Art and Archaeology of Ancient Nubia
Week 4: The City and the Kingdom: The Kerma Culture 2800-1500 BC
1
The First Kingdom of Kush
Located near the city of Kerma: large fertile flood plain. Large royal city. Luxury gods!
End of the middle Kingdom, Egypt was split into two parts and the Nubians could reassert
themselves. Some Egyptian soldiers even switched sides. This is true for officials as well as
certified by the stele of Ka, at Buman.
Few excavations: but houses in early Kush were made from straw, circular huts, later also
stone buildings. Vast number of granaries. Pre-Kerma pottery had different shapes, were
glazed and beautifully finished. Black-top, red ware pottery. Classic period has a silvery band
between the two colours. It’s actually glass from the very hot kilns. Offerings were made to
the dead
Kingdom has elaborate funeral tumuli, decorated. Bodies on the right side, with the head to
the east.
Early Kerma (2500-2050 BC), Middle Kerma (2050-1750 BC) and Classic Kerma (1750-1450 BC).
Already Early Kerma: black bowls, stamped and highly polished pottery.
2
City Life in Ancient Kerma
Strategically located near the 3rd cataract. 17th century BC: high point: 15-25 acres, but lots of
people lived outside the walls. Inside, about 2000 people. A large mud brick temple (Lower
Deffufa), palace and city hall were associated with it.
French film fragment. Reissner thought it was the site of an Egyptian governor’s palace
location. Later, it was thought to have been a temple site. There is only a long staircase
leading to a top platform. The temple was surrounded by a large city.
The whole thing is located on an island, and surrounded by defensive walls. This was a
separate state, complex culture and alive for more than 1000 years
About 2000 years before the first black pharaohs entered Egypt, there was already a Nubian
kingdom on the river Nile.
The city served mainly as living quarters for the elite: the ruler and his officials, some
workshops and artisans. The city plan represented the Egyptian hieroglyph Niwt for city.
Massive cemetery east of Kerma covering the whole period from Early to Classic Kerma phase.
30.000 graves between 2500-1500 BC. Most graves have been robed, but some still have
grave goods inside Often cattle heads arranged in circles around the actual burial. Later in
Kerma, fewer cattle sacrifices were made (higher population, fewer cattle?). Human sacrifice
started to become more widespread. Hundreds of human sacrifices. Not natural deaths!
There was no written record in Kerma, so things are mysterious. Bucranium remains can be
found everywhere! Representation of cattle herds.
Classic phase has the largest number of tumuli. Large funerary chapels are associated with the
largest tumuli. They have glazed tiles and depictions of African animal signs, but also Egyptian
symbols. In ancient times the tombs were already renovated. The dead were accompanied by
other people, sometimes buried alive. There were wooden beds for the king tombs.
3
Temple and Town
The Western Deffufa was the main temple of Kerma. Enlarged over time and had a ceremonial
palace, workshops and palace. It rests on a dais, has a long stairway with a type of altar. Lots
of Egyptian imports like stamps etc.
Goods for temple were created right on the spot. City had rectilinear Egyptian style buildings,
but also round African wooden huts. The landscape supplied what the city needed from the
river floodplain.
4
Conflict with Egypt
Kush actually started to invade Upper Egypt, leading to conflict with Thebes. First evidence of
Nubians attacking Egypt. There were raids before, but this is an actual incursion of Kerma into
the New Kingdom. A tomb inscription at El-Kab in Upper Egypt speaks of this.
At Doki Gel, a temple site and city was built outside of Kerma. Peculiar architecture, final stand
of the Kerma kings against the Egyptians. Kerma at its height extended all the way to C-Group
and Pan Grave cultures.
Egyptian objects in Kerma indicate trade or plunder in Egypt. Early Middle Kingdom sculptures
in Kerma misled scholars to think that this WAS Egypt.
Nubian faience was found at Kerma – they re-invented the technology rather than take it from
elsewhere. Kerma pottery is not gritty, almost porous (pumice like) and the surface is glassy to
make it waterproof. Nubian faience is very different from Egyptian faience. To which degree
has Nubian faience and pottery been manufactured in Nubia rather than imported from Egypt.
How much is trade/raid, how much is locally produced? Research is ongoing.
Kerma allied itself with the Hyksos and they conquered Egypt together. Hyksos had occupied
parts of northern Egypt and invited Kerma to join them. The New Kingdom was then
successful to drive both out again. Not all Kerma Nubians may have taken part in this war.
In the second Intermediate Period the second cataract fortresses were burned and pillaged.
Nubians? Maybe during the Egyptian reconquest!
B
Discussion
1
How did the rise of the Kerma Kingdom parallel that of Dynastic Egypt and how did it
differ?
Kerma and Dynastic Egypt both started out from modest towns along the flood plain of the
river Nile, then expanded their grip on the adjacent lands through political and military means,
as well as trade. Both were centers for exchange of goods passing through from their original
production places to the culturally different places of consumption.
While Egypt was open to invasions from the North, from the Mediterranean as well as the
Levant, Kerma was mostly surrounded by cultures that were based on similar roots and to
some degree comparable to themselves. This would likely have made it easier to maintain a
certain standing within their surroundings, while Egypt was confronted with other cultures of a
similar level, but with radically different backgrounds.
2
What were the differences between state development in Upper and Lower Nubia?
Upper Nubia, especially Kerma, may have been influenced by the proximity of Egypt and its
expanding influence in the region, but was able to maintain its cultural separateness to some
degree. There was exchange, of course, and military incursions, but no complete takeover.
Both were kind of equal in possibilities. Lower Nubia, however, was less developed in terms of
agriculture (for lack of agricultural lands) and different in cultural practices, mainly because of
their nomadic lifestyle. There were multiple smaller groups of diverse cultures, not the large
uniform blocks that Egypt and Kerma formed. Therefore, Lower Nubian groups were
sometimes on their own, sometimes controlled by Egypt or Kerma, sometimes incorporated
into either of the two large entities. This situation clearly held back an independent
developments in the buffer zone area, and pushed those groups towards assimilation of parts
of either large cultural entity to their North or South.