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Reference Material - Kushites


coworotel
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I recently visited the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, they have an exposition called "Nubia: Land of the Black Pharaos", and decided to take pictures of some of the artifacts with their descriptions (unfortunately in Dutch), and the history texts (in English). I also recorded some music they played in the introduction video (which I guess is some generic Egyptian music). Not sure if this is useful for the community, but just in case... And it was pretty cool to see some of the references of the game in such exposition, like "Gebel Barkal".

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nubia.mp3

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2 hours ago, coworotel said:

I recently visited the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, they have an exposition called "Nubia: Land of the Black Pharaos", and decided to take pictures of some of the artifacts with their descriptions (unfortunately in Dutch), and the history texts (in English). I also recorded some music they played in the introduction video (which I guess is some generic Egyptian music). Not sure if this is useful for the community, but just in case... And it was pretty cool to see some of the references of the game in such exposition, like "Gebel Barkal".

Coworotel, that was excellent! Thank you very much!! Seems to have been quite an interesting exhibition...

I read all the descriptions and they were of an excellent quality, only very minor mistakes, but I liked it. Whoever wrote it did their homework :) 

Also, I didn't realize you were a Dutch-speaker (or did I forget?)

Spoiler

 

About all the shabti's, it's interesting... They put record breaking numbers of them in their tombs (thousands). Far more than the Egyptians ever used. 

New Kingdom Egypt didn't really "withdraw" from Kush, but lost control over it during the rule of Ramesses XI (11th century BC), beginning as early as the actions of Pinehesy, a former Viceroy of Kush, and his war against the high priest of Amun in Thebes. He took Thebes for a short while but was eventually chased from Thebes. He continued to rule independently from Kush. The new Egyptian high priest of Amun (Piankh) led a military expedition South, but the exact, purpose and outcome of this expedition is not clear. What is clear is that Egypt never again ruled Kush. It seems straightforward to me that the secession of Kush (half of the New Kingdom) even prior to Ramesses XI's death, dealt a lethal blow to the New Kingdom, and the political intrigues of the Theban Priesthood put the final nail in the coffin of Egypt itself as a unified country.

Also, although the exact circumstances of the end of Meroitic Kush aren't known in detail, we do know what happened in general terms.. It's not completely "shrouded in mystery". First they were gradually overrun by the Noba (Nubian speakers), and then The Aksumite King Ezana bragged in his victory stele about destroying the Kushites and the Noba in the 330's AD. Aksumite inscriptions dating to this time have even been found in Meroë itself. As well as a temporary Aksumite throne. Also, consider the fact that Meroë was actually utterly destroyed at this time. (post-)Meroitic culture sputtered on for another century or so at places like El Hobagi, but they were clearly impoverished, and may have even been Aksumite vassals for a while. What was left of their power was quickly absorbed by, Nobatia, the Blemmye, Makuria and Alodia, who all inherited aspects of the Meroitic state. By the 6th century Sudan started Christianizing and what was left of the pharaonic traditions gradually disappeared.

 

 

Edited by Sundiata
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1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

Seems to have been quite an interesting exhibition...

It was indeed. I was surprised by the level of sophistication of the Kushite culture. Very detailed work in gold, and they even had some board game - called "senet" - that looks like chess (one of the pictures above).

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

Also, I didn't realize you were a Dutch-speaker (or did I forget?) 

I'm not haha. I'm just visiting the country for some time, my understanding of Dutch is extremely basic.

1 hour ago, Sundiata said:

About all the shabti's, it's interesting... They put record breaking numbers of them in their tombs (thousands). Far more than the Egyptians ever used. 

New Kingdom Egypt didn't really "withdraw" from Kush, but lost control over it during the rule of Ramesses XI (11th century BC), beginning as early as the actions of Pinehesy, a former Viceroy of Kush, and his war against the high priest of Amun in Thebes. He took Thebes for a short while but was eventually chased from Thebes. He continued to rule independently from Kush. The new Egyptian high priest of Amun (Piankh) led a military expedition South, but the exact, purpose and outcome of this expedition is not clear. What is clear is that Egypt never again ruled Kush. It seems straightforward to me that the secession of Kush (half of the New Kingdom) even prior to Ramesses XI's death, dealt a lethal blow to the New Kingdom, and the political intrigues of the Theban Priesthood put the final nail in the coffin of Egypt itself as a unified country.

Also, although the exact circumstances of the end of Meroitic Kush aren't known in detail, we do know what happened in general terms.. It's not completely "shrouded in mystery". First they were gradually overrun by the Noba (Nubian speakers), and then The Aksumite King Ezana bragged in his victory stele about destroying the Kushites and the Noba in the 330's AD. Aksumite inscriptions dating to this time have even been found in Meroë itself. As well as a temporary Aksumite throne. Also, consider the fact that Meroë was actually utterly destroyed at this time. (post-)Meroitic culture sputtered on for another century or so at places like El Hobagi, but they were clearly impoverished, and may have even been Aksumite vassals for a while. What was left of their power was quickly absorbed by, Nobatia, the Blemmye, Makuria and Alodia, who all inherited aspects of the Meroitic state. By the 6th century Sudan started Christianizing and what was left of the pharaonic traditions gradually disappeared.

Just by curiosity, are you a historian? You seem to have an extensive knowledge of their history.

My motivation with these pictures was to provide some extra material for the game, I remembered your posts when planning the Kushites and thought that maybe the museum stuff might not be easily accessible (not sure). Some useful examples that I think could be easily applied to some units/buildings: the ceiling picture (with the blue flowers), the blue lion, the archer quiver. The small amulets could be props for soldiers/civilians and the shabtis for buildings (maybe). But I'm not a specialist so correct me if I'm wrong. :D

Edited by coworotel
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1 hour ago, coworotel said:

It was indeed. I was surprised by the level of sophistication of the Kushite culture. Very detailed work in gold, and they even had some board game - called "senet" - that looks like chess (one of the pictures above).

Indeed, I was also very surprised by their level of sophistication when I started researching them in depth. The longevity of their culture and adaptability to the ever changing world around them is also remarkable. I've never seen the relief of the senet player before... Marvelous! It's one of the oldest known boardgames and was very popular in Egypt as well since the Old Kingdom. 

 

1 hour ago, coworotel said:

I'm not haha. I'm just visiting the country for some time, my understanding of Dutch is extremely basic.

Ah... Then what languages do you speak? 

 

1 hour ago, coworotel said:

Just by curiosity, are you a historian? You seem to have an extensive knowledge of their history.

I'm a proud armchair historian :P, nothing professional...

I've been reading history since I can read, starting with those cool illustrated history books for kids, about Romans and Greeks, Ancient Egyptians and Assyrians and so on. When I was a little older I got bored with the kiddy stuff and started reading much more serious stuff, especially Egyptian history and when I went to high school I studied Latin and Greek for a few years. I switched to science later on, but I always continued reading history. Most of all, I'm a generalist (if it's pre-industrial, I like it), but I love everything about Antiquity and pre-colonial African history in particular. The Kingdom of Kush offered this beautiful intersection between the two... When I realized the added value they could bring to 0AD, I decided to go hard, and started researching them from scratch, and started realizing how little I really knew about them. Studying them blew my mind more than a few times. I also realized how few people really knew anything about them, and I started feeling a lot of responsibility to tell their story, and illustrate it, so that people can actually visualize them properly. These people built great monuments to stand the test of time and left long inscriptions to immortalize their names in our memories, and remember them we shall :) 

Egyptologists far outnumber Nubiologists and often, their usual discourse on "the Nubians" is really distasteful and even arrogant. Many of them disregard their history based on their own lack of knowledge on the subject. It's almost as if they feel uncomfortable with the idea of Kushites dominating Egypt (more than once). The 25th Dynasty is even omitted from the list of Dynasties on the facade of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo... For generations, the story of Kush has been told through the eyes of the Ancient Egyptians and the propagandistic early New Kingdom inscriptions dating to the time of the Egyptian conquest in particular. Today there is actually a large community of international historians, archaeologists and other academics specializing specifically in Kushite history of the Kerma, Napatan and Meroitic periods, those 2500 years of independent Kushite rule that are hardly mentioned anywhere today. But these are hardcore academics, and although they are doing amazing work in their respective fields, they are very poor at getting their research out to the general public, and amazing finds can languish in storage or libraries for years before anybody really looks at them. Another problem with the professional academics is that they often tunnel vision on their particular speciality, sometimes being somewhat unaware of developments in other fields, and therefore unable to understand the true significance of some of their own finds and how they tie into the bigger picture... But things are changing rapidly, and that exhibition you went to is a very beautiful illustration of this.

Also, being a generalist myself has allowed me to do a "full survey" of their history, identify some of the world's foremost researchers and research institutions specializing in the subject, combined with my tenacity at digging up primary sources from the many archives from all around the world has allowed me to base myself primarily on these primary sources (texts from local inscriptions, images from reliefs, architecture from archaeological remains and the large myriad of artefacts from their graves and other sites), so I could confidently tell the story of Kush through the eyes of the Kushites themselves! I'm honestly still in shock about how much there really is. And I can tell you that we are still just scratching the surface here! There are entire cities that have not yet been properly excavated! Entire regions that have barely even been surveyed... Even Meroë and Napata themselves lie mostly unexcavated (literally less than a quarter in both cases).

I still have several posts worth of references myself that touch on some of the discriptions and artefacts in the exhibit you visited.

 

3 hours ago, coworotel said:

My motivation with these pictures was to provide some extra material for the game, I remembered your posts when planning the Kushites and thought that maybe the museum stuff might not be easily accessible (not sure). Some useful examples that I think could be easily applied to some units/buildings: the ceiling picture (with the blue flowers), the blue lion, the archer quiver. The small amulets could be props for soldiers/civilians and the shabtis for buildings (maybe). But I'm not a specialist so correct me if I'm wrong. :D

Thanks again! The ceiling with the blue faience flowers and the wall with the faience lion for example is quite interesting because of their age. It belongs to the Kerma period and is one of those many things that illustrate that what we consider "Egyptian" is actually part of a larger Nile Valley culture, that developed simultaneously in Egypt and Kush, prior to the Egyptian conquest of Kush. Kushites weren't just copying Egyptians, they were actively influencing the development of Egypt itself, as Egypt was influencing the development of Kush. Truly symbiotic...

That archery quiver is actually in game, check out the Kushite champion archers ;) 

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On 2/3/2019 at 5:30 PM, Sundiata said:

Ah... Then what languages do you speak? 

I am Brazilian, so, Portuguese.

 

On 2/3/2019 at 5:30 PM, Sundiata said:

I've been reading history since I can read, starting with those cool illustrated history books for kids, about Romans and Greeks, Ancient Egyptians and Assyrians and so on. When I was a little older I got bored with the kiddy stuff and started reading much more serious stuff, especially Egyptian history and when I went to high school I studied Latin and Greek for a few years. I switched to science later on, but I always continued reading history. Most of all, I'm a generalist (if it's pre-industrial, I like it), but I love everything about Antiquity and pre-colonial African history in particular. The Kingdom of Kush offered this beautiful intersection between the two... When I realized the added value they could bring to 0AD, I decided to go hard, and started researching them from scratch, and started realizing how little I really knew about them. Studying them blew my mind more than a few times. I also realized how few people really knew anything about them, and I started feeling a lot of responsibility to tell their story, and illustrate it, so that people can actually visualize them properly. These people built great monuments to stand the test of time and left long inscriptions to immortalize their names in our memories, and remember them we shall :) 

That is pretty cool. I hope in the future I can help to do the same with some other peoples, maybe the Tupis.

On 2/3/2019 at 5:30 PM, Sundiata said:

It belongs to the Kerma period

What is also cool is that they seem to have some pretty ancient stuff. If I remember the Kerma period was something before 500 b.C.? So it could be a faction in Aristeia maybe? :D

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3 hours ago, coworotel said:

I am Brazilian, so, Portuguese.

One thing I love about this community is how international it is. Looking at the download stats a sourceforge (only a cross section) shows that the game is being downloaded in almost every country of the world :). Downloaded in literally 96% of the world's countries!!! If there could ever be a way to compile download statistics on all downloads, I wouldn't be surprised if that percentage would jump to 100%... It's even popular in North Korea! 

 

3 hours ago, coworotel said:

That is pretty cool. I hope in the future I can help to do the same with some other peoples, maybe the Tupis.

Interesting... Reminds me of the recent discoveries of an "ancient Amazon civilization". https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/amazon-jungle-ancient-population-satellite-computer-model/

Spoiler

earthworks-map-889x893.thumb.jpg.dc99582142556a643d5610139447b1a6.jpg2035184-2.jpg.3de28b0c8512e65231b883067f93db7c.jpgamazon_166257.ngsversion.1522171810284.adapt_1900.1.thumb.jpg.9f82f2e1331294bdb8572833d94a9878.jpgAncient-Civilization-AMazon-Basin-Town-Square.png.f31fd46e5f8a70c4facf902f2ec67b26.png

 

3 hours ago, coworotel said:

What is also cool is that they seem to have some pretty ancient stuff. If I remember the Kerma period was something before 500 b.C.? So it could be a faction in Aristeia maybe? :D

Yeah, the first Kingdom of Kush, often referred to as the Kingdom of Kerma (after the modern village where the remains of the ancient capital were found), is incredibly ancient. Kerma originally evolved out of Pre-Kerma (3500 BC), fusing with C-Group culture around 2500 BC. C-Group culture is in turn related to the earlier A-Group culture (3800 BC), the original sedentary inhabitants of Lower Nubia (North Sudan/South Egypt). A-Group culture pre-dates Dynastic Egypt, and was contemporaneous with the Pre-Dynastic Naqada Culture. A-Group Culture influenced developments in Pre-Dynastic Egypt even establishing some of the shared Egyptian-Nubian royal iconography before Egypt was even a thing. A-Group was destroyed by the First Dynasty, probably forcing much of the population into the Western Deserts (still pastoral lands in those times). With the ever faster drying deserts centuries later, a new group from these Western Deserts invaded Lower Nubia, expelling the Old Kingdom presence, and mixed with the population of Upper Nubia. These new people are known as C-Group culture, and because of their similarity are often believed to be a re-emergence of A-Group. (B-Group Culture turned out to be simply a marginalized and impoverished remnant of A-Group in Lower Nubia). The fusion of C-Group and Pre-Kerma illustrates a strong mixing of Nilo-Saharan speaking people and Afro-Asiatic speaking people from the earliest periods in Kushite history (it explains the confusion around classifying the Meroitic language, which turned out to have evolved from Proto-Nilo-Saharan with ancient Afro-Asiatic loanwords and which also explains the two distinct skin-tones in Egyptian frescoes representing them, jet-black and reddish brown). 

The first Kingdom of Kush flourished as a highly centralized state from about 2500 BC. They were far more advanced than they are often given credit for. Kerma grew into the first city of Sub-Saharan Africa, and consolidated and expanded their rule. So much so that the Egyptians militarily occupied Lower Nubia and built a string of some of the largest fortifications ever built in their time, in an effort to counter the growing threat from the South. It didn't help much, because the Middle Kingdom was eventually destroyed by Kerma period Kushites raiding as far as Thebes, in what seems to be a coordinated attack with the Hyksos who occupied Lower Egypt. The re-emergant New Kingdom struck back with a vengeance, first under Ahmose I and Amenhotep I who reconquered Lower Nubia, and then under Tuthmosis I who conquered and completely destroyed the city of Kerma in Upper Nubia in c. 1505 BC. That's when Kush starts being incorporated into Egypt, first as rebellious colonial province, then as an integrated part of the Egyptian Empire. 

The actual name of the "Kerma Kingdom" was recorded as "Kush", by the Egyptians as early as the Middle Kingdom, and the name Kush continued to be used throughout the Egyptian occupation, during the Nubian Dark Ages, and during the Napatan and Meroitic periods. Only after the collapse of Meroitic Kush does the term "Nubia" appear, which is why I never use it in a political/cultural/ethnic sense (only geographical). Although the terms "Nubia", and the "Nubians" are widely used terms for all periods of Sudanese history, the term confuses modern with ancient, and divorces the Kushites from their politcal and historical context. One of the reasons why the history is so obscured. The terminologies are all over the place. 

So yes, long story short, they would be great for Aristeia :P 

Spoiler

1184192912_kermawesterndeffufaSudan-05.jpg.d25e67359e2b100f3dd14a04320ab26b.jpg376994298_KingdomofKushKermacitycapitalancientafricantown2000BCsudan2.thumb.jpg.79e38f7050b48e07ed3ce95466e70868.jpg

This is around the time that Stonehenge was completed, for some historical context. Early Kerma was contemporaneous with the Akkadian Empire... 

 

856065420_KingdomofkushkushiteburialkermaperiodpangraveculturebyTayoFatunla.thumb.jpg.1a35778448adc1d74bb1750d15bb267e.jpg1592805680_KingdomofKushKushitewoodenfurnitureKermaPeriodbed.thumb.jpg.ac776f2539448cd792b80237e3e40d0f.jpg977434971_HistoricalreconstructionofaKermaperiodwoodenbedivoryinlaysKingdomofKushKushite.thumb.jpg.86a8bfe7c5335201b528393c051650d0.jpg

Those beds are identical to some of the beds shown in Egyptian frescoes depicting Kushite tribute. Quite incredibly, the same type of beds are still used for marriage and burial ceremonies in Sudan today!

 

21913565_KingdomofKushKermaperiodfaiencescorpion.jpg.37acc7c18de3aeecb3ffb6086aac3c09.jpg

At first I didn't even believe this scorpion was from Kerma... But it checks out! They developed a very strong faience industry in the earliest periods of their history, which probably why faience remained so popular throughout the 3000 years of Kushite history.  

 

1829552524_KingdomofKushKushiteKermascarabintheformofahumanhead.thumb.jpeg.c4f28ff3d92d65805cd3b23a15853647.jpeg729472289_KushKushitekermaperiodblacktoppedpottery.thumb.jpg.3bad1887536dfcfa9742753bafefd304.jpg425037000_KermaperiodbronzedaggersivoryhiltsbladesKush.thumb.jpg.d13aa18a3fe33ef3b1cc37dd2c066e4c.jpg

1258151394_UpperEgyptTombofSobekhotep(Thebes)18thDyansty.thumb.jpg.215ac1894a729c4cf43c05a8251f509f.jpg

 

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