Egypt vs Nubia: A History of Ancient Rivalry

So I'm about to explain the history of Ancient Nubia and their beef with Egypt nearly in totality. So Ancient Nubia is probably the most confusing history in all of African history, hands down. Because it's largely understood through a lens of an ancient people who had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. We can thank the Greeks and the Romans for that. What up African world, it's your boy Home Team here. I'm back at it with another video of African History, Culture, and Worldview. And today we're going to talk about Ancient Nubia, one of the most classic African civilizations ever. So like I said, the Greeks and the Romans pretty much confused the issue when it came to Egypt's southern neighbors. Which to be honest is not really a fault of their own because they tried their best to really understand the people they had little interaction with. So the ancient Greeks romanticized and mystified the ancient Nubians by largely calling them Ethiopians, and the Romans usually called them Nubians. According to the ancient Egyptians, you had different types of southerners. Some of their southerners were a huge threat to Egypt, some not so much, and some probably didn't care either way. Also the Egyptians never called their southern neighbors Nubians, nor did they call them Ethiopians for that matter. Lumping all these groups of people together would have been absolutely detrimental to Egyptian society. In fact, the ancient Egyptians made several distinctions between numerous ethnic groups of the south. Some of them they liked, and some of them they feared, and for good reason. But for the purposes of this video, I'm periodically going to call these people Nubians, and then make distinctions between numerous Nubian ethnic groups. Now before we talk about Nubian history, we must first understand the demographics of the region. Now there were pretty much three dominant Nubian groups. You had northern Nubians like Wawak Nubians, you had eastern Nubians like Demeja, and you had southern Nubians like the Kushites. Now there were definitely more Nubian groups, but most of the others were either directly or indirectly related to the most dominant Nubian groups. So for this video, we're just going to focus on these three, mainly because we don't really understand the other Nubian principalities. So of course when the average person thinks of Africa, they're immediately drawn to the wonders of Egypt. Egypt is touted as the most ancient civilization in Africa, if not the world. Here's the thing though, Egypt is not the most ancient African civilization, nor is it the first significant state that arose in Africa. The oldest civilization in Africa and the first significant state to arise on the continent was called Tasseti. And as you all might have guessed, Tasseti was an ancient Nubian civilization. Tasseti means land of set or land of the bow, because apparently these Nubians were excellent archers. Tasseti was around in about 3500 BC, which makes it one of the oldest, if not the oldest civilization on planet earth. Now the question is, what kind of Nubians were they? Well some scholars suggest that these Tasseti Nubians spoke a Nilo-Saharan language and extended their rule all the way up into southern Egypt. So this would mean that Nilo-Saharan Nubians created the first civilized state in Africa and even ruled parts of what was later to be called Egypt. But then out of nowhere, this Egyptian man named Narmer unified the entire region and all the chiefdoms, creating the first Egyptian state, which led to the end of Tasseti. The work of King Narmer led to the rise of all the pharaohs and the end of the first Nubian state, Tasseti. So of course yeah, the Tasseti Nubians weren't too happy about this, and our beliefs have sort of reinvented themselves at multiple locations, but the main locations and regions seem to have been Wawat and Kerma. So let's talk about our first Nubian group, the Wawatians if you will. Now when it comes to Wawat, here's where it can get extraordinarily confusing. Let's keep in mind that Wawat is just a regional name, not necessarily an ethnic classification. Wawat was located in northern Nubia. Now because Egypt conquered their old homeland of Tasseti, these Wawatians were somewhat Egyptianized in culture. And at times the Egyptians enlisted the services of Wawatians, and other times Wawatians advanced their own needs and concerns. Some scholars suggest that Wawat was pretty much the front line for Egyptian resistance as they were the immediate descendants of Tasseti. Wawat even expanded itself, conquering other Nubian chiefdoms in the south called Erjet and Satju. So Wawat from an Egyptian perspective was a pretty inconsistent region concerning their loyalties toward Egypt. Amenemhat I said, I seized the people of Wawat, and captured the people of Mejeh. One of the clear cut depictions we have of Wawatians is from a tomb which depicts the princes of Wawat. One prince being named himself, Hakonefer, the prince of Wawat. Here Hakonefer is being depicted as a vassal prince paying tribute to Egypt. Now the confusion may come in because these people with the iconic feather on their heads will later be known or associated with a distinct group of people. You'll understand a little later. Now let's talk about the Mejeh. The Mejeh Nubians are well documented and are considered a completely different ethnic group. We can refer to them as the Eastern Nubians because they mostly reside in the Nubian desert. In fact, the Mejeh are so well documented that we know their direct descendants today, the Bija people. The Mejeh were hands down the most friendly Nubians toward the Egyptians. The Mejeh and the Egyptians literally worked hand in hand and frequently intermarried. Very rarely did the Mejeh have beef with the Egyptians and in general they were reliable. The Mejeh were very highly valued as soldiers in the Egyptian army. Around the Middle Kingdom, the Mejeh were reported to have lived east of Yan and south of Wawat. The Mejeh worked in all parts of Egyptian society as palace attendants, temple employees, merchants and more. The Mejeh worked in Egyptian fortifications in Nubia and patrolled the deserts alongside Egyptian soldiers. The ancient references to the Mejeh is typically synonymous with police or judicial administrators. They protected pharaonic interests. When they served as mercenary troops, they were noted especially for their fast infantry or later cavalry attacks. It seems very clear that the Egyptians viewed the Mejeh as related or similar to themselves. Now before we talk about the Kushites, we need to talk about Kerma. Bear with me because it's hard to explain who the Kushites were without mentioning Tasseti, Wawat and Kerma specifically. Now like Tasseti, Kerma developed into a powerful state and advanced their own culture and architecture independently from Egypt. Kerma seems to have been sort of the second breakaway homeland of Tasseti people and culture. The state formation of Kerma is dated at about 2300 BC. Egypt of course had major beef with Kerma. The significance of Kerma rests on it being the oldest major kingdom in Africa south of Egypt and having a character and culture that is clearly not Egyptian but uniquely its own, all the way down to the architecture itself. Kerma was very successful and had major resources but Egypt sought to control it. Kerma quickly becomes a very powerful state just as Tasseti was. Kerma goes on to conquer other Nubian states in the region such as the side kingdom and becomes the dominant force in the south. By this time, Kerma is a huge threat to Egypt. This is where Egyptian propaganda began as they needed to insult and belittle the Kerma Nubians in order to justify domination. Then seemingly out of the blue, Middle Kingdom Egyptians began to use the term KUSH to refer to the Kerma region. This is the first time we specifically hear this word KUSH being used. Essentially Egypt started hating on KUSH because not only did much of their precious resources come from that region but they knew they had a genuine rival in which they had to compete with. So who were the KUSHites? You see the KUSHites seem to have been a sort of hybrid ethnic group. After Wawat and Kerma began to conquer other Nubian regions and tribes like Erjet and Setju and Sai, they began incorporating them into their society. Seemingly these groups of Nubians intermingled with each other and created a new ethnic group. Apparently the Egyptians saw all of this and noticed that these people were essentially a combination of all their fears, thus a new name for them had to be created, KUSH. In a sense the KUSHites always existed amongst the Tasseti, Wawat, and Kerma Nubians. The KUSHites sort of inherited their ancient memory from Tasseti, their rebellious spirit from Wawat, and their uniqueness from Kerma. The KUSHites were a powerful group of Nilo-Saharan Africans. In fact the KUSHites nearly destroyed Egypt. Many people aren't aware but sometime during the middle kingdom the KUSHites invaded Egypt and nearly destroyed it. Had the KUSHites stayed in Egypt that pretty much would have been it for the Egyptians. Luckily for the Egyptians the KUSHites didn't seem very interested in occupation, they went raiding for precious objects merely a symbol of domination. It seems they simply wanted to send a message. KUSHite kings possessed substantial wealth and power. After the Hysokes conquered northern or lower Egypt, a Hysokes king wrote to the ruler of Kush to propose a joint alliance against the Egyptian pharaoh Kamos. Why have you risen as a ruler without letting me know? Have you seen what Egypt has done against me? The ruler who is in it, Kamos, is attacking me on my soil, but I am not attacking him in the way he had done against you. He chose the two lands to persecute them, my land and yours, and he has ravaged them. Come, navigate downstream, do not be afraid. Behold he is here with me. There is no one who will be waiting for you in this Egypt, for I will not let him go until you have arrived. Then we shall divide the towns of this Egypt. So it seems as though the Kushites were supportive of the Hysokes, but not in totality. If Kamos didn't intercept this message to the Kushite king, that probably would have been it for Egypt for good. The Egyptians right now were literally in the belly of the beast. They had the Hysokes who conquered the north, and they had the Kushites in the south who clearly had the capacity to finish them off. The Egyptians were pretty paranoid and upset at their southern neighbors after they successfully expelled the Hysokes for good. This is why we consistently hear the Egyptians in the new kingdom refer to their southern neighbors as vile Kush, for obvious reasons. Thus, due to Egyptian paranoia and propaganda, they attack Kush and conquer it so that they don't have to compete with them any longer in the future. But who are these Kushites and what are some of their cultural characteristics and how were they depicted? In order to get a fair picture of who these Kushites were, we have to see how they were depicted by themselves and other cultures. We have a plethora of depictions of Kushite captives and even Kushite royalty. Our first image is of a Kushite captive depicted by the Assyrians. Our second image is of a Kushite royalty depicted by themselves. Our third image seems to be relative culturally or linguistically to the Kushites, perhaps from a sister tribe. We know this because this ethnic group is often portrayed by the Egyptians as allies to Kush or even being identical to the Kushites themselves. Kind of like how the Egyptians intermarried with the Mejah. There is diversity amongst the Kushite identity so it's important to note that. Not all Kushites throughout Kushite history are the same. So during this time of Egyptian occupation, unique Egyptian elements begin to seep into Kushite culture. Even Kushite art begins to change into a more Egyptian style. This is what confuses many people because the Kushites began to use Egyptian styled sculpture but they began to use their own style once they moved to their capital and it began to differ and become more realistic. Anyway sometime in the 11th century BC, the new kingdom of Egypt weakens and Kush becomes independent. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a sort of Kushite ideological revolution that begins to take form. Kushite elites and kings begin to spew this narrative that, wait a minute, we are the originators of Nile Valley culture and we are the rightful heirs. Thus we should control and dominate the region. This Kushite renaissance obviously spelt disaster for not only Egypt but other non-Kushite Nubians. Thus, King Pai sailed up and conquered all of Egypt. Then he spoke these words, Lo, who has led thee? Who has led thee? Did heaven reign with arrows? I am content when the southerners do obeisance, and the northerners say, Put us in thy shadow. Thy gnomes are full of youths. So basically the Kushites were feeling themselves, they conquered all of Egypt and ultimately believe that they were the originators of Nile Valley civilization. And to be honest, they probably had some fair points because in reality the Kushites were either directly or indirectly descended from Tasseti, the original Nile Valley civilization. The iconic cultural features for Kushites seem to have been the ostrich feather on the head and the plaited hairstyle, a style that became very popular in Egypt, the same ostrich feather seen on the Wawat Nubians. King Pai conquers all of Egypt and begins the Kushite Empire leading to one of the most prosperous eras in Kushite and Egyptian history and a renewal of Nile Valley culture. His purpose was clear because after conquering Egypt, he didn't even stay but he ruled from Kush. King Pai declared that the conquering of Egypt was a holy war as the Kushites believed that Egypt had somehow been religiously and culturally corrupted and had to be cleansed from all its foreign unrighteousness. This is the only time in history a group of people actually conquered another state with the sole declarative purpose of restoring what they believed to be theirs. Essentially Egypt's fears were realized. But eventually like all empires, the Kushite Empire fell due to the Assyrian invasion. The Kushites moved their capital to Meroe and this begins a new glorious era in Kushite history, one that's filled with many kings and queens. When the Kushites moved to Meroe, their culture takes on an even more unique Kushite element. They even create their own script called Meroitic. Even though the script was invented earlier by the Kushites, it flourishes during the Meroitic period. Kush seemed to be a defensive powerhouse in the ancient world as nobody seemed to be able to conquer it. Egypt tried again to conquer Kush and failed. While Kush was in its golden age, Egypt went into a steep decline. Nearly everyone who thought about conquering Egypt was able to do so. And while Egypt fell to the Assyrians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Persians, and the Arabs, Kush maintained its independence against the Assyrians, Persians, and Romans. Kush finally fell to Aksum during the latter end of its dominance and broke up into three Christian kingdoms. These Christian kingdoms again maintained their independence during the Arab invasion. Intermarriage with Arabs over time introduced Islam into the region today. The history of ancient Nubia is very complex and unique. Today, many people get confused because the Greeks referred to Kushites and other Nubian populations as Ethiopians, but this term always referred to Nubian people and not modern-day Ethiopians. This confusion happened because King Azana, a king of Aksum, actually studied Greek literature and decided to use the term Ethiopian and apply it to his own people. Also, the term Kushitic is confused with ancient Kushites, which are two different things. The term Kushitic usually refers to modern-day Horn Africans and was a term that was obviously borrowed from the ancient Kushites, as they were the most popular Nubians in the region. Kushitic refers to Afro-Asiatic speakers, but the Kushites themselves were Nilo-Saharan speakers. So as we can see, there are many ancient and modern perspectives that confuse the issue when it comes to Nubian history, but more specifically, Kushite history. So I'm all out guys. If you want access to full-blown African history videos and sources, you can support the home team on Patreon. It's in the description box below. It's ya boi, Home Team. Know thyself. Remember your ancestors. Peace.