Nubian Fortresses in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom

The Egyptian Middle Kingdom began with another Egyptian effort to expand into Nubian territory. Part or all of Wawat (Lower Nubia) was annexed to Egypt, according to a graffito near Abisko, south of the First Cataract. Mentuhotep II had been able to expand Egyptian interests in Nubia, and the Egyptians regained full control under Amenemhat I at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty (ca. 1938-1759 вс).

They pushed south in an attempt to secure trade routes and to consolidate control of the area. They now built fortresses along the Nile at the Second Cataract, to protect Egypt’s southern border, safeguard Egyptian gold-mining interests (such as the routes through the Wadi al-Allaqi), and tax goods coming overland and downriver into Egypt, as well as to defend against the Kerma polity to the south.

Like his predecessor Mentuhotep II, Amen- emhat I may have had some Nubian ancestry. An Egyptian literary text called the Prophecies of Neferti, of which we have only New Kingdom copies, refers to a time in the Old Kingdom when a prophet of King Sneferu, Neferti, predicts that an Ameny, or King Amenemhat I, who is the son of a “woman of t-3-sty” (the name of Nubia or possibly the Aswan nome), will unify Egypt.

During the reign of this king, Nubians seem to have been accepted without prejudice as part of the Egyptian population, as indicated by the marriage of these kings to Nubian women and the appointed positions Nubians held in Egyptian society. Yet Nubia was still considered a land for Egyptians to acquire: an inscription at al-Girgawi dating to regnal year 29, possibly associated with Amenemhat I, boasts that his army retook Wawat and built fortresses to protect Egypt’s southern borders.

Senwosret I established a power center at the Second Cataract site of Buhen, expanding and fortifying an earlier settlement. A victory decree from Buhen depicts Senwosret facing Montu, the god of war, who stands before him with Nubian enemies. Both Amenemhat I and Senwosret I campaigned to conquer Wawat. The extent of the Nubian threat they perceived is clear from the series of Egyptian fortresses with massive walls that Senwosret I began and Senwosret III completed in Lower Nubia.

During regnal year 8, Senwosret III added fortresses at Semna and Kumma, located on opposite sides of the river, so that no one could pass through this narrow section of the river without being seen. A stela dating to regnal year 16, located at Semna, was duplicated on the island of Uronarti. It reveals that Senwosret III drew his southern boundary at Semna, which he claimed was farther south than his father’s boundary.

Using the political rhetoric of the time, Senwosret Ill’s inscription stated that the Nubians were cowards, who retreated when they were attacked. He claimed to have captured Nubian women, carried off their children, and killed their cattle while destroying their fields of grain. The inscription ends with Senwosret Ill’s assertion that it was his descendants’ duty to maintain this southern border at Semna, to prevent Nubia from attacking Egypt from the south.

Figure. Model of Nubian archers, from the Eleventh Dynasty tomb of Mesehty, governor of Asyut

Also during Senwosret Ill’s reign, the Nubians of Kush south of the Third Cataract seem to have become more powerful and hostile, and nine more fortresses were built along the Second Cataract to ensure its safety. Once the Nile was secure at the southern boundary, Senwosret III had a channel cut through the First Cataract rocks to allow river traffic to pass through easily to Egypt. Senwosret III was eventually deified and worshiped in Nubia, particularly at Toshka, Buhen, Uronarti, Semna, and Kumma. His cult in Nubia seems to have continued for well over a thousand years.

The effectiveness of Senwosret Ill’s efforts may be seen in the fact that the eighteen inscriptions attributed to his successor, Amenemhat III, at Semna and Kumma lack any reference to hostilities with the Nubians, and this decrease in aggression seems to characterize the later Middle Kingdom interaction with Nubia. The Semna Papyri, a group of documents that were exchanged among the Semna, Mirgissa, and Serra East fortresses, tracked Nubian movements during the late Twelfth Dynasty, speaking not of hostilities but of trade relations between Egypt and Nubia and control of traffic throughout the frontier. The chief point of interaction was at Mirgissa, in the northern sector of the Second Cataract.

As for evidence of the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, a statue found on the island of Argo is inscribed with the cartouche of the Thirteenth Dynasty king Sobekhotep IV, and the fortresses at Semna and Mirgissa yielded statues whose inscriptions seem to refer to the Thirteenth Dynasty king Wagef and his command over Nubia.

This information indicates either that throughout the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, Egypt retained some control over Nubia’s trade routes and maintained its interest in the fortresses, or that these statues were simply imports to that area. However, by the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty, the area of Kush, which was once a trading partner of the Egyptians, had become a threat.

As indicated by evidence at the site of Askut and other Second Cataract forts, Egyptian administrative “expatriates,” as Stuart Tyson Smith describes them, switched their allegiance to Kerma at this time and later back again to the Egyptian pharaoh at the beginning of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Eventually, the expatriates and the native population intermingled and became neighbors, not fighting or competing but living together.