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After the 25th dynasty, the kingdom of Kush kept going first with the Kingdom of Napata, but then later Meroe eclipsed Napata. Capital moved to the south and lasted about 600 years.
The Meroitic Kings ruled Lower and Upper Nubia and the area far south along the Blue Nile
(600km upstream from Khartoum).
Why settlement at Meroe: innovation of irrigation, use of the waterwheel (the “zakiyya”).
Discussion of the waterwheel pottery, production, the nub at the bottom for fixing to the wheel. Discussion of the numbers inscribed on the objects: excavation numbers <> inventory numbers at museums. Numbers are part of the history of the object after the excavation.
Culture of Meroe was more connected to African styles, but it retained Egyptian characteristics. Situated right bank of the river between the 4 th and 5 th cataract (really? Not
5 th and 6 th ?) The area between the Atbara river and the Blue Nile is called the “Island of
Meroe”.
Mines of copper, iron and gold, precious stones. Salt quarries, palm trees, ebony, elephants, lions and leopards.
The ruins of Meroe are far from being completely excavated. John Garstang started in 1909 and 1914 to excavate. Center of trade and IRON WORKING. Meroe appears as the largest iron working site in all of North Eastern Africa, probably all of the ancient world. Egypt had used iron earlier, but it was meteoric iron, they called it copper from heaven. Nubia used hematite to create iron.
Gebel Barkal: the top is iron-rich, and the rest of the desert had eroded away, leaving the rock standing!
Large step from using meteoric iron to extracting iron and manufacture it as a metal: remove impurities. Most ancient iron is wrought iron with very little impurities except slag.
Iron in that period has a low carbon content, this makes it brittle and needs a lot of heat to melt. After working it, it tries to go back to its natural state, by starting to corrode very quickly
> iron-oxide > bumpy and rough, warty, flaky, at least at the surface. Sometimes it breaks off or detaches. Very hard to preserve.
Look at the microscope: shows the surface and the efforts to preserve the object. Shows a brittle and flaky surface.
Kilns at Meroe: 6-7 meters long, two ends for bellows:

Meroe seems to have been the centre for iron working, also the place from where ironworking made its way into Africa … metalwork found already in the 1920s, but only seriously excavated in the 1970-80s.
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Shinnie / Hakim: excavations in the Northern city of Meroe. Further excavations until today.
Interview with Caroline Rocheleau (excavator at Meroe): worked at the Great Amon temple.
When cleaning out the rubble, she discovered a series of Meroitic inscriptions that were never recorded before.
She investigated the kinks in the temple plan and found that in the trench that the kinks were actually access to stairwells going up into the pylons. She determined that the pylons were actually pylons, not simply walls.
Differences between Napatan and Meroitic temples. The large Amon temples in Meroitic period follow different plans. It seems that each king or queen had their own preferences and all their temples followed that scheme.
Relief decorations are not well preserved, so we only see the feet and ankles, but they were extremely large. Future work? Ongoing work, but not focused on the temple, rather the residential areas are being excavated these days.

The main gods worshiped in Meroe were Isis, Amun and Apedemak. Amon = state god, Isis:
Philae had the main temple of Isis. Dendur temple was given to UN and re-erected in New
York (Metropolitan Museum), dedicated to Isis and Osiris. Typical for the late period, partially cut into the rock, with a kiosk out front. Apedemak is shown with a lion’s head and is solely
Nubian. His main temples are located at Meroe, Naqa and Musawwarat al-Sufra.
Earliest settlement at Meroe: 1000 BC, much larger during Napata, King Aspelta built a residence there. Meroitic period brought a major rebuilding of the city. The ancient city has a huge wall enclosure with temple, palace and administration, plus some smaller temples.
Great slag heaps and melting furnaces just outside of town > ironworking. Royal enclose: palaces, observatory, audience hall, and a temple. The main Amon temple to the East of the enclosure. Suggestions of an upper floor exist.
Zodiac on Fayence show the Roman zodiac, showing a link to the Roman world. The Baths have huge water tanks, there were painted sculpture of Roman influence in the tanks.
Originally identified as a Greek-style bath, now new indications point towards a royal cult to
Apedemak and Dyonisos, a cult linked to rebirth and fertility is suggested. There is a new development showing a seating area for the royal family.
Sun temple stands alone on a platform west of the town, founded in the Napatan period, with rebuilding in Meroitic period. Battle scenes inspire some military link.
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To the east of the city, at Begarawiyah, there are three cemetaries: south with 9 royal pyramids and 195 other tombs, north with 40 more pyramids and 3 other tombs, the west with non-royal tombs.
Southern was located on a ridge over the desert (720-300 BC), north only for royal burials.
Most tombs were plundered in antiquity. Still, lots of luxury objects from the Mediterranean world. Grave goods also had jewels, tools, weapens, etc.
Western cemetery closer to the city between the town and the Sun Temple, used from
Napatan to Meroitic periods. Unlike Egypt, all kinds of people could be buried in pyramids.
Larger ones with temple and pylons were only for rulers. Tombs were actually below ground and not accessible from the pyramid. The pyramids were built AFTER the burial. Pyramids were steep sides, there was a tree trunk in the centre and things were pulled up. Largest are about 30 meters high. Earlier pyramids are stone, later ones replaced the stone with bricks.
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Chapels have carved relief scenes: most of our information on Meroitic society comes from those reliefs.
Interview with Janice Yellin: work on the chapels is rather a work of preservation. Relief scenes with funerary rituals, but also funeral processions with family members and court paying homage. Shows some social organisation.

Recording? They are extremely damaged. The sandstones is very brittle. Since they have been known since 17 th century, they have been pretty much damaged. Recordings also draw on photographs and drawings from early expeditions.
Those have been brought together, based on the photographs, they are published in a volume per cemeteries. The drawings have some details that were lost when photography started being used for recordings.
Results: how did Meriotic society start as separate from Napata. Was there a cultural break and some kind of war between Napata and Meroe: there are too many consistencies that there was NO cultural rupture. Meroe takes power only a certain time after the first royal burials have happened at Meroe. Early burials were clearly Napatan, with a lot of relations with Egyptian ideas > they take ancient Egyptian ideas and use them in their own way and understanding. This is not simply copying but a specific interpretation of Egyptian beliefs.
Women had a pretty prominent role: is this visible in the chapels. Is this obvious? The largest temple North 11, is the pyramid of a queen Shanaktehekto? The decorations are similar to the ones with a king’s burial. There appears to be no difference in gender.
Top priority is conservation and rescue. In terms of pyramids, most information is available, but needs to be studied and published. The pyramids have been destroyed to a large degree, though.
Early expeditions by Reisner identified and named the three cemeteries as Begerawiyah North,
South and West and numbered the tombs sequentially. He also started to construct a timeline based on the stratigraphy. He things that the chronology goes from West to East.
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Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt and Romans treated with Meroe for gold, ivory, elephants. They were used for warfare and transport, they are everywhere in Meroitic art. Musawwarat al-
Sufra is located in a semi-arid landscape and might have been a caravansaray. 30 km inland from the Nile, 70 km south of Meroe. Central feature is the Great Inclosure, several building complexes within on artificial terraces, surrounded by huge walled courtyards. Function and dating of this structure is unclear. Center is Temples 100, recent excavations have found large gardens, water ducts, etc. Water needed to maintain the gardens came from a reservoir, the
Great Hafir, about 250 meters diameter and still stands to 5 meters high = ¼ million cubic meters of water.
Hafirs were huge reservoirs. Four were found at Musawwarat, the largest one is 500 meters away from the Great Enclosure. The water comes from canals that lead the water into them.
Sometimes have sculptures of protective lions and frogs.
Ancient city of Naga: one of the largest archaeological sites in Sudan: along with Meroe and
Gebel Barkal it is the most important site. It sits at the juncture of a number of wadis. A large temple of Amon, plastered white, painted red and blue stood on a raised terrace over the town. Lepsius started research and it took until 1978-80 for the first follow-up excavation.

An avenue of sphinxes have been reconstructed. Combination of local Egyptian features, inner sanctum, hypostyle hall and pylon, and Meroitic features. A processional approach with 6 ram-headed sphinxes , with figures of King Natakamani between their front legs. Lion temple and kiosk are also to be found. Also contains reliefs of Apedemak. The whole things is Romaninspired and has Hellenistic influences.
What was the purpose and date? Still unclear.
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Southwest between the Nile valley and city of Meroe, about 100 miles north of Khartoum. Is currently excavated: they want to conserve the palace of Amanishakheto, that was discovered in 1958. A large brick two-story palace: end of 1 st century AD, several large chambers and about 60 smaller rooms, probably with a second floor. She was buried in Nagarawiya North 6, one of the notable ruling queens. The women rulers appear to be the most successful.
Kanadake = queen in Meroitic. It seems that a queen repelled Alexander the Great. Another one made peace with Rome.
Meroe did not do as well against the Christian kingdom of Axum in Ethiopia. Meroe was conquered by Axumites in about 330 AD. End of Meroitic as a language and the state of
Meroe. Also there was overuse of the land, shifting trade patters. However, this did not mean the death of Meroitic culture.
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a What were the reasons for the move to Meroe and how did that change the culture?
The growing power of the re-established Egyptian dynasty was starting to be felt in Napata ever stronger and was an active reason to move further upriver to remain independent.
Furthermore, due to innovations in irrigation, the region around Meroe had become ever more attractive and able to support a larger group of people, including the royal retinue. The fact that the city of Meroe had established itself as an important centre for ironwork and that it was located on important trade routes made the move all the more logical. b Can we see the stability in Meroitic civilization as a partial result of the role of women as rulers? Discuss.
It has become clear that women have played an important role in creating external stability by negotiating peace treaties and meeting enemies in battle. However, this does not necessarily mean that the stability is a result of the fact that this was done by female rulers. It does tell us more about the idea that men and women can be rulers irrespective of their gender, and the reality of the ruler being a man or a woman does not have an influence on their ability to conduct politics in a beneficial way.
This being said, if anything can be derived from the knowledge about Meroitic society and their rulers, it is that women are clearly as able to rule a state as men are …