Story by David Keys
Impressions Magazine
Top: Monumental stone decoration with sacred hippopotami from the
entrance to a funerary temple at Kerma, 1600 B.C. Naturally mummified
body of one of the archers whose job it was to protect Kerma 4,200
years ago. Above, clockwise from left: Excavated area showing post
holes left by numerous huts built over several centuries some four
millennia ago. In the background are the eroded remnants of ancient
Kermas main temple built of mud brick around 2000 B.C. Six pots
from Kerma 2000 B.C. Bucranias in front of a Kerma grave. Storage pits
for wheat and barley from the very beginning of Kerma civilisation 3000
B.C.
Archaeologists in Sudan are unearthing one of the worlds oldest
civilisations an ancient kingdom which began to fourish 5,000
years ago, hundreds of miles to the south of ancient Egypt.
Text David Keys. Photos Swiss Archaeological Mission at Kerma
Excavations directed by Swiss archaeologists, Professor Charles
Bonnet and Dr. Matthieu Honegger have been revealing a royal
palace, temples, extraordinary tombs and a massive ancient city on the
banks of the Nile in Northern Sudan. Academics have been speculating
over whether this long-lost civilisation may have been the precursor of
the famous biblical Kingdom of Kush, which was alluded to in the Book
of Genesis.
As a direct result of these and other excavations, Sudan is emerging as
one of the most significant archaeological regions in the world. Due to
the countrys superbly preserved archaeology, it has yielded
evidence of early cattle domestication that pre-dates any in
Egypts Nile Valley. Whats more, the earliest Sudanese
civilisation known as Ta-Sety (the Land of the
Archers Bow) to the ancient Egyptians and Kerma to modern
archaeologists is the most ancient African urban culture
outside the Land of the Pharaohs. It flourished as a totally
independent political entity for at least 15 centuries until
finally, around 1500 B.C., it was conquered by the Pharaohs of Egypt.
This ancient Sudanese civilisation appears to have been ruled by a
series of extraordinarily powerful kings perhaps even emperors.
Several of the royal tombs were spectacular man-made hills, 30 metres
wide and up to 15 metres high. To underline their power in this life
(and the next), the rulers of Kerma seem to have had the unsettling
habit of taking all their retainers and many of their relatives with
them to the afterlife! One tomb held 400 skeletons. Even before these
kings began taking human escorts with them to eternity, their funerals
had still been massive ritual events in which their imperial power over
vast areas of territory was symbolically demonstrated. Indeed,
excavations and subsequent scientific investigations over the last few
years have revealed that some of the kings had themselves buried
alongside the remains of literally thousands of cattle. In front of one
royal grave, the kings retainers had sacrificed 4,500 of the
animals arranging their skulls in a huge, horn-shaped crescent
in front of the tomb. But of greatest significance was the chemical
analysis of the horns, which revealed that the cattle had been reared
in different environments and been brought to the funeral from the
length and breadth of the kingdom.
Whats clear is that Kermas civilisation emerged out of an
ancient pastoral culture that had flourished in that part of Sudan
since at least 7000 B.C. when the first settlements were established.
Nearby Kerma archaeologists have discovered one of the two oldest
cemeteries ever found in Africa dating back to 7500 B.C.
and the oldest evidence of cattle domestication ever found in
Sudan or, indeed, in the Egyptian Nile Valley.
The economic basis of both of the pre-urban and urban cultures of
ancient Kerma was cattle. The people themselves seem to have come from
two distinct areas and may originally have belonged to two tribal
groups. Excavations last winter revealed how, for the first 100 years
of Kermas existence, these two peoples continued to preserve
their distinct cultural traditions while living in the same city.
Although the distinctions may have been tribal in origin, they also
reflected differences in wealth and possibly social status. Kerma was
an extraordinarily prosperous empire. It was an advanced Black African
state which established itself very successfully as a middle-man
between sub-Saharan.
Africa and Egypt. It therefore supplied ancient Egypt with everything
from tropical animals and slaves to gold and precious hardwoods.
Archaeologists have been unearthing truly wonderful works of art in
Kerma everything from model hippopotami, lions, giraffes,
falcons, vultures, scorpions and crocodiles made of faience, mica,
ivory and quartz to bracelets, ear decorations and necklaces made of
gold, shell and faience. Kerma ceramics are among the most elegant from
the ancient world strikingly modern-looking with simple shapes
and bold geometric designs. The kingdoms capital was defended by
substantial city walls.
At least two miles of ramparts and dozens of bastions protected it from
attack. Yet by around 1500 B.C., the defences failed and Kerma was
conquered and occupied by the Egyptians, led by Pharaoh Tuthmosis I,
one of the most militarily aggressive rulers the world had ever seen.
Bronze Age Sudans fight to protect its independence and its
resistance against Egyptian occupation was one of the longest military
struggles of the ancient world, lasting some 220 years (roughly
1550-1330 B.C.). Indeed, in a sense, this ancient conflict had started
even earlier. For, in around 1900 B.C., when Kerma was already a major
kingdom, the Egyptian Pharaoh Senusret II (literally Man of the
Goddess of Thebes) officially established the southern border of
Egypt in order to prevent any people from Kerma
crossing the frontier, by water or by land unless for trading or
other approved purposes. Not content with simply maintaining a
heavily policed border, the Pharaohs son and successor, Senusret
III, started to attack Kerma. In order to facilitate troop movements,
the Egyptians built a canal around the Niles first great series
of rapids (the First Cataract) near Aswan. Then the Pharaoh launched a
series of invasions and boasted of his exploits in the Kingdom of
Kerma. I carried off their women. I carried off their men-folk.
I captured their wells, killed their bulls and reaped or burned their
crops, he wrote.
But Senusret failed to permanently subdue Kerma and the Kingdom
survived for another 300 years, growing ever more powerful. Indeed, by
the mid-17th Century B.C., it was ruling over southern Egypt as far
north as Elephantine Island near Aswan. But after Egypt was re-united
in around 1550 B.C., the Pharaohs began to re-launch their
long-suspended campaign to conquer Kerma. A region, often known in
history as Nubia, the Kingdom of Kerma managed to withstand raids by
the first two rulers of this powerful and aggressive re-united new
Egypt, but, a few decades later, a military strongman, Tuthmosis I,
came to power and almost immediately invaded and conquered it. These
ancient Egyptian Pharaohs had a somewhat condescending and ferociously
hostile attitude to their Sudanese southern neighbour. One of
Tuthmosis generals described how, that wretched Nubian
troglodyte the enemy leader (almost certainly the last
independent king of Kerma) was brought north hung, head
downwards, from the prow of the Pharaohs royal barge.
Tuthmosis (his name means Born of the Moon God) was an
empire-builder of the first order and the Kingdom of Kerma was one of
his first targets.
He was also not given to false modesty, writing, I extended the
frontiers of Egypt as far as that which the sun encircles.
I put Egypt above every other land. Tuthmosis I and his
immediate successors then set about building great temples to Egyptian
gods (temples now being excavated in Kerma) in the newly conquered
Sudanese territory. Kerma was annexed and became an Egyptian colony
The Land governed by the Pharaohs Son.
The rulers of Kerma seem to have had the unsettling habit of taking their relatives with them to the afterlife"
Pendant made of polished shell, 2300 B.C.
Ancient Egypts rulers had wanted control over Kerma for economic
as well as purely political reasons. For Kerma had, for
centuries, controlled the flow of gold, ivory, ebony and slaves into
Egypt. For its survival, Egypt depended on wealth, but much of that
wealth came from outside its borders and its supply had, in effect,
been partially controlled by the independent non-Egyptian empire of
Kerma. But although under military occupation from
the time of Tuthmosis I, Kermas spirit of independence was not
dead. Indeed, for the next two centuries, Sudanese resistance leaders
led revolt after revolt against their new Pharaonic overlords. A
particularly major uprising was suppressed in 1450 B.C. Seven Sudanese
princes captured by the Egyptians were executed personally by the
Pharaoh Amenhotep II (with a rather large royal mace!) as a sacrifice
to the Egyptian God Amon. The Pharaoh (whose name translates, somewhat
appropriately, as Amon is delighted) then dispatched six
of the unfortunate princes to be hung from the walls of the Temple of
Amon in Thebes and one to be similarly suspended from the walls of a
Sudanese city, so that the victorious power of His Majesty could
be seen (by the people of Kerma) for ever and ever.
Pictures on the Tomb Walls
New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, Reigns of Thutmose IV & Amenhotep III, 1400-1352 B.C.
Thebes, Tomb of Huy, Viceroy of Nubia buried at Qurnat Murai.
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