Nubian History

        When Taharka died in 664 B.C. (543 B.C. in the revised history) he was entombed at Nuri, five miles upriver from Napata, five hundred miles south of Thebes.  The cemetery was excavated in 1916-17 by G.A. Reisner[7], who unearthed the pyramid tombs of Taharka and nineteen of his successors.  Using an ingenious comparative method, Reisner managed to give chronological order to the twenty kings.   Taking account of changes over time in style and workmanship in tomb construction, noting similar changes in quality and character of the few funerary artifacts left by the tomb robbers, following the natural lines of expansion as the cemetery filled up - with later tombs located at less favorable sites - and, finally, utilizing inscriptional information from the tombs and elsewhere, Reisner not only placed the kings in succession but managed to assign a reign length to each king.  Then, beginning with the “known” dates for Taharka, he affixed absolute dates for the rulers of his “Napatan kingdom”, from Taharka (688-663 B.C.)[8] down to Nastasen (328-308 B.C.).  He acknowledged a large margin of error in these dates[9], though his successors have written them in stone.  These Napatan kings ruled over a territory which reached at least as far south as Meroe, and northward beyond the 1st cataract.   The capital, according to Reisner, remained at Napata throughout the period in question..

        Other cemeteries at Begarawiyah, ancient Meroe, four hundred miles upriver (south) from Napata, were excavated by Reisner between the years 1920-22.[10]   They were found to contain royal burials.  The Meroitic South cemetery contained the tombs of three kings, Arikakaman, Yesruwaman, and Kaltaly, as well as six queens.   Several hundred yards to the north, the Meroitic North cemetery held an additional 30 kings and 6 queens, successors of the South cemetery group.

        It was Reisner’s understanding that these 33 Meroitic kings began ruling in the years almost immediately following the Napatan kings, i.e., in 300 B.C., and that they ruled continuously into the fourth century A.D. [11].  There was only one minor adjustment to be made.  One cemetery remained unaccounted for.

        A burial ground near Gebel Barkal (Napata),  contains, inter alia, two groups of pyramids tombs (known as the Barkal Pyramids) succinctly described by Dunham as follows:

At Gebel Barkal there are two groups of pyramids.  In the largest tomb of the older group (Barkal, Pyramid XI) Reisner places a nameless king who, he suggests, intervened between Nastasen, last king buried at Nuri, and Arikakaman, first king buried at Meroe South Cemetery.  Since there was no room at Nuri for further royal pyramid construction after Nastasen, owing to the unsuitable quality of the undrerlying rock which precluded excavation of the necessary subterranean chambers, the earlier Barkal group may well represent a king of the Napatan clan, and a few of his descendants, who refused to abandon the old burial tradition, and who set up a short-lived kingdom at Napata in rivalry with the branch of the family represented by Arikakaman and his successors.  The second group at Barkal Reisner assigned to a line of  l9 local rulers of Napata who reigned there independently of the main line at Meroe during the 1st century B.C. ...[p. 386-7]

        But this contrived chronology is unreliable for many reasons.  We note specifically that 1) Reisner begins his Napatan kingdom with dates for Taharka which we consider to be seriously in error; 2) his assigned reign lengths are arbitrary and several have subsequently been proved incorrect; 3)  many aspects of kingship in Ethiopia, such as the practice of brother to brother succession and of overlapping reigns were not fully understood before the excavations at Kawa shortly after Reisner’s death[13]; and 4) Reisner himself noted that the cemeteries at Napata, Meroe and Barkal contain too many kings to fit in the historical time frame allowed, an important consideration which suggests the possibility that the Meroitic and Napatan kingdoms overlapped one another for a much longer period of time than suggested by Reisner.  This final problem is exacerbated in the revised chronology which lowers the dates of Taharka and his immediate successors by over a century, while leaving unchanged the known historical conclusion of the Meroitic kingdom.

        With these considerations in view we argue for changes to Reisner’s chronological scheme.   However, before we make changes to a long-standing tradition, we make one preliminary enquiry.  Since Udjahorresne served under Cambyses and Darius I, whose reigns must have been coterminous with one or more of Reisner's Napatan kings, we wonder whether there exists any evidence of Persian involvement in Ethiopian affairs which might guide our suggested revision and provide a context for Udjahorresne’s "naval command"?   We answer our own query.

Persian Suzerainty over Ethiopia and the Emergence of Meroe

        It is clear from two strands of evidence that Cambyses invaded Ethiopia soon after his arrival in Egypt.  In the first place, his successors Darius and Xerxes claim Ethiopia as a vassal state, a fact which can be most easily explained if Ethiopia was conquered by Cambyses; and secondly, classical authors state explicitly that Cambyses was active as far north as Meroe.

        Wainwright summarizes the Persian references:

At Persepolis, Darius includes Ethiopia (Kusa) as part of ‘the kingdom which I hold’ and again at Hamada.  At Naqs-i-Rustam he includes the Ethiopians as well as the Egyptians among those who ‘bore tribute to me’ and again at Susa. Another inscription of his at Susa says that the ivory used in decorating the palace there ‘was brought from Ethiopia’ among other countries, and the great tribute procession at Persepolis includes Ethiopians who bring a giraffe.  Herodotus says (vii, 69) that the Ethiopians sent a contingent to the armies of Xerxes, the successor of Darius, and at Persepolis Xerxes not only lists the Egyptians but also the Ethiopians among ‘the countries of which I was king.  Thus, we have evidence of Ethiopian subservience to Persia during some forty-five years which would not have been the case if at least some part of the country had not been conquered.[14]

By the first century B.C. Cambyses had become so intimately connected with Meroe that Diodorus (l:33) says that he founded the city and called it after his mother, while Strabo (17:1:5) merely says that it was he who gave it its name.  Strabo, however, adds that he did this because his sister Meroe or as some say, his wife, died there.  Later again, about A.D. 90, Josephus says that Cambyses changed the name of the city from Saba to Meroe after the name of his own sister. (Antiquities of the Jews, 2:10) This idea of the founding or naming of the city by Cambyses seems clearly to have grown out of the knowledge that Meroe rose to power at about the time of the Persian invasion.[15]

        Dows Dunham, a colleague of Reisner during most of the Nubian excavations, only shortly after Reisner’s death in 1942 modified some aspects, though not the underlying chronological structure, of  Reisner's Nubian history.  He argued that already very early in the 25th dynasty period  Meroe emerged as an important provincial center rivalling but subservient to Napata.   According to him Meroe was at this time controlled "by people of the same stock, whether governors appointed by the ruling family at Napata or nominally independent cousins of the same racial origin."   Following the close of the 25th dynasty, "with loss of control over Egypt and the resultant falling off in the lucrative traffic with that country, the economic basis of prosperity began to shift and the city of Meroe assumed a growing importance"[16]

It is, I believe, clear that the Kings of Kush, fairly soon after they had lost control over Egypt, began to make Meroe their habitual residence.  Very probably the centre of administration followed economic pressure and Meroe became the political capital of the country at this time.  But Napata, the traditional centre of Amon-worship, remained the religious capital long after the government had moved to a more convenient location.  The king, according to custom, was buried in the royal cemetery at Nuri ...DHK 386

Reisner has named the period between the close of the 25th Dynasty and the death of Nastasen the Napatan Kingdom, because these kings had their tombs at Nuri and he assumed that Napata was the seat of government.  I believe this assumption to be incorrect and that we are not justified in making so clear-cut a distinction between two kingdoms.  While there was undoubtedly a shift of the capital from Napata to Meroe, I am convinced that the change was a gradual one, and that in everything but the burial place of the kings and the observances of the Amon cult, it took place much earlier than was formerly supposed.  The ruling class was divided into two clans or families, one with headquaters at Napata and the other living at Meroe.  They were closely related and shared a common culture.  The Napan group was the dominant one during the early period, and from it sprang the kings buried at El Kurruw and Nuri. ... During this early period the Moeroitic group were not royal, and they were buried in unpretentious graves in the West Cemetery close to the city.  At the same time there resided at Meroe a considerable group of people of the Napatan family, representatives of the politically dominant group, many of them no doubt holding positions of authority in the provincial city on behalf of the central government.  They buried their dead in the more isolated South Cemetery.  When the growing economic importance of Meroe induced the kings to spend an increasing part of their time there, and eventually to govern from that city, they doubtless began also to marry women from the Meroitic aristocracy in additon to wives from their own Napatan clan. ... If, as I believe, the South Cemetery was that of the Naptan residents at Meroe, it would be the logical place to build their tombs once the traditional pull back to Nuri had become sufficiently weakened to be no longer compelling.  On this assumtion, therefore,  I suggest that the three kings buried in the South Cemetery were of Napatan origin.DHK 386

        According to Dunham's hypothesis Meroe was the de facto capital of Nubia by the time of  Nalmaye, the seventh king after Taharka.   Nalmaye’s dates in  Reisner’s scheme were 538-533 B.C.   This conceptual change in the importance of the two prominent Nubian cities brought about a semblance of correspondence between Nubian history and the Greek historians.  By the time of Cambyses, according to Dunham's interpretation of the data,  Meroe was indeed the Nubian capital.   Reisner’s chronology, meanwhile, remained intact.  Dunham's changes related only to the location from which the Napatan kings ruled, not to the time in which they ruled.

        Dunham’s modest changes have not blunted the criticism raised earlier.  There are still too many kings in Reisner's scheme, reign lengths remain arbitrary and at times excessively long, and Cambyses and the Persians are still out of the picture.  Change is necessary, and any change must begin with the reduction of Reisner’s dates by 121 years.  Table 1 lists the kings of Reisner’s Napatan kingdom and the initial kings of his Meroitic kingdom, along side of the revised dates which result from the 121 year reduction.  This should provide the stage on which further changes can be imposed.  It is surprising how little will need to be changed.
 
 

        With reference to table 1 we make the following observations:

        1) Both the Napatan and Meroitic kingdoms have been divided by Reisner into subgroups of kings having greater than usual affinity with one another.  This division into groups suggests the existence of some discontinuity between one group of kings and the next.  Reisner provides no explanation of the cause of these alleged breaks in the tradition.    He simply notes their existance.  We can do no more than place his remarks on record.  According to Reisner ...

all the royal tombs at Nuri are constructed on the same general plan ... nevertheless, certain differences in form, construction, and material arrest the attention.  An examination of these differences results in the division of the pyramids into four groups which are indicated ... by the letters a,b,c, and d.  This grouping is borne out by the objects found in and about the pyramids as well as by other evidences, and thus becomes a matter of prime importance for the chronological order of the pyramids.[18]

        2)  We note that Reisner arbitrarily assigned reign lengths in multiples of five years - as much as thirty-five years for Harsiotef and thirty years for Anlamani and Malewiayaman ; as little as five years in the case of Nalma'aye, Nasakhma and Talakhaman.   Eight kings are said to have ruled for twenty or twenty-five years.   There is no justification for many of these large numbers.[20]    These excessively large reign lengths will arguably result in increased error the further we progress into the Napatan kingdom.   In the earlier period Reisner's dates should provide a workable framework in which to incorporate further changes.

        3)  Several of the kings listed can be safely omitted from the table.  We cannot be certain that Tanuatamon ruled in Nubia.   According to our revision he was driven from Lower Egypt by Cyrus and, depending on the date when Mentuemhet began his restoration in Thebes, he may have ruled in Thebes or in upper Nubia for the balance of his life.  It is important to note that his tomb is located in the Barkal cemetery, not at Nuri with the rest of the successors of Taharka.  He does not belong in this sequence.[21]  Since his inclusion has depressed dates of subsequent kings by ten years, all following reign lengths can be increased by that amount.   Reisner’s inclusion of Piankalara is another error which can be immediately corrected by simply omitting him from the list and increasing subsequent dates by a further twenty years.  His very existance is questioned, though he is usually identified as the occupant of a tomb built on the outskirts of the El Kurruw cemetery along with the ancestors of Taharka..  Though not buried in the Nuri cemetery, Reisner included him among his Napatan kings based solely on a questionable interpretation of a stela inscription of Nastasen.

        4)  Dunham’s suggestion that the Napatan kings had completely transferred capital cities only shortly before the reign of  Nalmaye no longer harmonizes the Nubian chronology with the tradition associating Cambyses with the rise of Meroe.  In the revised chronology Nalmaye lived a century after Cambyses.   Instead, the reduction of dates in table 1 places Cambyses’ arrival in Egypt coincident with the reign of Senkamenseken. It might even have brought that reign to its end.   If the classicists are correct  we should look for the emergence of an independent Meroitic kingdom around the time of Anlamani, the successor of Senkamenseken.

        The stage is set to propose three alterations to the existing structure of Ethiopian history.   We begin by reversing  the order of Reisners’ groups c and d.  We have already noted that while the relative order of groups a, b, and d is firmly established, the placement of group c by Reisner was not so clearly defined.   We continue by reducing the reign lengths of the kings in each group, a reduction which has the effect of moving back the absolute dates of the individual kings, the size of the difference increasing the further removed those kings are from the beginning of the dynasty.  These two alterations are inconsequential for the argument which follows.  They are included to be referenced in later chapters of this revision.

        The third change is the only one critical for what follows..  In order to harmonize the Persian and classical sources with Nubian history it is necessary to assume the beginning of the Meroitic kingdom around the time of Cambyses.  Dunham apparently felt the need to do so and interpreted the data to identify that beginning with the reign of Nalmaye.  With the 121 year reduction in dates an alternative interpretation is needed which explains the emergence of Meroe as a capital city in the days of Anlamani.

        Since Reisner himself acknowledges that the kings buried in the South cemetery of Meroe, his Meroitic Kingdom Group a, are the first kings of the independent Meroitic kingdom, it follows that they must have ruled shortly after the arrival of Cambyses in Egypt, that is, near the beginning, not at the end, of the sequence of Napatan kings.   Accordingly we move this group of three kings backward in time and identify them as contemporaries of Reisner's NK Group b.   Table 2 illustrates all three changes.  There follows a brief apologetic which will lead us back to Udjahorresne.
 
 

     The following brief remarks must suffice to explain and defend this revision:

        1)  We omit Reisner's arbitrary assignment of individual king dates, chosing rather to assign dates to each dynastic group.  The combined reign lengths of the kings in each of these groups is approximately one-half that of the combined numbers ultimately assigned by Reisner to those same kings, but agrees almost exactly with his minimum figures.[22]

        2)  We acknowledge the reasonableness of Dunham's argument that a significant movement south occurred either during or immediately prior to the reign of Nalmaye.  Accordingly we assume that the Napatan kings at this time made a significant shift in capital from Napata to Meroe.

        3)  We attempt to explain the breaks in tradition assumed by Reisner when he introduced his various dynastic groups.   The first such break (following the 121 year reduction in dates), that which distinguished NKa from NKb, falls so near the date of Cambyses arrival in Egypt, that there can be no doubt as to its cause.    The 45 years thus allotted to the NKa kings Taharka, Atlanera and Senkamenseken, made up of 27 years for Taharka and approximately nine each for the latter two kings is not entirely out of line, since Reisner estimates 10 years each as a minimum figure.   It is not implied here that Cambyses actually set foot in Napata or Meroe.  The Nubians may have capitulated at the mere threat of an armed intrusion. There is a hint in the only extant historical inscription of Anlamani, that the relationship was tenuous, and that Anlamani later attacked a garrison of Persians, with some success.[23]

        3)  The assigned date of 472 B.C. for the break between NKb and NKd  is deliberately chosen to correspond with an invasion of Ethiopia that is known to have taken place in the 3rd year of Psamtik II..  We can only hypothesize that that invasion, which likely caused extensive damage to Napata, also drove Nalmaye south to seek a new capital.  (The matter will be discussed further in chapter nine)  Perhaps he, in turn, displaced the dynasty of independent kings at Meroe (MK a).  If so, it must be assumed that the remaining kings of the Meroitic kingdom, those buried in Meroe's north cemetery, regained power after NKc.   Other scenarios are possible.    Much of this is, of course, only conjecture, but having read Dunham's explanation of the emergence of the Meroitic capital we recognize that conjecture and speculation are the operative words when it comes to Nubian history.   There is very little hard evidence.    The fact of an invasion of Nubia by Psamtik II in his 3rd year (472 B.C.) in incontrovertible.  The fact that Aman-nete-yerike, the third king following Psamtik's invasion, chose Psamtik's throne name Neferkara as his own,  is also certain.    Beyond that, we can only argue that we are essentially following Reisner's scheme,  assuming reign lengths within the range of possibilities which he established.

        3)  The cause of the break in tradition following Nastasen, the last of the Napatan group d kings, may be related to another  invasion originating in Egypt, this time by Kbdj, the eunich who functioned in an administrative capacity under Amyrtaeus, and betrayed his master, joined Bagapates, and invaded Egypt around 400 B.C.  This individual has twice already been confused with Cambyses by modern scholars.   The matter will be taken up again in chapter eleven.

        4)  The placement of the Meroitic south cemetery kings (MKa) as contemporaries of Anlamani and his immediate successors is not based solely on the classical evidence.  The only extant inscription of any of these three kings outside of Meroe is the usurpation by Yesruaman on the bases of two monumental lion statues excavated from the Barkal temple B1100.  These statues were made originally by Amenhotep III of the Egyptian 18th dynasty and were apparently brought to Barkal by Piankhi.   At the very least these cartouche names are indicative of the power and far ranging authority of this Meroitic king.  Reisner interprets the inscriptions as evidence that Yesruawamen ruled briefly at Napata [24], but that is surely reading too much into one inscription.   What they do argue, however, is an early date for Yesruamen.   This statue inscription surely precedes the destruction of Napata and transfer of the Napatan capital in 472 B.C.  Thereafter Barkal arguably ceased functioning as a cult center.

        In this connection mention should be made of the existence of inscriptions of Napatan group b kings at Meroe.   Dunham informs us, based on Garstang's excavations at Meroe, that “Taharka seems to have erected at least one building there..” and that “four generations later the name of Anlamani occurs frequently on inscriptions ..., as do also those of his immediate successors Aspalta, Amtalqa and Malenaqan.”   Elsewhere he suggests that this inscriptional material was associated with evidence of building activity, that Meroe “appears to have been very large” and “contained at least one building associated with Tirhaqa, several others in which the names of Aspalta, Amtalqa, and Malenaqan were of frequent occurrrence, and considerable evidence of occupation by later Napatan and Meroitic rulers”..

        Taharka’s building at Meroe is not surprising. He was denied access to Egypt and lived out his life in Napata.   That he should direct his attention southward to Meroe is not surprising.    But how do we explain the flurry of activity which appears to occur in Meroe beginning with the reign of Anlamani?   It is important to note that the inscriptions which document the presence of  Anlamani and his immediate successors at Meroe are coterminous with the inscriptions of Yesruwamen on the lion statues at Napata.  What are we to make of this?

        We do not agree with Dunham that the inscriptions of Anlamani and his immediate successors at Meroe indicate that they had taken up permanent residence there,  any more than we agree with Reisner that Yesruamen’s inscriptions prove that he ruled in Napata.    According to our revised chronology the kings of NKb and MKa were both vassals of Persia.   Commercial and diplomatic interaction between the two groups would be imperative under a Persian administration, and is particularly understandible if we adopt Dunham's hypothesis that the two groups were related.    The inscriptions merely illustrate the extent of the interchange between the two capitals.

        We can further anticipate that Cambyses would have a governor domiciled in the area to regulate Persian interests.   And the transport of “tribute” down the Nile would require a fleet of transport ships and an official to supervise the enterprise.

        Enter Udjahorresne.

        By far the most significant argument in favor of the revised placement of Napatan and Meroitic dynastic groups NKb and MKa  is the resulting  general agreement with the state of affairs known to exist in Egypt proper.   At the very least it provides a possible, if not a probable explanation for one of the troublesome details on the Udjahorresne stela.  On the assumption just made that tribute from Ethiopia was transported to Egypt under command of a Persian appointee named Udjahorresne, we have the answer to the question which prompted this lengthy digression on Nubian history.  For the reader is by now anticipating and is therefore not surprised to learn that the throne name of Anlamani is Ankhkare, and the throne name of Arikakaman is Knemibre.

        The critic will no doubt cry foul and claim that we have manipulated chronology to suit our purposes.  But in fact we have merely followed expert opinion.   Ankhkara (Anlamani), who identifies himself as "king of Upper and Lower Egypt" as in the Udjahorresne statue inscription,  was already at hand once Reisner's dates were reduced by 121 years.  Anlamani's dates were only marginally reduced and that within limits established by Reisner himself, as explained above.

        The case for Arikakaman is no less defensible.   The fact that the Meroitic kingdom began around 530 B.C. has been argued for millenia by classical historians and in the twentieth century by Dows Dunham, as we have just witnessed.   The unique burial location of the three Meroitic south cemetery kings clearly established them as the first reigning Meroitic kings, a fact conceded by Reisner.   And the first of these kings was Arikakaman.  The conclusion follows naturally that Arikakaman (Knemibre) was ruling Meroe around 525 B.C.   Is it only coincidence that this king, the only viable candidate for the Meroitic throne at this time, bore the throne name Knemibre[25], and, like Anlamani,  referred to himself as the king of Upper and Lower Egypt?[26]