Medieval/Christian Nubia

“Christian Nubia” is a term that describes the cultures that developed south of Egypt roughly between the 5th and 15th centuries ce. Although it is often also called “medieval Nubia,” its major characteristic is Christianity, practiced by Nubian-speaking peoples living in at least three kingdoms, namely, Nobadia, Makuria, and Alwa. Very little is known about Alwa, both because of limited archaeological research in the region and due to the focus of written sources on Nobadia and Makuria, which were closer to Egypt. What is known about the Christian Nubian kingdoms suggests that they were heavily influenced by their northern neighbor. In the first centuries of the medieval era, Nubia received the Christian faith and church organization of Byzantine Egypt, and its church was subsequently subordinated to the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria. After the Arab conquest of Egypt, the relations between the Caliphate and Makuria were defined by an agreement called the Baqt, which was signed after a failed siege of the Makuritan capital in 651–652. The Fatimid period of Egypt coincided with the apogee of Christian Nubian civilization, while the arrival of the Ayyubids in the 12th century broke with a long-standing tradition of relatively peaceful coexistence. Interventions from the north increased under the Mamluks, particularly due to internal strife and dynastic conflicts in Nubia itself. After two tumultuous centuries, Muslim rulers took over the throne of Old Dongola, the capital of Makuria. Bedouins then pushed the centers of Christian authority to the peripheries of Makuria and to centers in northern Nubia, such as Qasr Ibrim and Gebel Adda, where the last Christian Nubian king is attested in an inscription in Old Nubian dating from 1483. Soba, the capital of Alwa and perhaps the largest city of Nubia, was also in ruins by the early 16th century, as witnessed by European travelers to the region.

Nubica onomastica miscellanea V: Reedition of two Old Nubian lists of names from Qasr Ibrim

Unlike previous instalments of the ‘Nubica onomastica miscellanea’-series which focused on correcting single names or phrases in Nubian texts, its fifth part brings the complete reedition of two more substantial texts originally published by Giovanni Ruffini. The former is a list of witnesses to a deed of land sale (P. Qasr Ibrim IV 65) and the latter an account (P. Qasr Ibrim IV 80). While the main subject of the paper are personal names that can be found in the two documents, other elements, such as grammar, lexicon, and – especially for P. Qasr Ibrim IV 80 – the matter of the document are also duly treated. By identifying ghost-names in Ruffini’s edition and proposing the identification of new Old Nubian substantives, the paper enhances our knowledge about the vocabulary of the language. Last but not least, the new interpretation of P. Qasr Ibrim IV 80, which – for the first time in medieval Nubia – appears to explicitly state the value of certain commodities in dirhams, is an important contribution to the studies on the monetisation of Nubian economy.

Michael and other archangels behind an eight-pointed cross-symbol from Medieval Nubia: A view from Sai Island in northern Sudan

The Christian population in Medieval Nubia created numerous manifestations of their faith in various forms – from monumental cathedrals to minuscule inscriptions. Among the latter are monograms, cryptograms, and cross-shaped symbols. Researchers of Medieval Nubia have only seldom studied closely these epigraphic categories. Moreover, the study of the cult of the archangels, especially of the archangel Michael, who held a primal position in the belief system of Christians in Nubia, has only recently attracted the attention of Nubiologists. This article employs theory about the interface between the written and the visual in order to discuss grapho-linguistic evidence for this type of epigraphic devices and the use of such devices as multivocal symbols in the cults of the archangels in Medieval Nubia. A careful analysis of cryptograms of the archangels Michael and Raphael offers a key to the decipherment of an eight-pointed cross as a multivocal symbol connected with the cult of the archangels. The study pivots around observations made during fieldwork on Sai Island in northern Sudan.

The Archaeology of Medieval Nubian Kingdoms

The following chapter approaches the archaeology of medieval Nubia from a regional perspective. First, it presents the nomenclature used for chronology, then the history of archaeological research in Nubia determined by construction of dams on the Nile. The focus of the paper are the settlement systems of two medieval Nubian kingdoms: Nobadia and Makuria. Alwa is treated lightly due to the limited data. They are discussed in a static (settlement hierarchy) and dynamic perspective (integration of settlement systems in time). Church architecture as an indicator of regionalism is also debated. Some topics integrally associated with archaeology of Nubia like historical sources (Ruffini, this volume), languages (Łajtar and Ochała, this volume), capitals of the states (Żurawski, this volume), art and pottery (Zielińska, this volume) are generally absent here but are tackled by other authors in the same volume.

The History of Medieval Nubia

The history of the medieval Nubian state begins as it ends, in a state of decentralization. The core of that state emerges through the unification of Nobadia in the north and Makuria in the center of the Nubian heartland, perhaps at some point in the 7th century. Makuria’s relationship with Alwa to the south is less clear, but some unification seems to have obtained there as well, in the 11th century. The Nubian state’s relationship with the wider world is variable. Nubia sometimes ignores or challenges its northern Islamic neighbors, and at other times defers to them or aggressively courts their diplomatic favor. Dotawo, the indigenous name for Nubia at least in later centuries, is still strong in the face of invasions in the 12th century, but shows signs of internal dynastic instability in later periods. Ongoing Egyptian interference in Nubian civil wars, coupled with increasing levels of Arab immigration to Nubia, destabilizes the Nubian state and returns it to its original fragmentation.

Language Use and Literacy in Late Antique and Medieval Nubia

This chapter is an overview of the current knowledge about the linguistic situation in the Middle Nile valley in Late Antiquity and Middle Ages. Throughout this long period as many as five languages were employed in this region as a means of written communication: Meroitic, Greek, Sahidic Coptic, Old Nubian, and Arabic. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the use of all these languages from chronological, both diachronic and synchronic, as well as functional perspectives. Such an approach is crucial for the proper understanding of their social significance, which we attempt to analyze in the second part. A special attention is devoted to the interaction between the languages, with a focus on such phenomena as code-switching and linguistic borrowing.

The Topography of Power in Medieval Nubia

The author synthesizes the intricacies of construction and evolution of the medieval Nubian power centers on the example of Old Dongola, known in the Banganarti inscriptions as Tungul, Pachoras (Faras), Soba East, Qasr Ibrim, Jebel Adda, and Ez-Zuma. All of them affected the local microcosm as a guarantor of the stability and social order in the state and as a source of faith and religious prestige. Their axiality in the religious and political sphere consisted, among other features, also in being a destination of pilgrimages, a home to the cathedral church and ruler’s palace, a seat of a bishopric, terminal to the caravan route, the location of the custom house etc. The potent relics, wonder-working icons and the tombs of the local holy men attracted pilgrims and provided the godly patronage over the city and the state. Last but not least, medieval Nubian power centers were encircled by powerful fortifications which were not a reliable source of safety but were everlasting symbols of might and wealth. A socially stratified cemetery full of extravagant tombs is also a fingerprint of a nearby power center, although the Christian religion brought in a significant standardization of grave forms and grave goods.