Methodological Introduction
Osama Elnur
Methodological introduction
At a time when the campaign to save Nubian antiquities in the 1960s is fading from memory, it may seem important that the impressive results it achieved in the study of the cultural history of ancient Sudan become available to students studying archaeology, history, and anthropology, to a broader Sudanese audience, and to Arab readers in general. I decided to devote this first issue of Arkamani to the history of previous archaeological exploration and excavation, starting with the travelers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until the beginning of the campaign to save the antiquities of Nubia in the sixties of the last century, so that the subsequent issues will deal with the results of the ongoing work after the reader has become familiar with the previous results, enabling him to see the modern modifications in reconstructing the cultural history of ancient Sudan.
The picture drawn by early historians and archaeologists of the cultural history of Kush forces us to make an attempt to highlight some of the weaknesses that characterized this historical reconstruction. Field studies of the effects of the material culture of Kush began at the hands of scholars who originally specialized in ancient Egyptian studies and whose goal was primarily to explore the southern extensions of Egyptian Pharaonic culture. This fact led to the reconstruction of the history of Kush from a point of view that remained captive to the relationship between Egypt and Kush. Thus, the picture of Inpent was crystallized on the basis of hypotheses that exclude the possibility of some kind of communication in the process of local cultural change in Kush. Such hypotheses still find an echo in many specialized and non-specialized writings. Rather, unfortunately, they still lie at the basis of the theoretical presentation of our textbooks on the ancient history of Sudan. According to these hypotheses, every cultural change, whether negative or positive, is explained as a product of dynastic migrations to Kush, so that the entire path of cultural change appears as unconnected episodes. According to these hypotheses, the Egyptian immigrants coming from southern Egypt in the pre-dynastic era dissolved themselves to establish a cultural complex called the First Group (A-Group), which means that this cultural complex does not constitute a product of the local Neolithic culture. This hypothesis believes that at a time when Egypt was achieving clear cultural development that led to the transition to its dynastic era and the establishment of the early kingdom, the culture of the first group in the northern outskirts of Kush remained behind keeping pace with development in the north, retaining distinctive cultural aspects of the development of pre-dynastic Egyptian culture.
In the last centuries of the fourth millennium BC, a new cultural complex appeared in the northern outskirts of Kush, which received the name “B-Group” due to the arrival of dynastic migrations from the south. Although this new cultural complex differs from its predecessor, the similarity between them cannot be denied. The difference is summed up in the decadence witnessed by the culture and in the extreme poverty of the graves of the second group in terms of funerary facilities.
In about 2200 BC. Almost the same region was swept by new waves of dynastic migrations. These migrations were linked to the emergence of a cultural complex that came to be called the C-Group. This new complex is distinguished from its predecessors by its mobile pastoral character. Tools made of copper and alabaster were found in the graves of this group, in addition to pottery products prepared on the potter's wheel and others hand-made. Thus, it was assumed that the first, made on a potter's wheel, represents an imported commodity, while the second, hand-made, represents a local product.
These hypotheses go further and see in the rulers of the Kerma Kingdom, whom the Hyksos ruler Abibi sought help for, Egyptian nobles who established a commercial colony in Kerma, and in the rulers of Napata, immigrants to Kush from other regions who came carrying with them their advanced system of government. Some specialized writings still insist on asserting that the Kingdom of Napata-Meroe is nothing but a satanic plant planted by the Egyptian colonial authority in Kush, and that the culture of this kingdom, its state apparatus, its social pattern, and its religion are nothing but a savage metaphor for Egyptian cultural achievements. The matter even went so far as some writings claimed, saying: “A black-skinned state appeared, whose affairs were run by semi-negro kings, and composed of a black population and semi-savage protectors clinging to the remnants of Egyptian civilization... To me, it is a strange phenomenon in history.” As for the dissolution of the Napata-Meroe Kingdom, in the view of these writings, it is explained as a result of the dissolution of the external Egyptian cultural heritage on the one hand, and the increase in the power and influence of the non-cultural Negro ethnic groups.
Such hypotheses, which dominated the reconstruction of the cultural history of Kush for a period extending until the sixties of the last century, are now far from the truth due to new findings after the campaign to save the antiquities of Nubia. The aforementioned hypotheses were launched from an anthropological perspective from a vision that relied on the principles of what is known in anthropological studies as the diffusion trend. Advocates of this trend assume that contact between different peoples has resulted in cultural friction and the spread of some or all cultural traits. The advocates of this trend start from the assumption that the process of spread begins from a specific cultural center and then moves over time to different parts of the world. The viewpoints of the advocates of this widespread trend have varied, and we will not go into details here, but we refer the reader who is looking to learn more about the subject to the book “General Anthropology: Its Branches, Trends, and Research Methods,” which I and my colleague Dr. Written by Abu Bakr Youssef Shalabi and issued by the National Center for Scientific Research and Studies, Tripoli 2001. We are specifically concerned here with the popular trend known as the Shamsi or Egyptian School, which was founded in Britain by the anatomist Elliot Smith, who was interested in Egyptian antiquities, especially human skeletons. Smith believed that human culture arose and flourished in ancient Egypt, about 5000 years BC. When conditions were available and contacts began between groups and peoples, some aspects of that culture were transmitted to the rest of the world. Smith confirms in his book “The Migration of Culture” that Egypt was a center of culture and from there it moved to the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, Africa, India, Indonesia, the Pacific world and the Americas. Elliot Smith is the one who studied the remains of the structures that were uncovered in Kush by the expedition led by Reisner. Smith, then, was the one who studied what became known as the “Nubian skulls,” which included the creators of the eight Kushite cultures (the first, second, and third groups, Kerma, Napata, Meroe, the unknown culture, and Christianity) that were uncovered as a result of the work of the aforementioned expedition.
The material culture materials available now do not in any way support the hypotheses that rely on the principle of cultural diffusion to explain the cultural history of Kush. Phylogenetic differences between bearers of different Kushite cultures, even when claimed to be empirically confirmed, are mostly biological rather than cultural. Such generalizations reached by previous prevailing hypotheses have become scientifically backward and do not find support in contemporary anthropology. Such generalizations are drawn based on morphological rather than quantitative criteria. The Indian anthropologist Mukheria, who studied the remains of the structures that were uncovered at Mount Muwayya, pointed out that this method in anthropological research is wrong and subjective, and that if it is used at the same moment of field work, its overall intuitive character often proves.
Even if we acknowledge the good faith of the first anthropologists who studied the remains of the Kushite skeletons, the elements and criteria that formed their basic indicators for determining dynastic affiliation have remained subject to much modification and modification during the past fifty years that followed their studies. In addition, our feeling that these anthropologists started from their prior conviction in the principles of cultural diffusion as a research hypothesis is justified and prompts us to doubt the extent of the objectivity of the results they reached. Based on recent field and laboratory studies, we may be entitled to say that Smith and the researchers who followed him were able to discover differences in the genealogical composition of the bearers of the Kushite cultures precisely because they started from the hypothesis of their prior existence, because they did not accept the possibility of cultural change without it being accompanied by population change. What may stand as evidence of such a view is what Firth wrote: “The high proportion of admixture of black blood which is evident from the study of the remains of the campaign structures of the first group has undoubtedly constituted an obstacle to cultural development.” The emergence of such hypotheses can be explained by the apparent neglect of the scientific requirements posed by contemporary anthropological research methods. As a result of subsequent research and further analysis of the same material that he and Smith had previously studied, the anatomist Batrawy found himself forced to modify their previous conclusions regarding the extremely negroid appearance of the skeletal remains of the anonymous group culture bearers. Mukheria and others conducted extensive laboratory research on the so-called “Nubian skulls” group referred to previously, with the aim of comparing them with the skulls that were found on Mount Moya. They came to the conclusion that the features of the skulls called Nubian are almost the same and there is no difference between them. The same result was recently reached by Karl Hellmann, Simon, Ismail Al-Hakim, and Faisal Al-Sheikh in their study on the head measurements of some ancient Kushites and some of the current residents of the Nuba Mountains, as it was proven to them that there are no differences between the group of Nubian skulls that had previously been studied. It was also proven that the head measurements of the Kerma skull group completely match the head measurements of the current population of the Nuba Mountains. In general, all the hypotheses that we have referred to do not meet the requirements of contemporary anthropological research, especially after the archaeological exploration and excavation work in the various regions of Sudan provided a good amount of material that enables a review of the previous reconstruction of the cultural history of Kush.
We decided to devote the first issue of Arkamani to studying the history of the development of Sudanese archeology to enable the reader to understand the exploration and excavation work that was carried out until the beginnings of the campaign to save the antiquities of Nubia, which was launched in the sixties of the last century to save archaeological sites threatened by drowning under the waters of Lake Nasser as a result of the construction of the third Aswan Reservoir (High Dam), so that the reader can follow the results of the archaeological research currently underway in Sudan, which Arkamani will be interested in translating. From European languages in its later issues. The research written by Professor Isidor Savitch Katznelson (in Russian) entitled “Archaeological Research in Northern Nubia and Sudan,” which was included in his book “Napata and Meroe, the Kingdoms of Ancient Sudan,” published in 1970, represents a comprehensive presentation of the development of Sudanese archeology and what was accomplished in this field until the end of the sixties of the last century, from his point of view as a professor specializing in the history of ancient Sudan. William Adams also addressed the same topic, but from the point of view of a specialist in Sudanese archaeology, in the third chapter of his book, “Nubia, the Passage to Africa.” Given the importance of the two studies, Arkamani decided to begin its first issue with a translation of these two papers. “Napata and Meroe are the kingdoms of ancient Sudan
In view of the conflict inherent in the naming of the Old Sudan, whether in modern sources or references, I decided that the starting point would be a research, previously published in my book “Arkamani and the New Sudan,” that discusses the problem of the ancient names of Sudan. Arkamani and Sudan Capricorn
Then we included in this issue a brief summary of the ancient history of Sudan, starting from the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) until the Christian era. Our goal in all of this is to provide readers with a coherent picture of the history of archaeological research in Sudan and the resulting synthesis of its ancient history. Thus, the next issues will be issued to shed light on the ongoing archaeological research and exploration work in Sudan and the new data it has added that contribute to reconstructing Sudan’s ancient cultural history. A brief summary of the history of ancient Sudan
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