largest Meroitic centre in the region had been at Kidurma, a new centre developed by

the sixth century, focused on Jebel Sesi (Figure 8) on the opposite bank. The

inhabitants of this hilltop settlement were buried in cemeteries of large tumuli to the

west and north. The scale of some of these burials (Edwards 1994) suggests that this

was a centre of some importance. Notwithstanding the presence of the likely

important settlement at Sesi, relatively little other trace of settlement has been found.

Only a few of the distinctive stone-clad tumuli that are typical of this period are

found near the Kajbaar Cataract and on the west bank of the cataract zone at Foogo

(TJB012) and Hannik (HNK009). Finds of post-Meroitic pottery on Simit Island

also indicate the presence of a settlement there, within the area of what was the main

island settlement through the medieval (and into the modern) period. The choice of

an island location is of interest in what is very likely to have been a time of political

instability and insecurity within a developing frontier zone.

Figure 8. Fortified hilltop at Sesi * a regional centre during medieval and post-medievalperiods, probably established in mid-first millennium AD.


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That this period saw the development of a new settlement focus in the Jebel Sesi

area seems clear, with some further settlement reaching into the cataract zone.

Comparisons with the post-Meroitic archaeology of other regions also suggest

interesting avenues for further research. Recent work in the Fourth Cataract region,

for example, makes clear the very different character of post-Meroitic settlement

there. Its numerous tumulus cemetery sites confirm the presence of a significant

population, albeit one exploiting the Baiyuda and probably the eastern hinterlands.The very different opportunities available in those latitudes for exploiting the

(pastoral?) potential of the non-riverine hinterlands seem likely to have shaped very

different settlement landscapes. Such differences are still very evident today as the

much more arid environment of northern Nubia confines life to the linear oasis

provided by the Nile. As was the case further north, irrigated agriculture using

waterwheels (saqia) linked with new cropping regimes seems to have established a

basis for a new agricultural colonisation of the Middle Nubian landscape during this

period (Edwards 2004, 202�204).

While the conversion of Nubia to Christianity from the sixth century has

traditionally been seen to mark the beginning of a new era, here as elsewhere in

Lower and Middle Nubia the medieval settlement landscapes have their origins in the

post-Meroitic centuries. Regional evidence for medieval settlement is abundant and

widely encountered, with some 150 sites identified to date. At times, upstanding

medieval ruins still remain prominent features within the modern landscape. In some

areas, especially within the cataract zone, medieval ruins may represent the onlysignificant marks of human occupation, being found in areas lacking any other

evidence of settlement. One focus of early medieval settlement was around Jebel Sesi

and probably more generally in the fertile ‘birka al-Mahas’, although there seems to

have been further expansion of settlement into the less hospitable cataract zone.

Several other sites are marked simply by sherd scatters and no upstanding remains

survive. In at least two locations within the cataract zone extensive spreads of early

medieval (Early Christian) pottery, partly masked by dunes, may mark the site of

pottery workshops. Whether these were associated with settlements remains to be

determined. As in a number of other areas in Nubia, it seems possible that the dunes

overlie, and perhaps formed over, abandoned settlements of this period, as has also

recently been found in the Fourth Cataract region (Wolf and Nowotnick 2007, 27�29). Other examples of what are probably quite substantial medieval settlements

masked by stabilised halfa-grass covered dunes are known from further north in

Middle Nubia (Vila 1976a, 59). What is as yet uncertain is the extent to which early

medieval settlement was concentrated in nucleated villages, or whether it was framed

around a pattern of more widely dispersed farmsteads, for example. The recognition

of some small Christian cemeteries, some associated with ‘pagan’ tumuli of the latepost-Meroitic period suggest that there were at least some small-scale communities,

perhaps single farmsteads, scattered through the region. Previous research in the

Batn al-Hajar has shown that such was also the case there.

While relatively few smaller settlements have been identified in the region, a small

number of more substantial fortified sites have been found that seem likely to date to

this general period. Such an early date may be given for a number of similarly

impressive fortified sites found both further north in Nobadia, as well as in Makuria

and Alodia. The two most substantial of these are two massively constructed stone-

built enclosures on the left (west/north) bank within the cataract zone at Shoofeen


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(Figure 9) and Markuul. These two sites, a little under 10 km apart, have much in

common in their design and construction; in view of their location they may have

served some formal role as frontier posts. Reliable dating evidence for their

construction is still lacking. However, formal similarities with sites in the Fourth

Cataract region that saw their main use in the sixth to eighth centuries (e.g. Wiewiora

2005; Paner 2010), suggest that these are of a similar date. Further south, there is

another cluster of smaller fortified sites on both banks of the river, close to the

southern end of the cataract zone.

If relatively few early medieval sites can confidently be identified, many more

later medieval settlements have been located. Some at least of the early medieval sites

seem not to have survived into later centuries, hinting at dynamic and changing

settlement regimes during the medieval period. It is also of interest to find a number

of settlements dating to the early medieval period in localities that may not again

have been occupied until recent times, if at all. Medieval occupation, as evidenced by

sherd scatters, can be identified in the vicinity of nearly all modern villages, although

such indications are often slight in some areas, notably those that have been more

densely settled in modern times (e.g. Mashakeela, Farreig, Jeddi, Kajbaar). In such

areas, it seems likely that many sites have disappeared beneath modern settlement

and/or cultivated areas. Both the islands of Simit and Musul seem to have attracted

significant settlement, although the evidence on Nab Island is less certain.

If many modern villages may find their origins in the medieval period, a few other

significant locations may also be identified. Occupying a strategic position over-

looking the Kajbaar Cataract, the hilltop of Jebel Wahaaba (SBU003) seems likely to

have been occupied throughout much the medieval period and beyond. There are

also medieval cemeteries below the hilltop and medieval rock drawings on the cliffs

Figure 9. Early medieval fortification at Shofeen, within the cataract zone.


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along its southern side. Amongst several other clusters of rock drawings around

Sabu-Jeddi several of medieval date are dominated by Christian symbolism, some

which may well represent some form of Christian shrine (Figure 10), continuing the

long history of this locality being recognised as a ‘special place’. Comparable foci of

Christian imagery have recently been recorded in the Fourth Cataract region

(Kleinitz and Olsson 2005, Figure 2). A further large group of medieval drawings on

a nearby rock face includes depictions of church buildings or shrines (Hintze and

Reineke 1989, Tafel 265). As ever, assigning ‘meaning(s)’ must remain a speculative

undertaking, although a generally apotropaic role certainly seems likely. In terms of

movement through the landscape, it may be suggested that many crosses are located

on routes linking centres of medieval population and may ‘signpost’, literally as well

as symbolically, the presence of settlements close by.Carved graffiti or other inscribed names (personal names, or those of saints/holy

figures) are relatively rare elsewhere in medieval Nubia and few were found in this

region. The only example of a personal name (Mariankouda) so far recorded is one

on a flat peak overlooking the Kajbaar Cataract. The only other appearance of an

inscribed name so far recorded, invoking the Virgin Mary, is an inscription of Maria

at Hannik. When viewed as the product of possibly 1,000 years of a Christian

presence in the region, the scarcity of such marks is perhaps noteworthy. The

presence of inscribed names of saints at a (small) number of sites in Nubia also

perhaps deserves some further comment. That these inscriptions related to the

construction of sacred places analogous to forms of Christian shrines known from

medieval (and more recent) Egypt, often revealed through the visions/apparitions of

saints and other holy figures (Meinardus 2002), might be considered. The establish-

ment of shrines on the basis of apparitions/visions/dreams is widely encountered

Figure 10. Medieval Christian rock drawings at Sabu. Associated sherd scatters suggest thatthis site served as a shrine, attracting deposits of pottery.


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across time and space (and in different religious traditions) within the Nile Valley

(e.g. Taylor 1990). Individual vision experiences are a ‘normal’ way in which places

can, and do, acquire a special significance and they continue to be ‘normal’ in the

Nubia of today.

One of the most substantial medieval settlements was located below the western

hill at Nauri (NAR001). Toponymic work has noted that the commonly used name isa form of the Nubian ‘Nawir’, the Old Nubian term for ‘shrine’ (Nayor). That the

two prominent peaks at Nauri have enjoyed a special significance in the region’s

landscape seems very likely, a significance perhaps enhanced by the presence of New

Kingdom Pharaonic inscriptions on the eastern peak. Nauri is unusual as the find

spot of a rare medieval document written in Old Nubian (Griffith 1928). One

significant feature of this text may be found in its reference to the bishop of Sai (see

also Łajtar 2006), indicating that this area looked to the north, rather than to the

south (and the bishop of Dongola), in terms of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Two other site complexes found within the cataract zone have more unusual

features. At Kisseenfarki what is probably an enclosed church lies close to a large

fortified structure on the riverbank to the east (that was still being used in the early

nineteenth century). The site occupies quite a strategic and prominent position in

relation to riverside movement. While there are many medieval sites on the nearby

islands, no other medieval occupation has been found in the immediate area.

Similarly isolated enclosed churches are known from areas to both north and south(e.g. at Kageras, Ginis, Koyekka and Kosha; Maystre 1970; Vila 1977a, 1978;

Zurawski 2003). While this, and similar sites may simply be churches, it may also

have had a monastic role. If so, the second large structure might have formed a

monastic keep (‘qasr’) that was subsequently refurbished and reused in later

centuries. In the adjoining cemetery a number of graves with substantial fired brick

superstructures are of the type most commonly found associated with monasteries.

Some 12 km downstream, another unusual settlement is located at Fagirinfenti,

an otherwise rocky locale overlooking the river bend where the Nile turns east.

Enjoying good views both up and down the river, this location also marks the point

of arrival/departure of the north-south route on the west side of the Nile. The

complex includes a church and associated structures. Surface sherds suggest a long

history of occupation. Most puzzling is a single large structure on the north side of

the site. Measuring approximately 18 m�16.5 m and built on a stone foundation,

the structure could originally have been three storeys high, forming a substantial

tower. The unusual character of the complex as a whole suggests that an official/

religious function is likely. A monastic presence is again possible. The massive tower-house represents a form of structure that cannot easily be paralleled elsewhere in

Nubia, but such an impressive structure might perhaps fit well with the strategic

(frontier?) position of Fagirinfenti located at the terminus of the desert route north as

well as at a major river bend, the frontier between the medieval kingdoms of

Nobadia and Makuria.

Amongst the many examples of later medieval domestic architecture that still

survive as standing remains, the most common are multi-storied tower-houses, also

termed ‘castle-houses (Adams 1994b). In the Middle Nile such structures (Figure 11)

are only common in Lower and Middle Nubia and may perhaps be linked to a much

wider tradition of tower-house building encountered in many parts of northern

Africa and around much of the eastern and central Mediterranean (e.g. Decker


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2006). Examples on the Third Cataract would seem to represent the southernmost

known examples of this structural form. Most have substantial stone foundations, up

to 2 m high, on to which the main mudbrick superstructure walls were set. Smaller

tower-houses may measure 6�7 m a side, while some larger examples may measure as

much as 11�15 m a side; the structure at Fagirinfenti would certainly represent an

exceptionally large tower-house. A distinctive feature of these buildings is that the

ground floor rooms essentially served as storage cellars, only being accessible from

above through overhead hatchways. Most seem to have had vaulted ceilings. The

buildings themselves were entered through a doorway in the upper storey. Well-

preserved examples have been recorded standing 7 m tall, with flat roofs supported

by wooden beams (Adams 1994b, 17�18).

Several tower-houses have been identified in settlements around Arduan Island,

sometimes located within larger settlements, sometimes in isolation. The largest

group of such buildings was found on Jawgul Island (JWG002) where at least 17

examples are ranged along a rocky ridge. No similar group of tower-houses is known

elsewhere in Nubia. Potentially similar multi-storey structures, but built entirely in

mudbrick, may also be found in the medieval village of Tinutti (DFF008). As yet no

examples have been found in the area between the Kajbaar Cataract and Sesi-Delgo,

but further examples have been found at the north end of the survey area, mainly on

rocky islands. These buildings are commonly associated with ‘Late Christian’ pottery,

which suggests that they may date to the twelfth/thirteenth centuries, or perhaps

slightly later. As with tower-houses found elsewhere in North Africa and the

Figure 11. One of several late medieval tower-houses on Jawgul Island, within the cataractzone.


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Mediterranean world, their form seems to reflect a concern for security (and secure

storage). Their overall distribution also suggests that within Nubia they could

represent a distinctive regional architectural form, occurring in the area between the

southern Batn al-Hajar and the southern end of the Third Cataract.

The sites of at least eight churches have now been located within the survey area,

all within the cataract zone, while a number of other possible church sites can beidentified; in Lower and Middle Nubia north of the Third Cataract somewhere in the

order of 150 churches (Adams 2009) have now been identified. As in other parts of

northern Nubia, some still survive today as standing monuments, sometimes

enjoying reputations as places of ‘baraka’ (blessing). These include examples of the

most typical ‘Nubian’ church plans, although one church (Miseeda) is anomalous in

a number of ways. That it was built against a boulder on which a large male figure

and animals had been carved at a much earlier (most likely Kushite) date suggests a

Christian appropriation of a much older sacred place. Fragmentary inscriptions

within the church suggest a possible link with the military saint Merkourios.

The relationship between known churches and the main medieval settlements of

the region is sometimes uncertain. Many churches may be ‘community’ churches,

serving lineage-based communities of the kind that have provided the basic

settlement unit into very recent times in this part of Nubia. However, some

otherwise quite well preserved settlements seem to lack churches, while some

churches are located in areas with little other evidence for medieval habitation in thevicinity. In addition, there were also monastic churches and episcopal churches,

which will have received a different level of support, some perhaps ‘owned’ by kings.

The church at Fagirinfenti and the probable church at Kisseenfarki may represent

examples of these, both possibly associated with a small monastic communities. As

found in other parts of Nubia, churches do not seem to have necessarily been foci for

burial and in general terms there seems to have been a continued preference for

placing burials on the margins of settlements, as had been the case in pre-Christian

periods.

Survey work has begun to establish the general patterns of medieval settlement

within the region, albeit with important lacunae, mainly in those areas now occupied

by larger villages. Within the cataract zone, medieval settlement was widespread,

often reaching into areas that were largely uninhabited in more recent centuries. That

this period may have seen the development of nucleated village settlements, which

coexisted with more isolated farmsteads, may be noted, although no indications have

yet been found of densely packed settlements like those encountered in Lower Nubia

(e.g. Debeira West, Arminna). It is quite possible that the more rugged terrainaround Arduan Island, for example, was, at least in some periods, quite attractive to

settlement. As may have been the case in other regions of northern Sudan, the broken

rocky landscape and islands may have provided an additional measure of security in

periods of instability. That Jawgul Island seems to have become one such ‘refuge’

settlement in the later medieval period is certainly possible for its numerous tower-

houses mark it off as very unusual and hard to parallel elsewhere in Middle or Lower

Nubia. As in other periods, it may also be expected that areas north of the Kajbaar

Cataract (on the river’s west bank) may have been more densely settled than the

evidence currently suggests. In view of its more recent importance as a focus for

settlement, the Kokke area clearly requires further exploration, as does the hilltop of

Jebel Sesi.


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The later medieval and early post-medieval archaeology of the region still

remains poorly understood, although it seems likely that many settlements occupied

in the later medieval period continued to be occupied into later centuries. That the

political fragmentation of Nubia underway in this period impacted negatively onrural settlement nevertheless seems likely, while it remains an open question as to

whether the invisible sword of the Black Death was also visited on Nubia in the mid-

fourteenth century. That it could have had a significant demographic impact cannot

be excluded, a possibility recently raised by Chouin and DeCorse (2010) in West

Africa. However, with the disappearance of decorated fineware pottery (the last such

wares probably date no later than the late thirteenth or fourteenth centuries) dating

sites of later periods still remains difficult.

Ottoman Nubia

If we know very little of the history of this, or adjoining regions during the late

medieval period, the appearance of the Ottomans in Nubia during the later sixteenth

century established new political structures in the region. Following Ottoman

campaigns up the Nile in the later sixteenth century, a frontier zone was established

‘behind’ the Third Cataract, anchored on a fortress on Sai Island. It is now (1584)

that the earliest use is made of the term ‘Mahas’, when Ottoman accounts of theirconquest of Nubia recorded the creation of a ‘Sanjak of the Mahas’ (Menage 1988).

By this time distinctions were already being drawn between the Mahas and Sikood

(‘Sochut’) regions, the latter a name already in use in the twelfth century (Browne

1996). As suggested in an early study by Ali Osman (1982), local Mahas traditions

suggest that this period saw the development of a relatively independent Mahas

‘kingdom’ occupying the frontier zone between Ottoman-administered (‘kashif ’)

Nubia and the Dongola Reach. That the Ottoman presence was probably a crucial

factor in the survival of culturally distinct Nobiin-speaking ‘Nubian’ populationsshould be emphasised as a specific outcome of this frontier context. The specificity of

this regional history is perhaps more obvious when viewed in relation to other areas

of riverine northern Sudan where Arabic has now almost totally displaced the use of

the Nubian language (Spaulding 1990; Salih 1999).

Exploring the wider settlement archaeology of this post-medieval frontier

landscape continues to present particular problems. Diagnostic datable finds remain

scarce, while it is also clear than many of the settlements likely to have been occupied

in this period lie beneath modern villages and their fields. Nevertheless, a number ofsites have now been identified that may have had more specific links with the

Ottoman presence. One, at Jebel Kadamusa (Figure 12), located on the east bank of

the Nile north of the cataract overlooking Narnarti Island, has proved to be

particularly important. Bounded by a low wall, it encloses some 15�20 regular

mudbrick buildings, terraced into the rocky hill slope, within a total area of some 2

ha. These structures are constructed of highly distinctive large flat mud bricks. Some

of the buildings have walls preserved up to a height of 1 m, but many have collapsed

(or have been deliberately demolished, a further rather unusual feature of the site). Afurther mudbrick enclosure on the west (river) side of the site may represent an

earlier phase of use.

When first examined, the predominantly handmade pottery, together with

occasional glazed wares and an Islamic cemetery below the hill, suggested a very


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late medieval or post-medieval date. The architectural forms of the upstanding ruins

were also highly distinctive and unlike anything encountered elsewhere in the region.

Further small-scale test-excavations were carried out in 2002 by one of us (Intisar

Soghayroun el-Zein). This work made clear the presence of a distinctive range of

pottery wares at the site, including decorated incised and painted redwares (Adams

Wares H6 and H7) and a white-slipped ware (cf. Adams Ware W14), as well as

occasional imported glazed wares and Egyptian marl clay jugs and some distinctive

schist-tempered cooking wares (Adams Wares H15, H16). Some of the coarser

handmade vessels also had quite distinctive forms, which appear in other samples of

post-medieval pottery from the region. According to the broad chronological ranges

proposed for such wares by Adams (1986, 427�432), a very late medieval or early

post-medieval (pre-1600?) could be suggested for this assemblage.

Comparisons, both general and more specific, may be made with a series of other

sites within the survey region and also further north. The closest is at Jebel Wahaaba

(SBU003) overlooking the Kajbaar Cataract where, amongst the many building

phases, structures constructed with similar large tabular bricks are associated with the

same distinctive handmade pottery wares (H6 and H7). Similar pottery has also been

found on Simit Island. Looking beyond the survey area, a number of other settlement

sites can also now be identified that bear comparison with Jebel Kadamusa both in

terms of building construction (and perhaps deliberate demolition) and their material

culture, especially the pottery. The most distinctive structural features of such sites are

the regularly planned rectangular brick buildings that are commonly near square

(6 m2) with one larger open room adjoined by one or more long narrow side-rooms/

chambers. The use of large mud bricks in their construction is also very distinctive.

Figure 12. Distinctive mudbrick structures with collapsed (demolished?) walls at Kadamusa,likely to be associated with an early (sixteenth-century?) Ottoman military presence.


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Two such sites can be identified near Sai Island, approximately 90 km downriver, at

Kayendi (8-G-18) and at Soumbot-Koyekka (8-G-12) (Vila 1978, 29�30 Figure 4).

Some 25 km downstream, another example (with 11 such buildings) is sited on

Gergetti Island amongst the Attab Rapids (Vila 1977b: 32�37). The best documented

parallels can, however, be recognised among the ‘Post-Christian’ sites on the island of

Kulubnarti, investigated in the 1970s by W. Adams. The first of these is the site 21-S-

10, overlooking the river at the northeast side of Kulubnarti Island, with buildingsconstructed with the distinctive tabular bricks and many walls ‘toppled over sideways’

(Adams 1994a, Figure 5.4a). A second group of these distinctive buildings (21-S-25)

was built close to, but distinct from, the main settlement (21-S-2) on the south side of

the island (Adams 1994a, 185). Similar structures are also found on the small island of

Attiri-Diffinarti (site 16-J-6), about 65 km downriver of Kulubnarti.

That Kadamusa may be linked with these other sites in Middle Nubia suggests

new interpretations concerning their date and nature. According to existing ceramic

chronologies, a very late medieval or early post-medieval (pre-1600?) date seems

likely, while the painted pottery (Adams Ware H7) is already linked with the

‘Bosnian’ Ottoman presence at Qasr Ibrim (Adams 1986, 432). Three AMS

radiocarbon dates from Kadamusa support this broad dating, indicating a range

within a period from the mid-fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. However, the

contextual information suggests that a more definite and direct link might be sought

between Jebel Kadamusa (and the other sites?) and the initial Ottoman incursions

into Nubia in the later sixteenth century. That they might, in fact, represent Ottomanmilitary outposts seems one credible explanation of some of their more distinctive

features, many of which also suggest an alien, ‘non-Nubian’ origin. If such proves to

be the case these may then represent one very particular facies of post-medieval

settlement in Middle Nubia, potentially one with strong links to Ottoman Egypt and

perhaps the Ottoman military in particular.

If such sites may be linked more specifically with an Ottoman presence, the

‘Nubian’ presence remains more difficult to discern until it is manifested more

obviously architecturally in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One site

seems likely to have maintained its prominence from the medieval period, namely the

fortified hilltop of Jebel Sesi. Local traditions suggest that it retained at least some

symbolic significance for the ‘Mahas kings’ into the nineteenth century (Osman

1982). A more enigmatic site lies on the east bank of the Nile at Agetteri (AGT001)

at the foot of Jebel Barbar/Agetteri, a large stone-built settlement, reported by

Waddington and Hanbury (1822, 31) in the early nineteenth century as ‘a ruined

village, with the remains of a wall around it’. Surface collections on the site indicate

that the pottery is of post-medieval date and dominated by handmade wares,although with little of the distinctive painted redwares encountered at Kadamusa.

The lack of any more closely datable material makes it impossible to define the site’s

date further, except that its ruination by the beginning of the nineteenth century

would seem to place it somewhere in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

The more general character of settlement throughout the post-medieval period

still remains elusive. Our first external accounts of the early nineteenth century

certainly suggest that settlements of that date contained examples of both more

substantial architecture (in clay, mudbrick and rough stone), as well as more

ephemeral wooden structures. Some elements of this settlement landscape survive in

the form of larger structures known locally as ‘diffi’, effectively fortified houses with


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one of more corner towers (Figure 13). Nearly all such structures are constructed in

laid clay blocks (jalus), a constructional technique that appeared in the region in or

before the eighteenth century and resulted in the use of mudbrick becoming much

more limited.

More than 90 examples have now been registered in the Mahas region, while

more remain to be recorded. They are already recognised as a distinctive feature of

the Middle Nubian landscape (Adams 1987) and at least 39 other examples have

been recorded in the Sikood region between Dal and Nilwatti (Vila 1979, 71�120.

While clearly quite abundant in more northerly areas, they do not appear to be

common in areas to the south of the Third Cataract. Some clearly have the capability

of serving defensive purposes, as ‘fortified houses’, but they show considerable

variety in form and construction. Some contain complexes of internal rooms and

yards, while others have very little in the way of internal structures and are little more

than enclosed yards attached to one or more towers. Some are likely to have a more

military function; this is particularly the case with some associated in local traditions

with the Mahdiyya period (1881�1898). Some ‘folk’ traditions also associate them

with a (chronologically poorly defined) period of ‘Shaiqiyya’ raiding in a more-or-

less distant past, while others hint at their construction (‘in a single night’) to provide

security against rapacious (nineteenth-century?) landlords and/or tax collectors

during the Turkiyya (the period of Turco-Egyptian rule from 1821 to 1881).

Their distribution is also quite variable (Figure 14). The diffi on Arduan Island

are quite widely dispersed, with usually only one within the environs of existing

communities. Some are sited in quite isolated areas, suggesting that they may have

Figure 13. Typical diffi structure (nineteenth-century?) of large courtyard and corner towers,combining mudbrick, laid mud (jalus) and stone construction, in the village of Mashakeela.


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served as defensible refuges in times of insecurity. In other parts of the region they

are more abundant, and in villages such as Mashakeela, as well as in the Delgo area,

several examples may be found in very close proximity. Sometimes no more than

400�500 m apart, they are linked with individual lineage-based hamlets. Dating

individual sites still remains problematic and such structures were clearly built over

Figure 14. Distribution of diffi buildings, broadly reflecting the main foci of nineteenth- andtwentieth-century settlement.


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an extended period, already being a prominent feature of the landscape in the 1820s

when first reported by European travellers passing through the region (e.g. English

1822, 23). There were probably several distinct periods when such structures were

constructed, or when more ancient structures were refurbished and reoccupied. Some

may date back to the early post-medieval period, when medieval tower-houses

(castle-houses) were incorporated into larger enclosed structures to create a diffi, as

on Kulubnarti (Adams 1994a).

Evidence for the distinctive regional architectural forms in both the late medieval

(‘Late Christian’) and post-medieval periods, in the form of the tower-houses (castle-

houses) and diffis is of considerable interest in relation to the emergence of Mahas

and Sikood regional identities. While we are far from fully understanding their

histories, they are prominent material manifestations of a distinctive Middle Nubian

settlement landscape. In its turn, this landscape may be distinguished from that of

both Lower Nubia proper to the north and the Dongola Reach to the south. That

these regions derived much of their special character from the peculiar social

conditions created by the Ottoman presence in Nubia seems likely.

Qubbas and holymen

The growing presence and influence of Islamic holymen (fuqara) is a prominent

theme in the post-medieval history of the Sudan, and indeed much of Sudanic Africa.

This process was marked upon the landscape by the settlements that grew up around

these individuals, creating new ‘Islamic’ settlement landscapes and new landscapes of

religious power (Spaulding 1985; McHugh 1994). The most obvious markers of the

fuqara are their domed qubba tombs, which are widely encountered across much of

northern and central Sudan (El-Sadig 2004; Soghayroun el-Zein 2004).

Within the Third Cataract region, such qubba tombs are found in at least 20

locations. Some are relatively recent, relating to individuals whose histories are well

known, while others are much older, associated with individuals of near mythical

status, if not persons now entirely forgotten. A qubba at Abu Fatma (ABF001) seems

likely to be a quite ancient example of a slightly different class of long-established

shrine * still active in recent years. Its origins are quite obscure, although it would

seem to have been constructed over a medieval building. Some mark the burials of

men with religious reputations recognised as settlement founders, while at Kokke the

cemetery of the ‘kings’ (Figure 14) provides one focus of both religious and secular

power. Some potentially much more ancient examples at Shadda have enjoyed a

wider reputation and have, in the past, attracted pilgrims from around and beyond

the region. The identities of the holymen buried there, however, (interestingly known

only by Nubian names) are now no longer clear, at least to our informants.Oral traditions encountered by the project can sometimes provide some

information on these individuals and their origins. Mobility is one common theme,

interesting in itself when we may be predisposed to imagine conservative and deeply

rooted Nubian autochthonous communities. Virtually every local ‘holyman’ of the

Mahas region would seem to have been an ‘immigrant’ of one form or another, if

only from a village a few kilometres away. Many, however, may be credited with a

non-Mahas origin, perhaps coming from one of the religious schools (khalwas)

elsewhere in Sudan, or more rarely from further afield. These include some of West


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African (Takruri/Fallata) origin. On Nilwatti Island in the Sikood region, ‘Qubba

Fellati’ (Vila 1979, 118) hints at a similar West African link.

While the first Ottoman presence in Middle Nubia had faded away during the

eighteenth century, with the assimilation of its garrisons with the local populations

(Alexander 1995), the last months of 1820 brought the region under the control of

the new Turco-Egyptian government when the army of Ismail Pasha passed through

it. In the immediate aftermath of the conquest, the north escaped the devastation

that accompanied the revolts within central Sudan and their bloody suppression

during the troubled period of 1822�1823. From an early date the significance of the

far north, including the Mahas region, seems largely to have been limited to its role

in providing the route linking core regions of the newly acquired Sudanese territories

to Egypt, a route along which troops and officials moved, as well as consignments of

slaves and cattle.

There is no evidence for direct government ‘investment’ in the Mahas region, as,

for example, took place with the construction of indigo manufactories at several

locations in northern and central Sudan. The local elites, now confirmed as ‘kashifs’,

were supplemented by a few government officials. A ‘kaimakan’ reported at Kokke

soon after the conquest may be linked to a large diffi-like structure with an associated

mosque that is reputedly the first congregational mosque at this site; Turkish

inscriptions from it include one dated AH 1244 (1828�1829). A large proportion of

surviving diffi also seem likely to date to the nineteenth century ‘Turkiyya’. As

elsewhere in the Sudan, tax-exactions proved a considerable burden to the

population and caused much disruption. Many local traditions record families

being dispossessed due to their inability to meet tax demands, in several cases causing

their relocation to otherwise thinly populated areas. This seems to have been the case

with several hamlets in the cataract zone that were reputedly founded by displaced

migrants from more fertile parts of the region. Other local traditions suggest that this

may also have been the period in which various ‘Arab’ groups established settlements

in the region. Some local opinion would link their appearance with one or other

periods of drought during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in more westerly

Figure 15. Qubba tombs at Kokke in a cemetery associated with post-medieval Mahas ‘kings’.


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parts of Sudan and/or the oases west of Dongola. Such an origin is perhaps reflected

in the location of most, but not all, significant ‘Arab’ hamlets on the west bank of the

Nile.

The outbreak of the Mahdist rising against the Turco-Egyptian government in

1881 brought a further period of very considerable disruption and upheaval to the

Mahas region, as in most areas of the Middle and Upper Nile. Following the failureof the 1884/1885 British Relief Expedition, Middle Nubia was abandoned as

government forces fell back to the Wadi Halfa frontier. During the next decade

significant elements of the Mahas population left the region, most apparently to

Egypt. Large scale migration to Egypt and the devastating famine of ‘Year 6’ were

among several factors that clearly brought major disruption to the region, reducing

its resident population to probably less than 5,000. Population estimates made in

1896 suggested a population reduced to just 3,354 (Wingate 1896, Appendix A). The

often difficult relations with Ansar (i.e. Mahdist) forces, sometimes manifest in open

fighting, are apparent in many local oral traditions. A valuable eyewitness account of

the Mahdist occupation of the region is found in the memoirs of Babikr Bedri (1969),

who, as a young man, joined the Mahdist army in the north during 1886. He too

makes clear the frequently tense relations between the forces of the new government

and local inhabitants. The ruins of several likely Mahdist outposts can be identified

in the cataract zone, some reported as the bases for agents who managed traffic

through the area and provided supplies for the Ansar troops (Bedri 1969, 52�53).

Some islands are locally reputed to have served as refuges during this period andseem to have been regarded as relatively safe, at least from more casual plundering

(‘tax-collecting’). Extensive intelligence reports prepared by the Anglo-Egyptian

forces also survive and include a considerable body of information relating to the

population of the region under Mahdist control (Johnson 2004).

Following the defeat of the Mahdist forces and the establishment of the Anglo-

Egyptian Condominium government in 1898 new forces continued to reshape the

Mahas settlement landscape. Returning refugees and political stability created

conditions for a fast-expanding population. In some areas population expansion is

perhaps a prime cause for the creation of new riverside settlements founded by

groups moving off islands. Narratives of migration from islands to the ‘mainland’ are

commonly encountered in oral histories and have been recorded elsewhere in

northern Nubia, for example in the Second Cataract area (Kronenberg and

Kronenberg 1965). Other new settlements were reportedly established in the first

half of the twentieth century by groups of freed ex-slaves who chose to remain in the

region. In general, such ‘ex-slaves’ are Nubian-speaking and may retain links with

their ex-masters, but when lacking their own (‘milk’) land often work as share-croppers and labourers.

Growing populations also caused the expansion of (lineage-based) hamlets to

create the modern landscape of extended linear settlements familiar today. By the

later twentieth century hamlets once set amongst fields and palm gardens were

increasingly being abandoned, with new settlements with larger houses constructed

farther from the river. The expansion of land under cultivation, especially when

linked with new forms of pumped irrigation, also contributed to major shifts in

organisation of the lived-environment over the last century, on occasions dislocating

existing cultural understandings of landscape organisation. As ‘new’ villages are

being built further inland they are, for example, moving into more liminal areas,


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areas where cemeteries were traditionally located. These may once have been seen as

potentially ‘dangerous’ areas of the landscape, inhabited by bad spirits and within

the ordering of modern communities, resident ‘aliens’ as well as ogres (al-Shahi and

Moore 1978, 23). Such transformations have, at times, clearly been contested withinindividual communities, with resistance shown by more conservative individuals to

making the move to living in potentially ‘inappropriate’ areas. However, despite such

forces of ‘tradition’, within three to four generations, family homes may have moved

from within the heart of their riverbank palm gardens to bare rock outcrops on the

desert’s edge 1 km from the Nile.

If the ordering of village communities has changed markedly over the last

century, the Condominium (1898�1956) was also an important factor in encouraging

shifts in the local settlement hierarchy. In this respect, the development of anadministrative centre and associated market at the east bank village of Delgo seems

to have been a significant innovation. The development of Kerma as a market centre,

also accessible to the southern Mahas population, may also have had a significant

impact on social and economic networks amongst the inhabitants of the southern

Mahas region. This was interlinked with new transport and trading opportunities

that developed during the twentieth century, beginning with the short-lived Wadi

Halfa-Kerma railway completed in May 1897 (Welsby 2011). Some further shifts in

the focus of settlement may also be linked with the introduction of the telegraph, therailway and then a motor road, now a tarmac highway, running to Wadi Halfa and

the north. Their location on the east bank has surely introduced a new influence in

the relationship between the two sides of the river and would be worth further

exploring.

Conclusion

Most earlier discussions of Nubian settlement and land use in the archaeologicalliterature (notably in Trigger 1965) have tended to assume that relatively direct

analogies could be drawn between Nubian practice of the later nineteenth/early

twentieth centuries and much earlier periods. The extent to which Nubian settlement

systems may have changed and developed over time has, as yet, received little

attention. While larger-scale population continuities need not be doubted, this

regional survey has begun to make clear the extent to which, over the long term,

regional populations experienced a number of episodes of disruption, as well as

reconstruction and recolonisation. One relatively recent rupture may have come withthe establishment of the Condominium government at the beginning of the twentieth

century, notwithstanding claims that it was re-establishing existing traditional

practices. Perhaps more significantly, the Turco-Egyptian conquest of the Sudan in

the earlier nineteenth century clearly also brought major changes to many aspects of

agricultural practice and, indeed, rural life more generally. Over the longer term this

region has clearly experienced a number of major disjunctures in its occupation,

brought about by a range of both environmental and socio-political forces.

That a number of frontiers coalesced around the Third Cataract in variousperiods has given the history of this particular region a special interest. Despite

comforting (and misleading) myths of a timeless and ancient occupation of the land

by autochthonous ‘Nubians’, we can better appreciate that its history was far more

dynamic and complex than has been popularly imagined. It was shaped by complex


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historical forces emanating from both north and south, operating at many different

scales, some distinctively local, some much larger in scale. Within this dynamism,

there is good reason to believe that there were a number of distinct historical phases

of occupation, of ebb-and-flow, between which there may have been significant

hiatuses of occupation. The end of the New Kingdom Egyptian colonial period may

have introduced one such interlude, at a time where environmental conditions

increasingly constrained occupation to the river margins. After this, the region’s

settlement (as for much of Middle and Lower Nubia) remained limited until a new

phase of (agriculture-based) colonisation in the early to mid-first millennium AD,

itself of northern origin.

This is not necessarily to suggest that the region was totally abandoned in such

periods, but population levels may, at times, have fallen to very low levels and

meaningful continuities of settled life may well have been largely broken. One

implication of this is that on this particular African frontier (sensu Kopytoff 1987) we

may, over several millennia, be seeing a succession of phases of landscape

colonisation and recolonisation by populations of varied origins. These created a

succession of settlement landscapes, differing in terms of ideas of place and ways of

being, as much as in their spatial patterning. At times they also occupied spaces with

liminal qualities, sometimes on the margins beyond, as well as between, more

favoured locales, or centres of power. At times, too, the presence of a frontier could

create quite empty space, as was perhaps the case during the Egyptian New

Kingdom, in others provide places of refuge, as during the late medieval period.

Specific regional cultural features, albeit as part of a larger regional unit, developed

new forms within the shadow of the Ottoman frontier, when it appears as a vibrant, if

contested domain. The Ottoman presence was, in turn, clearly a powerful cultural

force in the subsequent development of ‘Mahas’ and other ‘Nubian’ identities

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all those who have assisted with this project over many years, especially themany staff and students of University of Khartoum who have contributed so much. We mustalso thank our Mahasi hosts, who have provided unstinting support and so much hospitalityover many years. We have benefited in countless ways from their assistance and learnt so muchfrom them. We are also grateful for much support from the University of Khartoum overmany years, the University of Leicester and a generous grant made from the Haycock Fund ofthe British Institute in Eastern Africa. The late Bryan Haycock was an inspiration to ageneration of students at the University of Khartoum.

Notes on contributors

David Edwards studied History at York University and then took an M.Litt. in Archaeologyat Newcastle University and a PhD at the University of Cambridge. He has extensive fieldexperience in Nubia/Sudan, as well as in many parts of Britain, Egypt, Jordan and Libya. Hefirst went to the Mahas region in 1980.

Ali Osman, is Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology, Khartoum, andcomes from Mashakeela in the Mahas region of Sudanese Nubia. He studied in Calgary withPeter Shinnie and completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge relating to medievalNubia.


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Yahia Fadl Tahir comes from the Difoi in the Mahas region of Sudanese Nubia. He has aspecial interest in palaeoenvironmental research and is currently working in the oasis of the ElGa’ab Basin in northwestern Sudan. He teaches at the Department of Archaeology, Universityof Khartoum.

Azhari Mustafa Sadig has special interests in the Neolithic of Sudan and has directedfieldwork in the Mahas region, in the Shendi Reach and along the White Nile. He haspreviously taught at the University of Khartoum and is currently an Associate Professor in theCollege of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh.

Intisar Soghayroun el-Zein is currently Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum.She completed an MA at the American University in Cairo and a PhD at the University ofKhartoum and has special interests in Islamic archaeology. She has directed field projects inthe Mahas region as well as around the important nineteenth-century centre of El Khandaq.

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