Archaeology and the Meroitic State

The Archaeology of the Meroitic State: New perspectives on its social and political organisation by David N. Edwards is an interesting, yet short read. Arguing in favor of the Meroitic state (and perhaps during its Napatan phase and even the state of Kerma) as a Sudanic one resembling medieval and early modern states like the Darfur Sultanate, Borno, and the Funj or Sinnar Sultanate, Edwards believes the Meroitic state must be reconceived. Although the impact of Egyptian civilization and influences is undeniable in Kush, the role of the environment and archaeological evidence suggests the Meroitic state was founded upon different principles than that of Egypt. 

Instead of the control of production with ample surpluses, Nubia, especially Lower Nubia before the adoption of the waterwheel or saqia by the 300s, the kingdom was likely a segmentary state with the power of the rulers based on "trade" and warfare. In this case, the Meroitic rulers controlled "trade" or exchange with the North and through a redistribution network to provincial elites, controlled other provinces (loosely). The state's military capacity was likely also significant since military force and raiding could ensure a supply of locally valuable commodities (like livestock) and, through subjugated territories, access to gold, ivory, slaves, and other valuable exports to the north. 

Much of the book tries to fit Lower Nubia into this model, based on analyses of settlement patterns and data from cemeteries or burials. While much work remains to be done, if Lower Nubia's population truly was so low during this period of Meroitic "resettlement," then the theory of Edwards that these settlements were likely oriented to continue or ensure central government control of the routes to trade with Egypt for Mediterranean or Near Eastern prestige goods (later redistributed through the royally-controlled distribution network across the state). Thus, Meroe's "fall" in the 4th century may have had more to do with the loss of control of northern trade from the royal court, eventually leading to provincial elites severing ties while Blemmyes and Nobadaes settled in Lower Nubia in larger numbers. Since we don't know enough about the Meroitic state in relation to its core area (where it presumably exerted far more direct control and was better able to tap into local production and control access to water sources), one wonders about the core of the state's productive capacity for locally produced prestige goods. Despite the limited evidence from archaeology and our inability to read Meroitic inscriptions, the idea of the Meroitic state being "Sudanic" is an interesting hypothesis.

Tentative Timeline For Medieval Nubia

Important dates and events in the history of Medieval Nubia, drawn largely from Vantini’s Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia and Fontes Historiae Nubiorum. Welsby’s work was also of pivotal importance. We may add additional dates for the Funj period and for what can be dated in Ethiopia, Egypt and Darfur.

-c. 739–656 BCE: Kushites rule as 25th dynasty of Egypt

-342 BCE: Nectanebo flees to Nubia after Persian conquest of Egypt

-200s BCE: Nubai lived to west of the Nile in separate kingdoms, not under the Meroites

-285-246 BCE: Reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Egypt, contemporary of Arkamani (Ergamenes in Diodorus Siculus), Kushite king said to have been Hellenized and centered in Meroe

-274 BCE: Aithiopian Expedition of Ptolemy II of Egypt

-205-186 BCE: Revolt in Upper Egypt of Horwennefer and his successor

-25-22 BCE: Meroe and Rome at war, conflict ends with a treaty between Queen Amanirenas and -Roman Empire establishing the border between Roman Egypt and the Kushite state for centuries

-c.61-63: Roman reconnaissance expedition to Meroe sent by Emperor Nero

-80-90: Acts of the Apostles possibly written, including the tale of the Ethiopian eunuch of the Candace of Meroe who became a Christian 

-c.200: Pestilence in Nubia prevented entry of Septimus Severus 

-c.240 Meroitic rule in Dodecaschoenus around AD 240

-250-253: spread of a pestilence that began in Nubia

-253: Teqorideamani was reigning in Meroe

-Late 200s: According to Procopius ,the Noba lived in the oases to the west of the Nile before entering Lower Nubia

-280: Emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus liberates Coptos and Ptolemais from barbarian servitude to the Blemmyes, bringing some Blemmyes to Rome as captives

-291: Roman source mentions war between Meroe and the Blemmyes

-297: Revolt of Lucius Domitius Domitianus in Egypt

-297/298: Roman victory over Blemmyes and Meroe

-298: Emperor Diocletian cedes territory south of First Cataract

-320s-360: Reign of Ezana of Axum; Aksumite ruler left inscriptions recording battles with the Noba

-336: Eusebius mentions Aithiopians and Blemmyes in Constantinople

-337-338: Flavius Abbineus recorded his interaction with Blemmye federates

-373/374: Blemmyes said to have attacked a monastery in Sinai 

-392-394: Blemmyes had occupied the emerald mines in the Eastern Desert near Kalabsha, according to Epiphanius (monk from Palestine)

-395: Aithiopians attack Syene (Aswan) 

-423: According to Olympiodorus, the Blemmyes occupied five towns in Nile Valley 

-c.425-450: Appion, bishop of Syene region, bemoaned to the Roman emperors the attacks by Blemmyes and Anoubades

-c.450: Tantanti, phylarch of the Anouba, received letters in Coptic, one of which suggests he may have been Christian

-451: Council of Chalcedon

-452: Romans retaliate and defeat the Nubians and Blemmyes 

-480-490: Latest royal burial of a Nobadian king at Ballana 

-Early 500s: King Silko in Nobadia

-c.520: Kaleb of Aksum invades Himyar

-524: Emperor Justin of Rome (Byzantium) proposed to the Aksumite ruler sending Blemmyes and Noubades to assist him against Himyar

-531: Emperor Justinian sought to make the Aithiopians and Homeritae (Himyarites) his allies 

-537: Graffito in Greek carved on the wall of the Temple of Isis at Philae by Theodosios, a Nubian (Nouba)

-c. 543: Mission sent by Empress Theodora reached Nobadia

-550s: Longinus appointed first bishop of Nubia

-559: Eirpanome, king of Nobadia (inscription in Coptic commemorated conversion of the Temple at Dendur into a church in this year, or in 574)

-568: Chronicler John of Biclar noted that the Maccurritae became Christians

-573: Arrival of delegation from Makuria in Constantinople with gifts for the emperor, including elephant tusks and a giraffe

-580: Aksumites in the capital of Alwa

-619: Persians invade Egypt

-641/642: Arab invasion of Nubia

-652: According to al-Maqrizi, Nubians raided Upper Egypt and held Aswan and Philae until 652, leading to the baqt; king in Dongola was Qalidurut

-686-689: Patriarch Isaac of Alexandria wrote letters to the rulers of Abyssinia and Nubia to help resolve a dispute between the two

-c.700: King Mercurios of Makuria named the New Constantine in the Annals of the Coptic Patriarchs

-707: Union of Nobadia and Makuria by this year confirmed by epigraphic evidence; construction of cathedral in Faras 

-710: King Mercurios mentioned on foundation stone of a church in Taifa

-723-745: Muslim raids on Makuria

-725: Coptic revolt in Egypt

-739: Coptic revolt in Egypt

-748: King Cyriacus of Nubia intervened in Egypt after Patriarch Abba Michael was imprisoned by the emir, invaded Egypt with a huge army demanding the release of the patriarch

-mid-700s: King Cyriacus was “Great King” in Makuria, under whom served 13 kinglets

-c.750: death of Eparch Paulos-Kolla

-750: Coptic revolt in Egypt

-758: Letter in Arabic to king of Makuria (probably Cyriacus) about Makuria’s failure to uphold the baqt

-762-770: Raids by Muslims against Nubia

-798: Death of Petros, eparch of Nobadia

-796: Birth of Sufi saint of Nubian descent, Dhul-Nun al-Misri

-798: Death of Eparch Petros (tombstone at Old Dongola)

-835: Prince Giorgios of Nubia sent by his son, Zachararias I, to Baghdad to negative with the caliph’s court a remittance of the baqt payment (which was now to be paid every three years); Coptic sources indicate that Zacharias had trouble with rebels during this time before sending his son to Baghdad

-835-836: Nubian agent of Makuria who collected taxes on Nubians living in Egypt rebelled against King Giorgios

-c.850: King Johannes said to have reigned from Tilimauara until Philae

-854-855: Beja raid in Upper Egypt; possible around this time that el-Omari fought with the Nubians and Makurian king Giorgios appointed his nephew, Nyuti, to defeat him 

-866-902: First metropolitan of see of Faras was Abba Kyros

-c.868-884: Oases route through Sahara to “Sudan” and “Maghrib” discontinued; route through oases west of Nile once prosperous, with “Rum” (Greeks) and Egyptians and Nubians traveling to the west/Northwest and another route to the Fazzan

-883: Death of Eparch Johannes, eparch of Gaderon and son of the king of Makuria, Zacharias

-900s: Alwa reported to be more powerful and prosperous than Makuria 

-903: Ibn al-Faqih mentions route used by traders to travel from Egypt to Ghana, which passed through the Wahat Misr (Oases of Egypt) to Marawa, Maranda, Kawkaw (Gao), and Ghana)

-910-915: Abu Mansur Makin raided Nubia

-943: el-Masudi reported that Kubra Ibn Surur, king of Dongola, ruled Alwa while Ibn Hawqal reported that the king of Makuria was king of Alwa

-950: Makurian ruler raided oases in Egypt

-c.955: Ibn Hawqal visited Nubia 

-956: Makuria raided the Oases and attacked Aswan

-960-966: Nubian vizier Kafur ruled Egypt

-964: Nubian king marched on Aswan

-980-1003: During tenure of Patriarch Philotheus, contacts recorded between Ethiopia and the King of the Nubians (King George of Nubia received a letter from Ethiopian ruler, asking for his aid to receive a metropolitan from the Patriarch of Alexandria)

-985: Ibn Selim traveled through Nubia

-Late 900s-early 1000s: Akhbar al-zaman mentions the kingdom of Zaghawa as vast, large and at war with Nubia

-c.1000-1006: Raphael and David reigned as kings of Makuria and Alwa

1002: King Raphael said to have introduced novelty of brick domes to the buildings of Dongola

-1004-1033: Patriarch John Abdun of Antioch humbled himself to a Nubian monk, Shishi or Sawsana. 

-1006: Abu Rakwa, member of Spanish Umayyads, fled to Nubia but given back by the king of Makuria

-1008: Decree of al-Hakim in Egypt allowing Copts who wish to leave the right to go to Byzantine, Nubian, Abyssinian or other territories

-1036/1037: Death of Bishop Marianos of Pachoras (Faras), buried at Ibrim

-1036-1094: Reign of Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir Billah, the son of a Nubian slave

-1066: Nasir ed-Dawla raided Nubia but was defeated

-1069: Inscription at Debeira mentioned the title “admiral supreme”

-1078-1092: Cyril II Patriarch of Alexandria; during his tenure, king Solomon of Nubia (who had abdicated in favor of his nephew, George, to lead a life of asceticism) dies in Cairo 

-1106: Birth of future Makuria king Giogios

-1113: Death of Giorgios, archbishop of Old Dongola for 50 years

-1130-1158: Reign of Giorgios in Makuria

-c.1155-1190: Reign of Moses Georges, said to have ruled Alwa and Makuria

-1155: King Moses Giorgios, king of Dotawo, was also Eparch of Palagi

-Before 1170: al-Idrisi repeated report from travelers to Kawar that Nubia (Makuria) had attacked town of Samnah, of the Taju kingdom bordering Nubia

-1172: Makuria attacked Aswan and Upper Egypt; Richard of Poitiers recorded that the king of Nubia makes war on pagan neighbors

-1173: Shams ed-Dawla Turanshah, brother of Saladin, takes Qasr Ibrim

-1181-1221: Reign of Lalibela of Zagwe dynasty in Ethiopia

-1182/83: Reynald of Châtillon’s said to have raided Aidhab

-1203/1204: Nubian ruler on pilgrimage to Holy Land visited Constantinople

-1242: Madrasat in Cairo built by Kanem for pilgrims

-1253: Revolt of the Arabs in Upper Egypt

-1270: Beginning of Solomonic Dynasty in Ethiopia

-1272: Makuria raids Red Sea port of Aidhab 

-1275: Shekanda, nephew of King David of Nubia, appeals to the Sultan of Egypt for help and replaces David on the throne of Nubia after an invasion from Egypt (after King Dawud had raided area near Aswan)

-1276: Treaty between Mamluks in Egypt and Makuria giving northern part of Maris to Muslim control

-1280: Nubian pilgrims in Holy Land mentioned by Burchard of Mount Sion

before 1286: Ibn Sa’id al-Maghribi’s Book of Geography, borrowing from lost work, describes Kanem in great detail: King Muhammad, capital of Njimi, old capital was Manan, Kanem ruled over Fezzan, Tajuwa, Kawar, “Zaghawa” east of Manan

-1285/86: Invasion of Nubia from Egypt, ultimately leading to defeat of King Semamun of Nubia and his replacement by a nephew appointed by the invading army from Egypt

-1289-1290: Muslim invasion of Makuria, king fled Old Dongola (Semamun)

-1291: King Semamun kills king installed by Egypt, restores the baqt agreement with Egypt

-1292: Nubian king gave excuses to sultan of Egypt for nonpayment of baqt

-1298: Sultan al-Malik an-Nāṣir Muḥammad ordered closing of churches in Fustat and Cairo

-1301: Mamluk Sultan passes edict introducing more discrimination against Christians and Jews, extending it as far as Dongola

-1304: Lord of Dongola (King Ayay) brought tribute to the court of the Sultan in Egypt, asks and receives an army to support him in a struggle with unnamed enemies 

-1312: Nuba king brings gifts to the court of Mamluk Egypt (1311 king Kerenbes, who was said to have killed his brother?)

-1314 to 1344: Reign of Amda Seyon in Ethiopia

-1316: Dominican mission to "Ethiopia" (Nubia) Sultan of Egypt sends Abdalla Barshanbo (a nephew of King David) with support of an army to become king of Dongola, replacing Kerenbes but Kenz ad-Dawla eventually becomes King

-1317: Throne Hall in Old Dongola converted into a mosque

-1323: Kerenbes seizes throne from Kanz ad-Dawla but is eventually defeated by him 

-1324: Mansa Musa of Mali goes on pilgrimage

-1327-1339: Benjamin patriarch of Alexandria; Ethiopian Ewostatewos met him in Cairo after traveling through Nubia, where he left a favorable impression on the Nubian king

-1330: Bishop Tavoli appointed to Dongola by the Latins

-1365: Gebel Adda became capital of Makuria (or Dotawo), no longer Dongola

-1385: El libro del conosçimiento de todos los reinos referred to Genoese merchants traveling to Dongola

-1391-1392: Letter of Sultan Uthman (Bir) b. Idris of Kanem-Borno to Mamluk Sultan Barquq, complaining of depredations of Judham Arabs and asking the Mamluk ruler to free any Kanem-Borno Muslims sold into slavery in Egypt, Syria. Judham Arabs are said to have killed the previous Borno king, Amr the Martyr b. Idris, son of al-Hajj Idris, son of al-Hajj Ibrahim

-1397: Regent of Nubia fled to Egypt, escaping his cousin 

-1434-1468: Reign of Zara Yaeqob

-1442: Black slaves in Egypt plot to revolt, appointing their own sultan, vizier, etc. and plundering cereals until put down by the Mamluk government

-1447: Antonio Malfante’s Latin letter mentions "Indian" merchants who were Christian at Tawat

-1480-1483: Felix Fabri met Nubian Christians in Jerusalem during his pilgrimage

-1484: King Joel of Dotawo reigning

-1486: Janim el-Ajrud el-Ainani, Kashif of Manfalut, fled to Nubia 

-1517: Ottoman conquest of Egypt

-1518: Emir 'Alī b. 'Umar went out on a raid against the Lord (ṣāḥib) of Nubia

-c.1520-1527: Nubian emissaries visit Ethiopia, asking Lebna Dengel for priests. Nubia reported to be divided into captaincies.

-c.1526: According to Leo Africanus, the king of Nubia is always at war, sometimes with the people of Gorhan and sometimes with those to the east of the Nile

-1607: Deposed Abd al-Qadir II of Sennar fled to Ethiopia, performed obeisance to Susenyos

-c.1611: Wadai state founded by Abd al-Karim

1618-1619: Ethiopian Emperor Susenyos campaigned against Sennar

1637: Gondar established as capita

-1644/5-1681: Reign of Badi II of Sennar (Funj Sultanate)

-Late 1660s: Shaykh Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Yamani, from the Nile Valley, visited Kulumbardo

-1672: Plan to send Catholic mission to Nubia through the Fezzan aborted due to fall of Pasha Osman in Tripoli

-1700-1702: Theodor Krump traveling from Sennar to Egypt with people from Borno and the Fezzan, reports caravans from Darfur, Borno, Fezzan reach Sennar

-1703: Fra Damiano da Rivoli tried to reach Borno from Sennar but didn’t pursue caravan route; a Borno caravan leader in Sennar told him the journey would take 60 days

-1744: Ethiopia-Funj Sultanate War during reign of Badi IV

Deciphering Meroitic

Enjoying this lecture by Claude Rilly on the Meroitic language. While we don't agree with all of his theories and conclusions, we certainly hope scholars are on track to finally understand this ancient African language.

Aksum and Nubia

George Hatke's Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa is a short but rather persuasive study of Aksum's relations with Kush (Nubia) during the early centuries of our era. Based primarily on Aksumite sources such as inscriptions, relevant archaeological material, and occasionally Greco-Roman, Coptic, Syriac, and other Near Eastern textual sources, Hatke argues persuasively that Aksum and Kush, despite their proximity, did not interact in significant ways. Instead of being seen as commercial rivals or states which exerted significant influences on each other, the two appear to have only engaged in small-scale trade. Aksum was mainly oriented to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean for its commercial contacts with the broader world. Kush, or the Meroitic state, on the other hand, focused on the Nile and contacts with Egypt for its long-distance trade. Since the two northeast African polities possessed different commercial axes and thus did not have any reason to be commercial rivals, Aksum and Meroe engaged in small-scale trade without much interaction beyond this. Instead of any major cultural or economic influences on each other, Aksum's interests in the modern-day Sudan were more focused on the Beja/Blemmyes of the Eastern Desert. 

Indeed, records of Aksumite intervention or spheres of influence among the Beja to the borders of Roman Egypt in the 3rd century testify to the importance of security in the Eastern Desert area and Aksumite interests in the Red Sea coasts of Africa and Arabia. Aksum appears to have also been more invested in South Arabia, the Ethiopian Highlands, and parts of the Ethiopian-Sudan borderlands for economic and political expansion, with Nubia only being invaded during the reign of Ousanas and Ezana in the 4th century. In fact, according to Hatke, relying on the inscriptions of Ezanas and linguistic clues about Ge'ez, Greek, and South Arabian languages, has dated Ezana's famous Nubia campaign to March 360. His father appears to have also attacked Nubia, leaving evidence at Meroe itself. The son, however, was only in Nubia to launch a punitive campaign against the Noba, who had caused trouble on Aksum's frontier with groups such as the Barya. Meroe itself is not even mentioned in the inscriptions of Ezana's campaign, although some Kushite towns and people were undoubtedly captured or killed in the Aksumite raid. This political situation in Nubia possibly reflects the political fragmentation of Kush by 360, with Nubian-speaking Noba and Kushites perhaps acting independently of whatever authority remained at Meroe. Instead of Ezana wielding the final blow to Kush as an independent state, whatever authority was still claimed by the Kushite rulers may have been limited by the political fragmentation of Nubia. Further evidence from the toponyms in the inscriptions that Ezana's campaign did not affect Meroe but likely targeted towns to its north also suggest the ancient capital's demise should not be attributed to Aksum. 

Despite Aksumite claims to Kush as one of its vassal territories, the available evidence suggests this was often political fiction. Indeed, according to Hatke, it is very likely that Ezana's campaign in Nubia led to no long-last political suzerainty of the Noba. Furthermore, Aksumite sources from the 6th century king, Kaleb, also claimed Kush as part of Aksum's dominion, even though the Kushite state had ended by the late 4th century. Indeed, even in earlier moments in the 4th century, when Aksumite raids and campaigns reached Nubia, it is possible that the "tribute" sent by Kush to Aksum was actually more along the lines of gift diplomacy. Even the 6th contacts between Aksum and Nubia, suggested by Longinus meeting Aksumites in Alodia and the proposal by Emperor Justin to provide Nubian and Blemmye mercenaries for Aksum's use in Himyar, do not suggest large-scale trade, cultural influence or contacts. Nubia and Ethiopia, despite their proximity and some common interest in their frontier, and both impacted by the Eastern Desert nomads and the Beja, appear to have diverged from the period of Aksum's rise to the end of the kingdom. While the question of Nubian-Ethiopian contacts in the Middle Ages offers more avenues for contact, archaeologists have a lot of work to do in the borderlands.

Ancient Nubia

P.L. Shinnie's Ancient Nubia manages the nearly impossible task of covering thousands of years of Nubian history from prehistoric times until the fall of the Christian kingdoms. Obviously, to cover so much time in a short volume requires omissions. Nonetheless, Shinnie's readable account is a nice summary of what was known at the time about the general history of Nubia. And while he occasionally expressed a strange, perhaps outdated perspective on "race" and the A-Group and C-Group peoples as "non-negro" or not black, Shinnie's survey stresses continuity as a major factor in Nubia's cultural history. Thus, the A-Group, C-Group, Kerma/Kush, Napatan, and Meroitic phases in the region's history present several areas of continuity. The "Egyptianized" elites of the period of New Kingdom rule and the Napatan-Meroitic phase are perhaps an expected result of centuries of Egyptian domination. However, even they inherited much from Kush and applied Egyptian models to local conditions and needs. That said, the Meroitic phase, perhaps the one in which rule urbanism, the arts, and trade were at their zenith, could have received a longer chapter. After all, if Meroe represented the zenith of the Napata-Meroe rulers, why not dedicate more space to theories of its development, ideology, and relations with the neighboring areas of Africa and the ancient world? And speaking of Meroe, why so little to say about Alwa, despite that region of Nubia likely benefitting from rain-fed cultivation as well as pastoralism and river-based agriculture? Certainly Alwa may have presented a medieval example comparable to Meroe's greatness.

Meroitic Lower Nubia

Millet's dissertation, "Meroitic Nubia," was not what we expected. Instead of a speculative and dated interpretation of Meroitic Lower Nubia and the Dodekaschoinos, Millet's essay focuses on interpreting the Meroitic inscriptions and texts to make sense of northern Nubia's elite administrative, religious, and kinship structures. Due to our failure to make sense of most of the Meroitic language, however, there is a lot of guesswork and attempts to corroborate guesses with Demotic and Greek sources or texts. With those limitations in mind, Millet nonetheless raises a number of interesting questions about the role of northern Nubia during the 3rd century of our era. 

According to Millet, the region's growing importance must have been linked to the adoption of the waterwheel, gold mining at Wadi el-Allaqi, and trade routes through the desert to Egypt. Intriguingly, Millet also proposes that Lower Nubia's economic importance was also based on trade with the west and southwest, with Darfur and Kordofan. The spread of the camel and Meroe's interests in peace with the desert nomads (ancestors of the Beja and others) must have been, in part, motivated by a desire to provide security for trade routes to Egypt. Although Meroe appears to have "shared" the Dodekaschoinos with the Ptolemaic and Roman rulers of Egypt, the continued importance of the temple at Philae represented another interest of Meroites in Lower Nubia. 

As for the general thrust of his thesis, on collateral inheritance of titles in Meroitic Nubia or the degree to which his tentative genealogies of elite families in the region can be substantiated, we assume more recent scholarship has partly addressed this. Our friends, the Wayekiye family, for instance, must be one of the fascinating families for analysis because of their education and links to the princely Akin lineage. Were they and other similar families also investing in land, and exploiting tenant farmers? Furthermore, it would be interesting to see if the relationship of Meroitic Lower Nubia to the heartland of the state was comparable to Lower Nubia's relation to Dongola in the medieval era. Certainly, the survival of Meroitic culture to some extent and a framework assuming cultural continuity would suggest this. 

Alwa in Sudanic Context

Although we have long considered Alwa to be the more interesting of post-Meroe states in Nubia, the limited archaeological excavations and fewer references in the external Arabic primary sources makes it more of an elusive entity. Mohi el-Din Abdalla Zarroug attempts to redress this with an admittedly speculative but provocative analysis of the kingdom of Alwa. Based on the ethnographic present (after assuming probable cultural continuity in the Nubian heartland for the last several centuries), archaeological surveys, and textual sources from Antiquity, Islamic lands, and later reports or narratives, The Kingdom of Alwa proposes an interesting interpretation of Alwa as the more powerful, wealthiest state of medieval Nubia. Instead of being a peripheral Nubian state, or, as Adams wrongly assumed, a "primitive" state based on the slave trade, Alwa may have been a major state whose influence radiated far to the east and west, perhaps vying with Kanem over influence in Darfur and what later became Wadai. 

Contrary to assumptions or expectations of Makuria being the dominant Nubian kingdom, often based on the far more extensive archaeological research in northern Nubia, Alwa appears to have been able to support higher population densities while benefitting from surplus crops (through riverine and rain-based agriculture), gold exports, hides, and long-distance trade. The interdependency of the pastoralist and agriculturalist populations of Alwa became the basis for a regional economy and local exchange. Gold, iron, ivory, leather, and salt also contributed to this economy, which must have connected Alwa to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Sudanic, and trans-Saharan trade routes. The extent to which Alwa inherited aspects of Meroitic economic or administrative structures is unknown, but Zarroug sees evidence of "Meroitized" Noba in the region during the Late Meroitic Period, according to burial types and the Axumite inscription of Ezana. Geographical factors likely favored continuity, too, suggesting Alwa succeeded Meroe as the center of Nubia. This is also the impression one gains from the external Arabic sources like al-Aswani. 

Zarroug speculates that Alwa relied more on east-west trade routes that linked the kingdom to trans-Saharan routes as well as to the Red Sea. Ruins of structures in Kordofan and Darfur suggest Alwa (and probably Makuria, too) had a presence in western Sudan, likely connecting it to trade routes that led to the Fezzan and North Africa. Although the evidence is still lacking or perhaps waiting on confirmation from finds in Kanem, Darfur, and Soba, Zarroug's theory is quite plausible. We have long wondered to what extent Kanem may have played an early essential role in trade and cultural contacts across the Sudanic belt of the African continent. Hints of it can be seen in the chronicles of Ahmad b. Furtu or al-Idrisi, Ibn Said and oral traditions of Darfur suggestive of Kanem's influence further east. Perhaps Kanem and Alwa (and likely Makuria) exerted influence over the Daju and what later became Wadai as peripheral territories. Over time, secure trade routes developed which could link Alwa to the Fezzan and possibly establish a firmer "Sudan Road." The presence of Muslim traders in Alwa and Makuria may have facilitated this process, so that Christian Nubia did not represent an impenetrable barrier for Muslims of the Central Sudan.  

Heliodorus's Ethiopian Romance

Helidorus of Emesa's An Ethiopian Romance is an enthralling read from the ancient world. Telling the story of the "white" Ethiopian Charicleia and her love, Theagenes, a Greek, it features a series of ordeals and tribulations that finally culminates in their matrimonial union in Meroe, capital of the "Ethiopians" (in this case, really the Kushites or Nubians). Divine intervention and fate see to it that Theagenes and Charicleia's foreseen union comes to fruition. But along the way they survive pirates in the Mediterranean, bandits in the Nile Delta, and machinations of foes and others in Delphi, Memphis, and, most dramatically, in Meroe where Charicleia's royal parents reunite with their lost progeny. Much of the novel actually consists of various characters explaining their backgrounds in long dialogues. For instance, Calasiris, the Egyptian high priest of Memphis, tells Cnemnon of his past travels and travails in a long conversation inside the home of Nausicles, a Greek merchant of Naukratis.

The most intriguing aspect of this novel to this blog, however, is its possible influence on Pauline Hopkins and the hidden city of Telassar in Of One Blood. In Hopkins's novel, the descendants of Meroe have established a utopian hidden city, but one in which monotheism appears to be the dominant faith. Nonetheless, her utopian ancient black civilization must owe something to the fabulous and utopian "Ethiopia" of Helidorus. Indeed, there are even similarities between the main characters: Reuel and Charicleia both possess birthmarks that prove their royal heritage and rightful place on the throne. 

Moreover, like Reuel, Charicleia is also "fair-skinned" and "passing" as "white" to those around her. Yet each are bound by ancestry and destiny to return to Ethiopia, although divine providence in the imagination of Hopkins is decidedly Christian. Both Charicleia and Reuell are also endowed with special abilities or powers. The former possesses a gem that protects her from fire while Reuel's mastery of mesmerism and the occult allow him to "raise the dead" (something also accomplished by an Egyptian mother who uses sorcery to force her deceased son to speak). Perhaps even the "hoodoo" and Vodou elements in the Hopkins novel have their equivalent in the "science" of Calasiris and other Egyptian characters, as well as the constant presence of the deities in dreams, visitations, and temple offerings. 

In addition to the parallels between Reuel and Charicleia, the dichotomy of a wondrous, noble Ethiopia ruled by a benevolent king versus the tyranny of the Persian empire suggests another similarity between the novels: "Ethiopia" as a utopian alternative to the oppressive central power of the day. In Hopkins time, African Americans faced an oppressive empire in the form of US Jim Crow while Africa was carved into European colonies. "Ethiopia" as utopia is biblical prophecy in the Ethiopianism of Hopkins, but it also reaches back into pre-Christian Greek notions of Ethiopia as "blameless" or ideal. It's exotic, remote, attributed with the origins of the Nile and Egypt (Calasiris himself studied in Ethiopia), and led by a wise and judicious monarch.

The gymnosophists consulted by Hydaspes may have been inspired by India, but they bring to mind the council consulted by Reuel in Of One Blood, and through their wisdom human sacrifice in Meroe is terminated. In short, the rulers of Meroe are wise, generous, and the ideal leaders. Their Ethiopia is filled with emeralds, gold, African fauna, exotic spices, and access to the luxuries of India and Arabia. Even the Greeks must recognize this African civilization's grandeur as exoticism meets utopia in Helidorus's eyes. Hopkins was surely influenced by this perception of ancient Ethiopia and, reinterpreting it through the lens of African American Ethiopianist rhetoric, modernized it as a redemptive tale for Black America. Tellasar, with the return of its king, will become Ethiopia stretching her hands unto God.