Page 82 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

nubians 1383
nubians 1383

Nile (present-day Sudan) in the south to Aswan, Egypt, From the 540s to the 560s, missionary activities con-
in the north. verted the Nubian royal courts and, in time, the general
The historical roots of the Nubians trace back to a set Nubian populace to Christianity, although some
of once widespread pastoralist communities, called the Nubians had become Christian as early as the fifth cen-
Astaborans by modern-day scholars.These peoples occu- tury. Nobadia and Alodia accepted Monophysite teach-
pied the dry steppes of the eastern Sahara in the fifth and ings (that Christ had a single divine-human nature;
fourth millennia BCE. The ancestral Nubian-speaking modern-day Monophysite churches include the Coptic
society arose out the breakup of the Astaboran group and Ethiopian Orthodox churches), but Makuria appar-
during the final drying out of the Sahara in the middle of ently initially followed the Chalcedonian creed (which
the third millennium BCE. The earliest surviving written stated that Christ had two distinct natures, divine and
notices, from two thousand years later, describe the human, in one person; this is the position adopted by the
Nubians of the third and second centuries BCE as living Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and, later, the Pro-
west of the Nile along the southern Sahara fringes, testant churches).
where they formed several small kingdoms independent The traditional view of historians has been that, some-
of the powerful empire of Meroe. By the first and second time before 707 CE, Makuria conquered and incorpo-
centuries CE, a few Nubian communities had moved east rated Nobadia. But a recent reevalution of the literary
of the river, while larger numbers settled along the Nile and linguistic evidence by linguist-historian Marianne
itself between the first and fifth cataracts. In these lands Bechhaus-Gerst strongly suggests that the unification of
the Nubians became subjects of the Meroitic empire. Nobadia and Makuria took place by early in the 600s.
Some scholars propose that the Meroites may even have Moreover, her work shows compellingly that Nobadian
encouraged the Nubians to settle down as a buffer farm- culture dominated the unification of the two kingdoms.
ing population along the Nile, after the border between The language of Nobadia, known as Old Nubian, be-
the Roman and Meroitic territories had been established came the written and administrative tongue of the com-
by treaty near Philae in 23 CE. bined state, and Nobadia’s Monophysite faith became
the established religion, displacing Makuria’s earlier
The Rise of the adherence to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nubian Kingdoms The social history evinces a similar history.The Noba-
With the collapse of Merotic power in the third and dian stretches of the river were home to a multilayered
fourth centuries, a period of strife overtook the region social formation, with an administrative class, a pros-
between Aswan and the Blue Nile to south, with the pering merchant class, a clerical class, servants and arti-
Nubians emerging triumphant by the later fifth and early sans in the towns, and a class of peasant farmers on the
sixth centuries. Archaeological findings identify two land. In contrast, society in the former Makuria appears
Nubian societies along the Nile, one between the first to have consisted primarily of just two strata, the ruling
and third cataracts and the second extending from the and administrative elite and its retainers, and a far larger,
third cataract south to the Blue Nile regions. In the sixth probably enserfed peasant majority. The old lands of
century these territories were apparently divided among Makuria, in other words, bear all the earmarks of a con-
three kingdoms: Nobadia, with its capital at Faras, quered territory ruled by the Nobadians. Outsiders called
Makuria, with its capital at Dongola, and Alodia farthest the new combined state “Makuria,” because its main cap-
south, with its capital at Soba (south of present-day ital was the Makurian city of Dongola. But the choice of
Khartoum). Interestingly, the royal succession in these Dongola as the capital most likely reflects an early pol-
kingdoms was matrilineal, the normal pattern being for icy of concentrating state power where opposition was
a nephew to succeed his mother’s brother as king. most likely to arise.