The History of Nubia. Bronze Age Nubia

George Reisner divided this period of Lower Nubian history into three successive cultural phases—the A-Group, В-Group, and C-Group— reflecting changes in their material culture. The existence of a В-Group culture, however, which Reisner proposed as an impoverished successor to the А-Group, has been refuted by more recent scholarship. Concurrent with these Lower Nubian phases was the Upper Nubian Pre-Kerma culture, followed by the Early Kerma, Middle Kerma, and Classic Kerma (see chronology chart).

The А-Group (ca. 3700-2800 BC), which is found throughout Lower Nubia from the Wadi Kubanieh north of Aswan to the area just south of the Second Cataract, is characterized by three phases, Early, Classic, and Terminal, ending during the Egyptian First Dynasty, around 2800 BC.

Based upon the archaeological evidence, it appears that А-Group populations cultivated barley, lentils, peas, and forms of wheat, and also maintained domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle; in addition, they supplemented their diet with hunting, gathering, and fishing. Some pottery styles of the А-Group are quite similar to black- topped ware and rippled ware found in Upper Nubia and to black-topped, red-polished ware of the Predynastic Naqada I-II Period in Egypt (ca. 4000-3200 ВС).

This similarity of style may demonstrate that А-Group cultures had contact, possibly through trade, with their northern and southern neighbors. Nubians of the Classic and Terminal А-Group also produced a distinct style of fine ‘eggshell ware’ that was burnished and painted in various patterns, as found at the site of Qustul.

Early excavations of А-Group sites concentrated on cemeteries, and so far very few settlement sites have been documented. The main type of burial associated with the А-Group was a rectangular or oval pit with the body in flexed position; the deceased were sometimes clothed in leather loincloths, linen caps, belts, and jewelry. No human sacrifices have been found in these graves.

Grave goods included pottery, amulets, necklaces, and pendants fashioned from shell, ivory, bone, ostrich eggshells, faience, and stone; less frequently occurring objects included ostrich-feather fans, figurines, and copper objects. Some objects were Egyptian in origin (notably at Qustul and Seyala—see below), supporting the theory that the Nubians were engaged in trade with later Predynastic Egypt (ca. 3500-3050 BC). Aswan became a significant trade center between the two cultures.

The importance of one Nubian commodity— ivory—to the Egyptians is indicated by the name of the island on which this trade entrepot was located—Abu, or ‘elephant’ in ancient Egyptian, later known in Greek as Elephantine.

Burials from the Classic and Terminal periods of the А-Group in Nubia reflect an increasingly differentiated, politically centralized society. The Classic phase in Cemetery 277, just north of the Second Cataract on the east bank of the Nile, provides evidence of this development. Here David O’Connor identified two adjacent subcemeteries that may contain separate lineages, each related to a highly powerful and wealthy individual. The importance of these individuals could be seen in the size and quality of the burial pits and grave goods, including gold beads and imported copper objects, Egyptian pottery, and other imports from Egypt.

The Terminal A-Group Cemetery L at Qustul, excavated by the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute from 1962 to 1964, raised questions about the degree of power held by a leader in their society, whether chief or king. This cemetery included twenty-three graves of considerable size originally surmounted by mounded superstructures, beneath each of which was a subterranean pit with a side chamber.

Burial goods were rich and plentiful— for example, large amounts of Egyptian pottery as well as vessels from Palestine/Syria, copper, some gold, and cosmetic palettes made of amethyst and quartz. These tombs were identified as possibly royal, comparable to Egyptian royal tombs of that period, no other site thus far found in Lower Nubia has yielded such magnificent burial goods.

Bruce Williams has shown that the occupants of these tombs were contemporary with the Naqada III Period in Egypt and adopted symbols associated with the Egyptian kings, such as those found on a stone incense burner carved with scenes depicting an individual with the White Crown of Upper Egypt, a serekh facade, the Homs falcon, and a bull, all motifs associated with Egyptian kingship. These symbols were found earlier in Tomb U-j at the Egyptian site of Abydos, which may be a bit earlier than Cemetery L and also shows evidence of a sophisticated indigenous culture.