II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH Nubia/_Private/Torok 1995 Part II... · II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH 6. The dynasty ofKush and the el Kurru cemetery Before going

II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH

6. The dynasty of Kush and theel Kurru cemetery

Before going down to the discussion of thepost-New Kingdom unification process in theMiddle Nile Region, let us briefly reconsider thesources relating to the dynasty of chiefs whichwas in all probability initiator and motor of thisprocess and whose descendants became the rulersof the unified kingdom of Kush.

In 1918 and 1919 the Harvard-Boston expedition under the direction of George AndrewReisner excavated the royal cemetery of el Kurruca. one mile west of the right bank of the Nileand about ten miles downstream from GebelBarkal, the Holy Mountain of Amen-Re, and the. f . N 113SIte 0 anCIent apata (see Map). The cemetery

proved to be the earliest royal necropolis of thepost-.Egyptian age containing besides al thepyramid tombs of the ruler generations from Piyeto Tanutamani, except for Taharqo who wasburied at Nuri, bl the burials of earlier rulergenerations, cl the burials of the chariot horsesof Piye, Shabaqo, Shebitqo, and Tanutamani,further dl the pyramids of a later, early 4thcentury BC king (Ku. 1) and of his (?) queen(Ku. 2).114 The most prominent highest point ofthe necropolis is occupied by the tumulus burialsof pre-Twenty-Fifth Dynasty rulers (mentionedunder bl above) (see Fig. 1). This central groupconsists of graves Tumulus (henceforth Tum.) 2,4, 5; and in this group of burials are also to beincluded Ku. 14 and Tum. 6, the latter on the

113 Dunham 1950, 5.114 Ibid., 23ff.

plateau of the neighbouring northern hill, andfurthermore a row of mastaba burials runningalong the eastern edge of the central plateau. Onthe top of the hill to the south of the central hill,the latter row of mastabas is continued by a rowof pyramid burials belonging to queens of Piye(Ku. 4), Shabaqo (Ku. 5), Shebitqo (Ku. 6 ?),and Taharqo (Ku.3). The - lower - easternoutcrop of the central hill is occupied by thepyramids of Piye (Ku. 17), Shabaqo (Ku. 15),and Tanutamani (Ku. 16), while Shebitqo wasburied on a higher point of the central hill to thesouth of the central tumulus group (Ku. 18).

A cluster of pit graves situated some150 metres to the NNE of the above burialsoccupies another low hill and belongs apparentlyto iqueens of Piye. Ku. 52 is the burial ofNefrukekashta; Ku. 53 that of Tabiry. On the SEoutcrop of this hill were buried the royal chariothorses. To the NE of the pit graves of Piye'squeens are situated further pyramid graves : at adistance of ca. 100 metres a queen of Shabaqo (?Ku. 62) and a queen of Tanutamani (? Ku. 61)were buried. Ca. 250 metres farther NEpyramids Ku. 71-73 were erected over the gravesof lesser queens of Shabaqo (?) (not in Fig. 1).

The situation of the two later, 4th centuryBC, pyramid burials Ku. 1 and 2 highlights animportant feature of the necropolis. Themonumental Ku. 1, the largest pyramid of thecemetery, adjoins the cluster consisting of thetumulus graves, mastabas, and royal pyramids.The contemporary Ku. 2, burial of a queen

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THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH

(probably the consort of the owner of Ku. 1),adjoins, by contrast, the four pyramids erectedover the tombs of the principal queens of theTwenty-Fifth Dynasty. It appears thus that thecentral hill was the burial place of ruling kings,and the adjoining hill to the south was reservedfor the burial place of queens of a certain status(see Chapters 17.4 and 17.5, below).

The excavator of the necropolis, G.A.Reisner,also proposed a chronology115 which is to-daygenerally accepted (for a divergent opinion seebelow). His typo-chronology may be summarizedas follows :116

1/ Pit-and-side chamber oriented N-S coveredwith a simple circular grave mound, pebble- orrubble-pitched. Contracted body on floor (?).Tum. 1, Tum. 4, Tum. 5 = Dunham's Generation A.

la/ Simple shallow pit oriented N-S roofedwith transverse stone slabs and covered with asmall (diameter ca. 5 metres) circular mound.Body on right side, head S. Tum. 2 = Dunham'sGeneration D or Generation A (?)117.

2/ Pit-and-side chamber oriented N-S, covered 'with a circular grave mound, rubble-pitched,stone-faced. Burial of contracted body on bed thelegs of which stood in trenches in the floor of theburial pit. Horseshoe-shaped enclosure wall,mud-brick chapel at SE (Le., oriented towardsthe Nile) adjoining the mound. Tum. 6, Ku. 19= Dunham's Generation B.

3/ As 2, yet the mound is overbuilt by asquare masonry mastaba - apparently as a resultof a change of superstructure type carried outshortly after the completion of the tumulus.Rectangular enclosure. Ku. 14 = Dunham'sGeneration C.

4/ (Group not distinguished by Dunham1950.) Pit-and-sid'e chamber oriented E-W,covered with rubble-filled masonry mastabasuperstucture. Masonry chapel and square

masonry enclosure. Ku. 13 = Dunham'sGeneration C.

5/ Pit with side chamber at W, oriented N-S,covered with sandstone masonry mastaba. Burialon bed with legs standing in trenches. Masonrychapel, rectangular masonry enclosure wall.Ku. 9, 10, 11 = Dunham's Generation D. Thechronological position of this group is, however,somewhat ambiguous. In the chapel of Ku. 9, asindicated by an unpublished lecture of T. Kendallat the Seventh International Conference forMeroitic Studies in Berlin in September 1992,the earliest stela niche and offering table standwere observed by Reisner (unpublished fielddiary entry). On this basis, and considering thesize of the grave, I have tentatively identified,similarly to Kendall (and contra my earlierattribution), Ku. 9 with the burial of Alara (seeTable A).

6/ Simple shallow pit oriented N-S, coveredwith mastaba (?). Rectangular masonry enclosurewall. Burial not recorded. Ku. 21, 23 =Dunham's Generation E. The group's chronological relation to group 7 below is indicated bythe distorted SE section of the enclosure of Ku. 8avoiding thus the already standing enclosure wallof Ku. 21.

7/ Rectangular pit oriented E-W, coveredwith sandstone masonry mastaba (?). Burial notrecorded. Masonry chapel and enclosure wall.Ku. 8, tentatively identified as burial of Kashta= Dunham's Generation 1118

•

8/ Deep rectangular pit oriented E-W fromwhich opens at W an E-W oriented rock-cut axialchamber. Superstructure unknown. Burial on bedplaced on rock bench. Ku. 53 (Tabiry, queen ofPiye) = Dunham's Generation 2.

8a/ Medium deep rectangular pit orientedE-W, roofed probably with masonry corbel vault.Superstructure unknown. Rock bench withcut-outs or sinkages for bed legs. Ku. 51, 52,

115 G.A. Reisner: « The Meroitic Kingdom of Ethiopia: A Chronological Outline ~. lEA 9, 1923, 34-77, cf. Dunham 1950,1ff.116 On the basis of Dunham 1950.117 Dunham 1950, 3 identifies it as Generation D, ibid., 15 as Generation A.118 Cf. Dunham 1950, 23 no. 19-3-537, fig. 7c, PI. XXXII/C, Dunham - Macadam 1949, no. 34a, name of Kashta on faienceoffering table fragment, from intrusive debris in Ku. 1.

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54, 55 (unidentified queens) = Dunham's Generation 2.

91 Single chamber roofed with masonrycorbel vault. Axial staircase descent. Rock coffmbench with cut-outs for bed legs. Sandstonemasonry pyramid superstructure, chapel notregistered, masonry enclosure. wall. Ku. 17(Piye) = Dunham's Generation 2 ; Ku. 62(unidentified queen of Shabaqo) = Dunham'sGeneration 3 ; Ku. 71 (unidentified queen) =same; Ku. 72 (unidentified queen) = Dunham'sGeneration 3 or 4.

9a1 Single rock-cut chamber with axial staircase descent covered with sandstone masonrypyramid. Masonry coffm bench with niches forbed legs. Masonry chapel and enclosing wall.Ku. 15 (Shabaqo) = Dunham's Generation 3.

101 Double chamber (burial chamber withmasonry corbel vault) covered with sandstonemasonry pyramid. Rock-cut and masonry coffinbench (only Ku. 18). Masonry chapel andrectangular enclosing wall. Ku. 18 (Shebi~qo) =Dunham's Generation 4 ; Ku. 16 (Tanwetamani),Ku. 3 (Queen Naparaye, w. of Taharqo), Ku 4(Queen Khensa, w. of Piye, buried by Taharqo 119

= Dunham's Generation 5 ; Ku. 5 (QueenQalhata w. of Shabaqo, buried by Tanwetamani12l) = Dunham's Generation 6 ; Kurru 6(Queen Arty w. of Shebitqo?) = Dunham'sGeneration 4 (?), Ku. 61 (unidentified queen) =Dunham's Generation?

Though divided into chronological, typological, rank, and gender units (plus the unit ofthe royal chariot horses), the el Kurru cemeteryclearly represents a homogeneous whole, viz., adynastic necropolis within which typologicaldifferences describe a line of changes in time andwhose two main parts represent the traditionalburial grounds of the rulers on the one hand, andof the principal queens, on the other. Therelationship of the pyramid field of the TwentyFifth Dynasty kings Piye, Shabaqo, Shebitqo,and Tanwetamani with the adjacent mastaba fieldconsisting of the tomb of Kashta and with the

tumulus cluster to the west of the latter is suchthat the direct family- and ideological connectionsamong the three burial groups are completelyobvious. It is thus self-evident that the burialspredating Piye's pyramid describe, in howeverindirect terms, the emergence of the kingdom ofKush. If we accept Reisner's and Dunham'scemetery analysis, el Kurru would only cover apart of the interval between the end of theEgyptian viceregal administration and the appearance of Kashta. Although it may well beimagined that the career of Kashta's familystarted only as late as assumed by Reisner andDunham, the question is nevertheless worth beingposed once again: could Reisner's short chronology not be replaced by a longer chronology ?

7. The long chronology of el Kurruand the testimony of the cemetery

The line of typological development in thenecropolis, as reconstructed by Reisner, is thusfrom pit-and-side chamber (lateral niche) gravecovered with tumulus via lateral niche gravecovered with stone-faced tumulus plus chapel andhorseshoe-shaped enclosure and then lateral nichegrave covered with mastaba plus chapel andenclosure to the one- and two-chambered gravewith axial staircase descent covered with masonrypyramid and provided with masonry chapel andrectangular enclosure wall. The chronologicalsequence of types is also supported by one ortwo clear cases of transition or succession : so althe superstructure of Ku. 14 was first a tumuluswhich was then overbuilt with a mastaba ; bl therectangular enclosure of the mastaba tomb Ku.13 abuts on the horseshoe-shaped enclosure oftumulus grave Ku. 19 ; cl the E-W oriented pitis later than the N-S oriented pit, as is suggestedby the relationship between the enclosures of Ku.7 and Ku. 21 (see Fig. 1).

119 Assumed by Dunham 1950, 30 on the basis of an alabaster vessel fragment with the cartouche of Taharqo and found inKu. 4, Dunham 1950, fig. 11k.120 Mud jar stoppers with cartouche and s3-R' name of Tanwetamani, nos 19-2-647 and 648, Dunham 1950, 41 and fig. 12f.

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50 100 m, I " I

Fig.l - Map of the royal cemetery at el Kurru, central part (after Dunham 1950, Map II)


As to smaller typological differences andvariants, they may refer to chronological differences as well as to differences of some othernature. The most conspicuous variants are theE-W oriented large pit with mastaba superstructure listed above under type 7 ; the E-Woriented simple pits with presumed mastabasuperstructure under types 8 and 8a; and,finally, the E-W oriented pit with axial chamberlisted above under type 8b.

Type 7, represented by Ku. 8 alone, wastentatively identified as burial of King Kashta.The identification was made presumably on thebasis of the size of the pit and the mastaba. TheE-W pit orientation seems to have been firstintroduced by Ku. 14 belonging to type 3, Le.,by a tomb whose superstructure embodies thetransition from tumulus to mastaba. It must beadded, however, that Ku. 14 is a lateral nichegrave. The other E-W oriented simple pitsbesides Ku. 8 belong to types 8 and 8a and are,apparently without exception, burials of Piye'slesser queens (Dunham's Generation 2). Types 8and 8a may thus be explained as burial typesconnected exclusively to Piye"s queens. It issignificant that also Piye' s burial chamber isoriented E-W (Ku. 17). An alternative explanationof the E-W oriented pit of the queens issuggested, however, by the characteristic pitgrave type of the early burials at Meroe City :accordingly, the tombs in question at el Kurruwould hint at the southern origins of Piye's lesserqueens (see Chapter 8).

Type 8b, represented by the pit-and-axialchamber tomb Ku. 53, the burial of Tabiry, aqueen of Piye, may be interpreted either as adouble chamber grave without axial staircasedescent (thus a compromise between pit graveand axial descent grave), or as a variant of theaxial niche grave type which was characteristic ofthe Meroe City region.

Returning to the main line of development,Reisner and Dunham and their followers regarded each pre-pyramidal burial type as representing

121 Dunham 1950, ll8f.122 Kendall 1982, Cat. 4.123 Dunham 1950, 49.124 Ibid., 2.

one single ruler generation, irrespective of theactual number of graves belonging to the type inquestion. In this system, type 1 consisting oftumuli Tum. 1, 4, 5 and perhaps 2 (type 1a)incorporates the earliest Generation A of the elKurru family of chieftains. The next Generation B is represented by the two burials of type 2(Tum. 6 and Ku. 19); Generation C has onlyone burial (Ku. 14, type 3). Generation D, bycontrast, is represented by the three graves oftype 5 (Ku. 9, 10, 11), while Generation E wasidentified with the two burials under type 6 (Ku.21, 23). Since the anthropological material wasalmost totally destroyed, there is hardly anypossibility to control the suggestion put forwardby Reisner and Dunham that certain burialsbelonged to inf~ts (Le., non-ruling persons) andto female members of the family. Tum. 2 of type1 is said to have been the burial of a female, 121

but - similarly to Tum. 1, 4, and 19 - in thetomb there were flint arrowheads found. 122 Thesefinds indicate clearly enough a rite connectedwith the burial of a ruling warrior. From amongthe three burials belonging to type 5 one burial- Ku. 11 - may perhaps be identified as theburial of a woman, yet Reisner himself noted inhis excavation diary (Feb. 25, 1919) that thebone fragments unearthed there were « light andsmall, but not necessarily female ».123

Assuming, then, five ancestral generationsprior to the generation of Kashta and on anestimate of twenty years per generation, Reisnerdated Generation A and hence Tum. 1, 4, and 5to around 860 BC. 124 But why should we accepthis premise according to which the burial typeand rite rigorously changed with every newgeneration of the el Kurru chiefs? Would it notbe more logical to assume that the changes,rather than reflecting the rythm, of generations,describe changes determined by dynastic, religzous, ethnic, i.e., historicalfactors ?

The revision of the el Kurru chronologymust, of course, be started with the problem ofdatable objects. In several burials were found

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objects of Egyptian origin,125 yet there are onlyone or two of a certain chronological relevance.In Tum. 1, Reisner discovered faience vessels,among which a shallow bowl bears a painteddecoration depicting a drinking man in a lateNew Kingdom-early Third Intermediate Periodstyle. 126 This bowl and the other, stylisticallyclosely related, wares from Tum. 1127 would thusdate this burial to the late New Kingdom- earlyThird Intermediate Period. Nevertheless, Reisnerand those who follow him in this matter regardthe faiences as «heirlooms » and date the burialsome two centuries later. Now if we accept thepossibility that Tum. 1 - which is doubtless theearliest burial at el Kurru - does not considerably postdate the withdrawal of the Egyptianviceregal administration in the first half of theeleventh century BC, we must add another sixgenerations or so to Reisner's five ancestralgenerations in order to span the interval from the(traditional) date of Ramesses XI (1098-1069 Be)till Kashta's reign starting around the middle ofthe eighth century BC. It must be noted herethat, following the consensus in Nubian literature, Kashta will be regarded Generation 1, thushis immediate predecessor Alara (see Chapter 8and Table 2) will represent Generation -1.

It was shown above that the principal queensof the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty (or, more precisely,the queens of a certain status in the harem, seeChapter 17 and Table B) were buried in aseparate part of the centre of the necropolis,while the lesser queens were assigned again aseparate burial ground. It would thus seem thatthe central hill was reserved for the ruling malemembers of the family. Consequently, I supposethat female members of the clan were not buried

on the central hill, and, also considering whatwas said above about the burial types, we canproduce the necessary number of tombs andgenerations pre-dating Kashta. The burials Tum.1, 4, 5, 2, 6, Ku. 19, 14, 13, 11, 10, 23, 21, 9(listed here in the sequence suggested by thecemetery topography) present themselves to beconsidered as burials of chieftains.

The possibility of a long sequence, without,however, giving a detailed chronology, was putforward first by Timothy Kendall. 128 His suggestion, based on the painted bowl from Tum. 1,was recently rejected by Morkot who argues fora general shortening of the Third IntermediatePeriod (see Chapter 10) and in the framework ofa « New Chronology» dates the late NewKingdom-early Third Intermediate Period stylefaiences to the late ninth century BC. 129 Morkotalso refers to, a so far unverified and unpublishedradiocarbon test carried out on material from (notspecified) tumuli and yielding a ninth century BCdate. 130 As the tumulus burials cover in thesequence proposed here (see Table A below) theperiod between the late eleventh and the latetenth century BC, the radiocarbon test does notnecessarily contradict the long sequence. Beforethe publication of the actual test material(s),however, the fact must be stressed here that allburials at el Kurru were plundered i~ the antiquity and their majority was found to containintrusive material from other tombs. However,Morkot also put forward an alternative hypothesisacco~ding to which the early section of el Kurruis «a mix of New Kingdom graves and laterones ».131 Putting aside the issue of absolutedates, this assumption is closer both to Kendall's

125 Ku. Tum. 1 : Dunham 1950, fig. 1lb,c and Kendall 1982, Cat. 1 ; Tum. 2 : Dunham 1950, fig. 2/d and PI. LVII/B ;Tum. 6 : ibid., fig. 5/d ;.Ku. 19 : ibid., fig. 24/f; Ku. 19 : ibid., fig. 17/b.126 Kendall 1982, Cat. 1.127 No. 19-3-348 is painted in a closely resembling style, see Dunham 1950, fig. lIb.128 Kendall 1982, 21ff. - In a paper presented in September 1992 at the Seventh Int. Conference for Meroitic Studies inBerlin, after the completion of the editing of this book, Timothy Kendall revised his views published in the 1982 Brocktoncatalogue and discussed the cemetery on the basis of Reisner's chronology. Although he introduced so far unknown evidencefrom Reisner's field papers, the Boston MFA storerooms, and a recent anthropological investigation of the skeletal remains inBoston, Dr. Kendall failed to convince me of the validity of Reisner's cemetery analysis and of his own aprioristic interpretationof the individual tombs and of their - still selectively discussed - inventories.129 Morkot 1991, 212ff.130 Ibid. 213 and 377 note 30. In his 1992 paper referred to in note 128 above Kendall has presented three, admittedlyinconclusive, carbon tests which may support both chronologies.131 Ibid., 376 note 27.

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earlier suggestion and to the long sequencesuggested here.

Another important point was made by Kendallwhen he stressed the significance of the hundredsof sherds of native red ware (mostly alsored-slipped) vessels with black painted decorationrepresenting Egyptian-style funerary rite scenes:processions of pairs of mourners, mummiforrnfigures, women kneeling before offering ~ltars

and found in Tum'. 6 and in Ku. 19. 132 Kendallalso observed that the vessels were manufacturedwith perforations on their bottoms133 and weredeliberately broken at the burial. He thereforebrought them, quite rightly, into connection withthe rite of « breaking the red pots» (sd dsrwt), 134

and associated them with priests educated inEgyptian religion who were thus able to performEgyptian funerary rites and recite the appropriateliturgic texts. The association is also justified bythe skilfully rendered paintings themselves.

It cannot be accidental that the appearance ofthe «breaking the red pots » is associated withTum. 6, Le., the first el Kurru burial with amortuary cult chape1. 135 At Ku. 19 no remains ofa chapel were found, but, as Dunham's PI.XXIV/A shows, the E half of the enclosure ofthis tomb was completely eroded. With thesubsequent types 3, 4, and 5 (see above) thechapel becomes a regular feature of all superstructures ; it seems thus reasonable to suppose

. that also Ku. 19 was originally provided with amud-brick chapel. The « breaking the red pots»and the chapels mark an important change, ascompared to the earlier tumulus graves : viz., theadoption of Egyptian funerary rites and mortuarycult. This change is indeed unimaginable withoutthe presence of properly educated priests.

Reisner and Dunham supposed that -the nativecustom of burying the non-mummified body incontracted position on a bed continued even after

the introduction of Egyptian mortuary rites. 136

The archaeological evidence is, however, inconclusive. As a rule, in the plundered graves onlythe benches and the place prepared for the legsof the bed could be verified, yet no unambiguoustraces of either contracted or extended bodiescould be identified. I prefer thus to suppose thatthe burial in coffm was introduced in connectionwith the adoption of Egyptian funerary rites andmortuary cult. This assumption is not contradicted by the continued presence of beds, fortypological changes do not necessarily coincidewith cultural changes. The lateral niche gravetype was continued, e.g., also after the introduction of the Egyptian rites almost throughGeneration 1 (Kashta). The native tumulus superstructure survived - although only for onegeneration - the introduction of Egyptianmortuary cult: Ku. 14 reveals the moment ofchange when to the already introduced mortuarychapel a mastaba superstructure is added as anafterthought, hiding in its body the originaltumulus first erected over the burial. That thecustom of bed burial - meaning, however, nowthe burial in coffm on a bed - is indeed continued after the reign of Kashta, is attested by thecoffm bench in the graves of Piye, of some ofhis queens, and in a number of still later burials.

Clearly, the introduction of the mastabasuperstructure is not independent of the appearance of Egyptian funerary rites and mortuarycult. In Reisner's chronology their appearance isdated to the generations directly precedingKashta. In the longer chronology proposed herethese fundamental changes occur about onecentury before Kashta. Both alternatives may beargued for on the basis of historical considerations. It seems to me, however, that it is thesecond alternative, Le., that of the longerchronology, which may be judged historically

132 Kendall 1982, 23.133 Ibid., 22f.134 Cf. L. Borchardt: « Bilder des Zerbrechens der Kriige ,., .z.fs 64 (1929) 12-16 ; on the representation of the ceremony inthe Twentieth Dynasty Theban Tomb 44 (Amenemhab) see B. Porter - R.L.B. Moss: Topographical Bibliography ... 1.1. TheTheban Necropolis Part 1. Private Tomb_~, Oxford, 1960, 84 (11) ; for a discussion of the significance of the rite see J. vanDijk : « Zerbrechen der roten Topfe ,., LA VI ,1389-1396, 1391ff.135 Dunham 1950, 21, fig. 5/a, 125 : two parallel mud-brick walls without preserved entrance doorway. The cemetery map atthe end of the volume has erroneously a chapel with a simple doorway.136 Dunham 1950, 131f. and Chart II.

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more plausible and which is more in accordancewith the archaeological testimony of el Kurru

. too.

8. The genesis of the Kushite state:from the beginnings to Alara

The reconstruction of the state genesis processproposed in this book rests on the followingconsiderations :

1. The el Kurru cemetery is the familynecropolis of the kings of the Twenty-FifthDynasty. The regnal years of these rulers from

Piye to Tanwetamani may be regarded as reasonably established. In our chronological scheme weshall thus accept the regnal dates of Piye assuggested by Kitchen: 747-716 BC. 137 For lackof any evidence concerning the lengths of thereigns of Piye's known (Alara and Kashta) andanonymous (before Alara) predecessors, I shallfollow the general consensus in professionalliterature in ascribing an average of twenty yearsof reign to each generation (such an averagereign seems especially justified in the case of theactual succession order of the Kushites ; seebelow). According to the typology outlined abovein Chapter 7, the following royal and burialsequence may be suggested :

Table A. The long chronology of el Kurru

Generation Generation name reign BC burial type of(Dunham) burial

a A ? 1020-1000 Tum. 1 1b A ? 1000-980 Tum. 4 1c A ? 980-960 Tum. 5 1d D ? 960-940 Tum. 2 lae B ? 940-920 Tum. 6 2f C ? 920-900 Ku. 19 2g C ? 900-880 Ku.14 3h D ? 880-860 Ku. 13 4

D ? 860-840 Ku. 11 5j D ? 840-820 Ku. 10 5k D ? 820-800 Ku. 23 6I E ? 800-780 Ku. 21 6

-1 E Alara 780-760 Ku. 9 51 1 Kashta 760-747 Ku. 8 72 2 Piye 747-716 Ku. 17 93 3 Shabaqo 716-702 Ku.15 9a4 4 Shebitqo 702-690 Ku.18 10

(5) 5' Taharqo 690-664 (Nu.l) (10)6 6 Tanwetamani 664-655138 Ku. 16 10

The above sequence corresponds well with themodel ~f evolution suggested by Reisner andDunham and summarized by the latter in 1950

and also with the growth of the cemetery whichmust become sufficiently clear at the first glanceat the cemetery map (see Fig. 1).

137 Kitchen 1986, §§ 122ff.138 Kitchen 1986, § 359 and Table 4 gives to Tanwetamani 8 years in Egypt; a recently published block from Luxor(G. Vittmann, SAK 10, 1983, 327 and figs 1, 2, PI. 20a) indicates, however, a Year 9 of this ruler in Egypt.

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2/ According to the long chronology, the firstancestor of Piye was buried at el Kurru around1020 BC. His chronological position is alsoindicated by objects of Egyptian origin in hisburial equipment. It may be presumed that theseobjects, if not contemporary with the burial,were valued heirlooms of a family of chiefs whowere participating in the government of theprovince of Kush until the Egyptian withdrawal.The owner of el Kurru Tum. 1 appears to havebeen the first chieftain of his line who establishedthe centre of his chiefdom in the neighbourhoodof the former Egyptian frontier fort and templesettlement of Napata, in an area of strategic andeconomic importance ; at a place controlling thedesert road connecting the Nubian Nile Valleywith the interior of Africa. Despite the Egyptianobjects in his equipment, his burial was in a nonEgyptian, obviously native, tradition which maybe interpreted as an indication of the continuityof a tribal culture that underlay the process ofEgyptianization of the preceeding centuries.

3/ The burials of the 'subsequent Generationsb, C, d display the same indigeneous traditions.The burial of Generation e, dated to about 920 inthe long chronology, indicates a fundamentalchange. The traditional tomb superstructure iscomplemented here with a funerary cult chapeland Reisner also dicovered here indubitable signsof the Egyptian funerary rites performed duringthe burial : viz., he unearthed in Tum. 6 in thedebris between the mound superstructure and theenclosing wall several hundred painted sherds,the fragments of the large storage vessels andoffering bowls smashed in the course of the riteof the « breaking the red pots» (see Chapter 7).Fragments of similar wares, and in similarquantities, were also found around the superstructure of Ku. 19, the tomb of the nextGeneration f. Most interestingly, from Tum. 6onwards the burial of the contracted body on abed is practiced. Bed burial is generally regardedas an indication of the thus presumed Kermaascendancy of the el Kurru chiefs. The facthowever, that this feature appears only in thefifth generation and that it coincides with the

139 Dunham 1950, 2, Gen. B.

appearance of the enclosure wall, the chapel, therite of the «breaking the red pots» speaksagainst the presence of Kenna traditions from thevery outset. It would seem that the el Kurrudynasty adopted the Kerma rite of bed burial as aconsequence of a territorial and cultural integration process at a stage of state development whenalso the adoption of Egyptian mortuary cultappeared most opportune (see below).

4/ With Generation g around 880 BC afurther stage of « Egyptianization» of the burialis reached: after the erection of a mound overthe grave, as if an afterthought, a square sandstone masonry mastaba is built to encase thetumulus superstructure.

5/ For the next seven generations the complexof the indigeneous pit grave and the Egyptianizedmastaba superstructure (or, perhaps, a pyramidon-mastaba superstructure formally resemblingthe Egyptian New Kingdom superstructure typerepresented e.g. by the tomb of Amenemhet,Prince of Teh-khet at Debeira West in LowerNubia) with mortuary cult chapel and enclosingwall is maintained. The burial of Piye around716 BC introduces the stairway descent tombwith pyramid superstructure and thus theEgyptianization of the ancestral necropolis isvirtually completed. The ,king's body is buried inan anthropoid wooden coffin and he isaccompanied into afterlife by shawabti figures. Inhis equipment we also find dummy canopic jarsreferring to the influence of contemporaryEgyptian non-royal burial customs.

While Reisner's and Dunham's short chronology suggested an Egyptianization of the el Kurrudynasty within two generations (in absolutechronology it would mean a rapid change occurring around 820 BC139

), the long chronologydraws the picture of a process of a different paceand rythm. The adoption of Egyptian funeraryrites and mortuary cult appears with the fifthgeneration around 920 BC. An Egyptian tombsuperstructure type would be built, however,only after another three generations around 880BC. Under mastabas (or pyramid-toppedmastabas) were thus buried altogether eight

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generations, which means that the bi-ritual burialtype uniting the indigeneous pit grave withEgyptian mortuary cult and an Egyptian-typesuperstructure survived until the middle of theeighth century BC in an apparently unchangedform ever since the early ninth century BC.

It was suggested above in Chapter 4 that thedevelopment leading to the emergence ofKashta's united kingdom was made possible bythe survival of the indigeneous elite after thecollapse of the Egyptian provincial administration, further by the survival of a number ofEgyptianized «urban» communities and finallyby the continuity of the agricultural communitiesand of their political, social, and economic interrelations. How do these premises relate to elKurru? Also the question arises here as towhether further determining factors are reflectedby the development of the necropolis.

The traditional and non-Egyptianized character of the burials of Generations a to dindicates quite unambiguously the indigeneousbackgrounds of Kashta's and Piye's ancestors.The bed burial appearing in Generation e wasalready mentioned above as a possible Kermaheritage, yet it may also be brought into connection with a similar Lower Nubian C-Group burialcustom. 140 While it seems that internment on abed and the erecting of a circular earth tumulusover a grave were characteristic of the cultures ofUpper Nubia as well as of Lower Nubia, thetumulus superstructure is also attested as atradition of the Meroitic-speakers of the Butanaregion (see the earliest burials in the cemeteriesat Meroe City). By contrast, the lateral nichegrave superstructure type was apparentlyrestricted originally to el Kurru - where it may

perhaps be interpreted as a tradition of theNubian-speaking population of the DongolaNapata region. The simple pit-and-axial nichegraves were, on the other hand, characteristic forthe Butana area; and it may be presumed thatthey represent the native tradition of Irame.

It may be speculated that the origins of the elKurru chiefs reach back to some clan of hereditary chieftains subjected as vassals by Tuthmosis I and then left in possession of a severelyrestricted and nominal authority in the civilgovernment of the indigeneous population afterthe viceregal administration took its final shapeby the sale reign of Tuthmosis III. In the timesof Tuthmosis I and Tuthmosis III we know offive vassal chiefs. 141 Paramount chiefs, or notables, wrw, are attested textually as well aspictorially during the Eighteenth Dynasty. 142 Inthe Theban tomb of Huy, Viceroy of Kush underTutankhamun, six chiefs of Kush are represented. 143 If the families of wrw continued to playtheir administrative role under the Nineteenth andTwentieth Dynasties, the Egyptian withdrawalwould have strongly affected their position, yet itis difficult to imagine, who other than theseindigeneous families could have filled the vacuumleft behind by the disappearance of Egyptianauthority. The indigeneous character of the earlyel Kurru burials before ca. 920 Be indicates, asit would seem, a complete discontinuity ofEgyptian religiosity caused by the disappearanceof temple personnel. At the same time, however,it may also reveal a politically motivated revivalof native traditions - which does not necessarilyimply the complete disappearance of all Egyptianand/or Egyptianized cults, rites, beliefs, customs,thus of any type and form of Egyptianized andEgyptian-type religiosity.

140 Cf. Priese 1978, 71f. - Possible Lower Nubian connections are also indicated by fragments of a special type of handmadepottery incense burner from Ku. Tum. 4, Gen. b, and of more complete exemplars of the same type of burner from Ku. Tum. 5,Gen. c, see L.A. Heidorn : ~ Preliminary Analysis of Selected Vessels from the Earliest Tombs at EI-Kurru (Generations A-F) ~,

Pre-publication of paper submitted at the Seventh Int. Conference for Meroitic Studies, Berlin September 1992, fig. 1 (Tum. 4) ;Dunham 1950, fig. 4b (Tum. 5), which have analogies from Site 176 at Debeira, a New Kingdom cemetery, seeT. Save-Soderbergh et ale : Middle Nubian Sites I, Uddevalla, 1989, 200ff., II. PI. 36. Interestingly, Site 176 also yieldedEgyptian faience vessels with painted decoration similar in style to those from Ku. Tum. 1, cf. Save-Soderbergh et al., Ope cit,.PI. 62.141 Cf. J.H. Breasted: A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, 2nd ed., London, 1927, 139;A.H. Gardiner: Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford, 1961, 180 ; O'Connor 1983, 266.142 O'Connor 1983, 265.143 N.M. Davies: Ancient Egyptian Paintings, Chicago, 1936, PIs LXXVIII-LXXXI.

38


It depends on a fortunate accident of futurearchaeological fmds whether we shall ever learnthe extension and character of the « state » unitscoming into existence after the Egyptian withdrawal along the Upper Nubian Nile. For thetime being we may only speculate about theexistence of eventual chiefdoms prior to theirunification by Alara or Kashta, and we maypresume with confidence that the general trend ofdevelopment after the first post-New Kingdomchiefdoms came into existence was the process oftheir integration into larger and larger units. Aswas aptly formulated by Kemp, the growth in themechanisms of the state, as with other productsof the mind, has been a process of addition. 144

In the first place, the process of integrationwas determined by the centralized Egyptianadministration, whose top echelons were removedand whose functioning was rendered almostcomplet~ly pointless with the collapse of thetemple-town structure - but whose experiencemay to an extent have survived the great changein the condition of the native elite. The participatiton of the indigeneous element in the lowerspheres of administration, probably at the villagelevel, during the New Kingdom may havesecured a rather smooth transition without basicstructural changes in the countryside. Integrationof units on all levels (within and without thelimits of individual chiefdoms) was certainlynecessitated by the limited availability of arableland,145 a condition that leads generally to theamalgamation of communities of various ranksand sizes. It was also promoted, it may be atleast presumed, by the rivalry and ambition ofindividual chieftains and also influenced by thethreat represented by Egypt in the north and theruler(s) of the Butana region in the south.

The appearance of the first el Kurru chief inthe Napata region around the end of the eleventhcentury Be probably marks an advanced stage ofthe integration process. Although the fate of

Napata after the Egyptian withdrawal is completely obscure, it can be hardly accidental that theanonymous prince of Generation a chose as theburial ground of his family a place so close toNapata - as it was not accidental, either, thathis successful descendants elected Napata as theirmost important and sacrosanct centre of ideological and political power.

Why just Napata? It was assumed earlier inthis book that one of the decisive factors in theemergence of the post-Egyptian states was thesurvival of « urban» settlements. It was alsorepeatedly stressed that it could not have beenaccidental that the great majority of Twenty-FifthDynasty and later centres existed at NewKingdom temple-town sites (Kawa, Tabo, Soleb,Sedeinga, Amara, Buhen, Aksha, Faras, Aniba!Qasr Ibrim). Archaeologists have failed so far todiscover any clear evidence of settlement continuity at these sites between the end of Egyptiandomination and the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, yetthe example of, e.g., Dorginarti in LowerNubia146 may warn us that the blankness of thepost-New Kingdom archaeological record is onlyvirtual. This may well be the case for Napata toowhere Reisner apparently did not find anyepigraphical or archaeological trace of lifebetween the end of the New Kingdom occupationand the first buildings attributed to Piye. Disregarding here the possibility of a shift of thesettlement centre (perhaps to the neighbourhoodof el Kurru !) and also the possibility thatReisner's unpublished field notes may containfragments of the missing information, I merelynote that at one place - in B 800 - Reisnerwas nevertheless compelled to presume a templebuilding activity predating Piye's work there. Ina preliminary report147 Reisner attributed the firstperiod of B 800, a small temple dedicated toAmun-Re of Napata (?), to «Kashta or his immediate predecessor »,148 which became in laterliterature149 a dating to temp. Kashta or Pitankhy.

144 Kemp 1989, 19.145 Cf. K. A. Bard - R. L. Carneiro : ~ Patterns of Predynastic Settlement Location, Social Evolution, and the CircumscriptionTheory », CRIPEL 11, 1989, 15-23. - I have found far less adaptable the suggestions made by C.E. Guksch : «EthnologicalModels and Processes of State Formation - Chiefdom Survivals in the Old Kingdom », GM 125, 1991, 37-50, for they are toogeneral and theoretical even to be concretely confronted with data from Old Kingdom Egypt.146 Heidorn, Ope cit. (cf. note 78, above).147 G.A. Reisner: « The Barkal Temples in 1916 », lEA 6, 1920, 247-264.

39

THE EMERGENCE OF TIlE KINGDOM OF KUSH

Reisner's dating followed from the relationship ofB 800 with the adjacent B 900150 which was builtlater than B 800 and which could be identified asa construction of Piye. 151 No evidence was discovered, however, which would decide whetherB 800 was built one, or two, or three, or evenmore reigns before Piye. 152

The burials of Generations a to d do notindicate the existence of Egyptian cult life atNapata, or, if there existed a cult life in the NewKingdom temple of Amen-Re (temple B 500) orin the predecessor of B 800, the el Kurru chiefsdid not have religious contacts with it. Theburials of Generations e and f in the second halfof the tenth century Be, by contrast, prove boththe presence of a temple cult of Egyptian type ina neighbouring place, most probably at Napata,and its acceptance in terms of religious practiceby the el Kurru dynasty. The rite of sd dsrwt( « breaking the red pots ») could be performedonly by priests educated in Egyptian religion andable to recite the Egyptian text of the funeraryceremonies. Tum. 6, the burial of Generation e'around 920 Be, also introduces another important new feature. This is the mud-brick chapelattached to the east side of the circular earthmound and oriented thus towards the Nile. Thecult function of this chapel and the sacral character of the tomb is completed by a horseshoeshaped masonry enclosure wall. The sceptic mayinterpret « breaking the red pots» as an occasional and passing phase of syncretism. The appearance of the mortuary cult chapel and of theenceinte wall contradicts, however, the assumption of a superficial influence and attests aprofound change in the realms of religion, cult,and ideology.

For from the aspect of religion and cult theadoption of Egyptian funenary rites and the erection of funerary cult chapels means the know-

ledge and acceptance of Egyptian concepts ofmortuary religion. The enclosure wall indicatesthat the tomb, beyond its inherent and naturalsacral character, is now regarded as a sanctuary,the scene of mortuary services, Le., of cultperformed in the attached chapel.

Unfortunately though, the completely plundered condition of the burial pits in Tum. 6 and Ku.19 does not allow one to establish the actual typeof burial. The existence of mummy burial wouldseem logical, and is not contradicted by thetraces of beds found in the tombs until Generation i (Ku. 10).153 The earliest burial in a coffinverified at el Kurru was, however, that of Piye,and it coincided also with the presence of shawabti figures, (dummy) canopic jars, amulets,heart scarabs in his as well as in the tombs of hisgeneration.

. The apparent incompleteness of the adaptationof Egyptian mortuary religion, Le., the inconsequence revealed by the lack of shawabti andother integral elements of a burial, may be betterinterpreted from the more general aspect ofideology. In the process of state formation asignificant early stage is reached when thedemand for a coherent ideology of power ismanifested. The ideology of power cannot, ofcourse, be formulated without creating theconcept of continuity with the past, on which theconcepts of legitimacy and unity are founded. 154

In Tum. 6 and Ku. 19 we may identify thebeginnings of this particular stage : the enclosedroyal tomb with its mortuary cult chapel is aplace of ancestor cult which plays an essentialrole in the process of establishing a religiousimage of political continuity with the past.

Egyptian mortuary religion could offer, evenwithout being completely understood and accepted, an elementary view of continuity. From theconsciousness of the need of an institutionalized

148 Ibid., 254.149 PM VII 212.150 Reisner, Ope cit., 259ff.151 Ibid., 261.152 Ibid., 254 Reisner writes concerning the fmds associated with the pre-Piye building: « six crude scarabs, a few beads, andfragments of gold foil certainly belonged to the period of occupation of B 8oo-first. Possibly something might be found if weremoved the stone pavement of the second temple, but that I have been loath to do ».

153 Dunham 1950, 48.154 Cf. Kemp 1989, 20ff.

40


mortuary cult of the ancestors the way to thediscovery of a corresponding kingship .ideologycould not have been very long. We are probablynot fundamentally wrong when supposing that theel Kurru chiefs turned to priests educated inEgyptian religion at the moment when theyrealized the significance of the institutions ofEgyptian mortuary cult. In the course of thesubsequent century the reception of a religiousconcept of the former overlords led to thecrea~ion of a complex Kushite kingship ideologywhose Egyptian components cannot be denied.

The Egyptianization of the el Kurru dynastyand the subsequent unfolding of its kingshipconcept were connected with a thousand ties tothe cult of Amun of Napata. The first discernibleties may be identified in the change in funeraryrites and mortuary cult introduced with the burialof Generation e. The priests standing behind theradical and expert innovations cannot be termed« itinerant », as is sometimes suggested in learnedliterature. And the sanctuary to which theybelonged was probably a. - however humble temple of Amen-Re. Two significant facts mustbe remembered here. The decree of Seti I of theNineteenth Dynasty from his Year 4 (ca. 1299BC) and carved on a rock on the east bank of theNile at Nauri in the Third Cataract region155

records that certain properties and incomes of thetemple of Amun at Napata were donated to themortuary temple of the king at Abydos. Theappearance of the Egyptian priests in UpperNubia in the course of the late tenth century BCmay perhaps be connected with attempts of theAbydos mortuary temple of Seti I, to regain itsNubian properties. Secondly, we must alsoconsider the fact that by the late New Kingdom- as is also indicated by the Nauri decree itself- the royal mortuary cult was increasinglyconnected with the cult temples. 156 It may be thusexpected that the mortuary cult of the kings ofKush was modelled on Egyptian practice andconnected from the very outset institutionally

with the Amun temple at Napata. During thetimes of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty and of thesubsequent rul~rs this is attested by the erectionof the monumental royal statues in the sanctuaryat Gebel Barkal. These were doubtless cultimages of the royal funenary cult. 157 The Amilntemples erected - or enlarged -- in the courseof the state organisation by the kings of theTwenty-Fifth Dynasty in the centres of thecountry were, evidently, also places of royalancestor worship.

It would seem that, in spite of the gapindicated by the non-Egyptianized burials ofGenerations a to d, the emerging Kushite powerideology also drew upon the source of the~ first », New Kingdom, Egyptianization of theMiddle Nile Region. It was shown in an earlierpaper158 that the iconography of the Meroitic liongod Apedemak, a deity closely associated withkingship dogma from the third century BConwards, consisted of features which can beexplained as deriving from an indigeneous liongod Egyptianized already in New Kingdomtimes. On the other hand, also the ram-headedAmen-Re of Napata- whose cult was establishedat Gebel Barkal by the New Kingdom Egyptianconquerors - had Nubian roots. It could furthermore be demonstrated that the costume of thekings of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty containedaccessories (viz., the tasselled cord and theso-called Nubian coat) which derive from thepre-Twenty-Fifth Dynasty iconography of theNubian ancestor of Apedemak and of a Nubianform of Amun. These - however faint - tracesof a New Kingdom Nubian-Egyptian syncretismrefer, again despite the above-indicated gaprespresented by the early el Kurru generations, tothe New Kingdom roots of the post-Egyptianindigeneous chiefdoms (on this issue see alsoChapter 16 below).

Let us confront here the development observed in the el Kurru cemetery with the suggested

155 PM VII 174 ; KRI I, 45-58 ; and see A. Spalinger: 4( Some Revisions of Temple Endowments in the New Kingdom,.,JARCE 28, 1991, 21-39 31ff.156 Cf. K. Kuhlmann: 4( KonigstotenkUlt ,., LA III, 661-6§3.157 Cf. ibid,. 662 ; R. Stadelmann: Totentempel iii ,., LA, VI 706-711.158 Torok 1990.

41


absolute chronology. 'The first four el Kurrugenerations were dated above (see Table A) tothe interval between ca. 1020 and 940 BC. Interms of the conventional chronology, they werethus contemporary with Psusennes I,Amenemope, Osochor, Siamun, and(Har-)Psusennes II of the Twenty-First Dynastyand with the Theban High Priests of AmunMenkheperre, Smendes II, Pinodjem II, andPsusennes II (cf. Table I). As was shown abovein Chapter 2, Lower Nubia was controlled in thisperiod and in the subsequent one and a halfcenturies by the Theban High Priests of Amunand the claims of the kings to Upper Nubia wererepeatedly manifested by imperialistic programsannounced in royal titularies and by militaryundertakings under Pinodjem I and Menkheperre.Generations e and f, the first chiefs buried undertumuli provided with a mortuary cult chapel,were dated to ca. 940-900 BC and would thushave been contemporaries of Shoshenq I andOsorkon I of the Twenty-Second Dynasty ; rulerswho announced an aggressive policy towardsUpper Nubia. The tomb of the next Generation gintroduces at el Kurru around 880 BC a revivalof the archaic Egyptian tomb superstructure typeof the mastaba or perhaps the New Kingdom-typepyramid-on-mastaba superstructure known fromLower Nubia. His successors would be burieduntil the middle of the eighth century BC undermastabas or pyramids-on-mastabas and they weresupposed to have been contemporaries ofTakeloth I, Osorkon II, Takeloth II, and theHPA Prince Osorkon who all appear to haveundertaken military ventures in Upper Nubia. Itwas, however, under Takeloth II's reign andPrince Osorkon's pontificate that we hear for thelast time about Egyptian interference in UpperNubia and about Egyptian authority in the LowerNubian province .of tlie Theban « State ofAml1n».

The generally hostile political attitude of thekings of Egypt does not exclude, however,contacts of a peaceful nature in commerce. Themost important, even if unfortunately - virtuallyisolated, testimony of contacts in a higher sphereis still the fragments of the « red pots » unearthedin the enclosures of Tum. 6 and Ku. 19. Torecapitulate here once more their principalmessage : the red vessels broken at the burial ofprobably non-mummified bodies were manufactured locally but decorated with orthodoxEgyptian mourning and offering scenes alsopicturing figures of mummies and revealing - inaccordance with the whole of the rite in question- the Egyptian education (and origin ?) of thepainter(s). The basic religious inhomogeneity thusdisplayed can best be explained as « spontaneous » syncretism of a contradictory nature: anexpression of the encounter of native traditionwith orthodox Egyptian religiosity.

Contacts with Egypt and/or Lower Nubia are,evidently, also indicated by the tomb superstructure type replacing the earth mound. InEgypt no mastabas were erected after the TwelfthDynasty ;159 the el Kurru mastabas - if theywere in fact mastabas - might thus be explainedas a striking example of archaizing : or else asan archaeological error. 160

Generations h to I, dated approximately to theperiod between 880 and 800 Be, were buried intombs similar in type and ritual to the burial ofthe preceding Generation g. These decades werein all probability decisive for the development ofthe chiefdom whose princes were interred at elKurru and for the emergence of the kingdom ofKush. However, the tombs in their plunderedcondition are silent about this process and theirhumble size strangely contradicts the undeniablereality manifested by Kashta' s appearance inUpper Egypt : that these chiefs were in fact thebuilders of an empire.

159 Cf. D. Arnold : « Grab,., LA II, 26-837 830f.160 At Ku. 8, the presumed tomb of Kashta, at places five courses of a very steep masonry superstructure were preserved.Above these five courses a part of the rubble core was still standing at the time of the excavation to a height of ca. 3.5-4 metres,see Dunham 1950, fig. 15/a and PI. IlIA. These remains would allow the reconstruction of a bent pyramid similar to thesuperstructure of Karkamani's and Aramatelqo's burials at Nuri, or ofa pyramid-on-mastaba superstructure resembling the tombof a New Kingdom Prince of Teh-khet at Debeira West in Lower Nubia, see T. Save-Soderbergh - L. Troy: New KingdomPharaonic Sites. The Finds and the Sites, UpPsala, 1991, 182ff. and figs 44, 45.

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9. The emergence of the Kushitestate: from Alara to Piye. Theunification process

In a passage of his inscription no. IV 'in thetemple of Amun at Kawa, written in the sixthregnal year (ca. 685 BC), King Taharqo(690-664 Be) mentions his ancestor Alara. Thepassage is of a special significance for the understanding of the Kushite concept of legitimacy (seeChapters 12, 14). According to lines 16f. 161

:

... the mothers of my [i.e., Taharqo's] motherwere committed to him [i.e., Amen-Re] by theirbrother, the Chieftain, the son of Re, Alara,justified.

The story of the commitment of Alara's sisterto Amun is also repeated in Kawa VI, lines 22f.,written in Year 10 of Taharqo (ca. 680 BC). 162 Inlines 23f. of this latter inscription the followingprayer is put into Alara's mouth: 0 excellentgod, swift of step, who comest to him that callsto thee, do thou look for me upon my sister, awoman born together with me in one womb. Dothou act for her even as thou didst act for himthat acted for thee, a wonder unpremeditated andnot contrived by (?) schemers, for thou didstthwart for me him that devised evil against meand didst set me up as king.

The status of Alara is somewhat curious : heis called Chieftain (wr) , but at the same time hisname is written in cartouche and preceded by theroyal title s3-R', Son of Re. He is thus viewedfrom two perspectives : from the perspective ofhis actual rank as chieftain of a tribal stateexisting before the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, andfrom that of his descendant Taharqo who deriveshis kingship from Alara and hence bestows uponhim a cartouche and the s3-R' title.

« King » Alara is mentioned again in the latefifth century BC enthronement text Kawa IX ,

line 54 of King Irike-Amanote. 163 As founder ofthe royal dynasty of Kush he is evoked for thelast time in the preserved evidence in KingNastasefi' s Enthronement Stela and Annals(Berlin Agyptisches Museum 2268) written in thelast third of the fourth century BC. In this textthe king asks Amen-Re of Napata for ... thesovereignty of the. land of Nubia, and the crownof King Harsiyotef, and the power of KingPiankh-Alaral64 where Piankh (written in thecartouche) is to be understood as standing for

king 165 Th N t _. . .« ». e as asen InscrIptIon also informsabout the « place of origin » (or residence, orperhaps a temple housing his mortuary cult ?) ofAlara in the region of Sanam opposite Napata onthe left bank of the Nile (see in more detail inChapter 13).

According to the Taharqo inscriptions quotedabove, Alara was the brother of Taharqo'sgrandmother (see also Table 11).166 In Chapter 17I shall investigate in more detail the significanceof the act of committing of his sister to AmunRe. Here it may suffice to point out that Taharqocalls it to mind in the context of the justificationof his own legitimacy, Le., in the context of thelegitimacy of his dynasty. Alara's act receiveshere the meaning of the founding of the dynasty.We· do not know the relationship between Alaraand the chief of Generation l buried in el Kurrutomb Ku. 21. Alara's distinguished role in theconcept of dynastic legitimacy of his descendantsmay in theory indicate that he did not descendfrom, or was not the legitimate successor ofGeneration l of el Kurru and hence was actuall~the founder of a new line. It is more probable,how~ve:, that - as indicated by the necropoliscontmulty - he was a member of the lineageand was the founder in another sense. Viz., hecommitted his sister and her descendants (whowere, we may confidently suppose, at the sametime his own descendants in terms of dynasticunity) to Amen-Re and that thereby he

161 Macadam 1949, 16.162 Ibid., 36.163 Ibid., 58.164 Budge 1912, 146.165 Cf. Macadam 1949, 123.166 Cf. Macadam 1949, 131 ; Dunham - Macadam 1949, 149 ; Kitchen 1986, Table 11.

43


established an undissoluble connection betweenthe god and the dynasty and also adoptedEgyptian legitimacy and succession conceptswhile thus abandoning his ancestral traditions(see Chapter 12).

Irike-Amanote's enthronement inscription alsocommemorates another ancestor of the king, viz.,Kashta. This latter royal predecessor is invokedin the same context as Alara. Irike-Amanote asksAmun to ... act for me as thou didst act for KingKashta, justified whereupon the god grants himthe kingship with the following words : I givethee [every] land, [the south, the north], thewest, and the east, and I give thee as I [gave] toKing [Kashta, justified]. 167

Kashta's place in the royal genealogy issecured by a number of inscriptions from Egyptand Nubia (cf. Table II). He is attested to havebeen the consort of Queen Pebatma,168 father ofKing Piye's wife Peksater,169 of the God's Wifeof Amun Amonirdis 1,170 of Pakartror, 171 andprobably also of King Shabaqo and the royalwives of Piye Khefisa and Nefrukekashta. 172 It isgenerally believed that Kashta and Alara werebrothers, which,' although not attested in thepreserved evidence, may have been their actualrelationship if we identify Alara's unnamed sisterwith Kashta's sister-wife Pebatma (see Table IIand Chapter 12). The sequence Alara-Kashta isindicated by the order in which they arementioned in the Irike-Amanote text and by thechronology of their descendants. Their association in the dynastic memory may hint at theirsignificance as founders: Alara founder in thelight of the new concepts of legitimacy andsuccession introduced by him, and Kashta asfounder of an empire extending from UpperEgypt to the Butana region. On his preservedmonuments and in texts referring to him as fatherof Amonirdis I at Karnak and in the funerary

inscriptions of members of his family, Kashta'sname is written in cartouche and in a stelaerected by him at Elephantine in Egypt (seebelow) he is bearing the titulary of a King ofUpper and Lower Egypt. The geographicaldistribution of his monuments reveals that underhis reign the ancestral territory of the NapataDongola region was united with the Butanaregion in the south and with Lower Nubia in thenorth. Moreover, he also appeared as Pharaoh inUpper Egypt. The scanty evidence is completelysilent about the stages of this splendid processwhich was, one may have the misleadingimpression, accomplished overnight. We are thusforced to build speculations on isolated data.

The accomplishment of the southward extension of the el Kurru chiefdom is demonstrated bythe earliest burials in the cemeteries of MeroeCity.173 The highest parts of the hills on whichthe Meroe West and South Cemeteries (henceforth Meroe W. and Meroe S.) are situated wereoccupied by simple pit graves covered with now completely eroded - mound superstructures. In the. burial pits Reisner excavated a/remains of contracted bodies (on the left side,head E. ; or on the right side, head W.) buriedsupposedly on beds, yet no clear evidence ofactual beds was found ;174 and bl coffm burials ofmummified bodies provided as .a rule with thecharacteristic Egyptian Late Period-type beadnet. 175 The chronological relationship of the twoMeroe City cemeteries is fairly unambiguous :the contracted body burials are confined onMeroe W. where they appear to cover one ortwo generations, after which concurrent mummyburials begin; while in Meroe S. no not-mummified bodies are recorded. As to the absolutechronological position of the two necropoleis, intomb Meroe W. 658 (coffin burial)176 a faienceseal with the cartouches of Kashta and

167 Kawa IX, lines 114-116, Macadam 1949, 67.168 Statue of Amonirdis I, Cairo 42198, PM VII, 284, Leclant 1965, 184f. ; Troy 1986 Appendix A 25.2 ; Wenig 1990, 334f.169 Stela, Berlin 4437, Schafer 1906,48f. ; Troy 1986, Appendix A, 25.3 ; Wenig 1990, 336f. ; Abydos door jamb, Schafer1906, 49 ; Wenig 1990, 338f. ; Abydos door lintel, Cairo JE 32023, Wenig 1990, 339f.170 Troy 1986, Appendix A, GW 4171 Moscow, Pushkin Museum 1.1.6.37 (4163) ; Wenig 1990, 340ff.172 Leclant 1965, 96.173 Cf. Dunham 1963.174 Cf. Dunham 1963, 5 (W 611),28 (W 609), 55 (W 502),298 (W 619), 305 (W 663).175 Cf. Dunham 1963, Index s.v. « mummy net ».

44


Amonirdis I was found; Meroe W. 816177

(coffm) yielded a golden Bastet statuette inscribedfor P3-m3j, Le., the Chief of the Ma listedamong the rulers of the Delta surrendering toPiye in ca. 728 BC. 178 The not-mummifiedburials in the highest parts of Meroe W. predatethus Kashta by one or two generations, and thefirst coffin burials appear to have beenintroduced in the reign of Kashta or Piye. Thecoffm burials display an Egyptianized rite - somuch so that they are generally, and probablyquite wrongly, supposed to have been the burialsof Egyptian professionals in Kushiteservice - while the pit graves with the contracted bodies doubtless represent an indigeneoustradition. While this latter tradition differs fromthe indigeneous rite observed in the early part ofthe el Kurru cemetery and may thus be identifiedas testimony of the local Meroitic-speaking popu1ati.on, the coffin burials may be attributed tosettlers from the Napata area, viz., the settlerswho can be regarded as vehicles of the ~ Egyptianization» or rather «Napatanization» of theButana region.

Since Meroe W. 658 with the small seal inscribed with the names of Kashta and Amonirdis Ias well as the burial consisting of the Bastet

. statuette, probably a gift of Piye to the tombowner, were coffm burials, we can safely assumethat the abrupt change from native burial rite tocoffin burial (the burial in contracted positionwould disappear in the course of the next fewgenerations) was a result of the extension of thepower of the el Kurru dynasty over the Butana.The political take-over was carried out by settlersfrom the north. As already mentioned above, theexcavators identified them as Egyptian priests,artists, and scribes. 179 Whether Egyptians orEgyptianized Nubians from the Napata-Dongolaregion, their Egyptianized burials are clearevidence for the existence of a temple in thesettlement next to the Meroe W. and S. cemete-

ries which could provide for mummification, theperformance of Egyptian funerary rites, and forthe maintenance of Egyptian-type mortuary cult.The excavators of Meroe City failed to discoverthis temple, for they did not investigate theearliest settlement layers of the central part (thearea of the so-called Royal Enclosure). Garstangand his collaborators unearthed, however, thoughwithout realizing their actual significance, relicsof a temple of Amen-Re in the SE part of theRoyal Enclosure which already functioned in thereign of Senkamanisken (Taharqo's third successor) but was probably founded by a ruler ofthe Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. 180

Interestingly, the first coffm burials at MeroeCity apparently predate the general Egyptianization of the burial rites in the Napata area itself(cf. Chapter 7 above on el Kurru types 8 and 8a)and may thus refer to Kashta's contacts withEgypt. The small number of the· non-Egyptianized type burials at Meroe W indicates, however,that this cemetery, unlike el Kurru, cannot beregarded as the ancestral ce1l1:etery of some localrulers (but see also Chapter 20 on King Arkamaniqo's origins). It would seem, instead, thatMeroe W. was started in conjunction with theunification of the Butana area with the el Kurruchiefdom some time lWder Alara or in Kashta'sreign.

The unification of the Butana region with theNapata-Dongola region is in a most significantmanner connected to the expansion of the elKurru dynasty towards the north by the enigmaticKadimalo inscription at Semna West. Thisdifficult hieroglyphic text, which resisted so farall attempts at a translation, was carved on thefa~ade of the temple dedicated by Tuthmosis IIIto Dedwen and the deified Sesostris III. 181 Theinscription accompanies a fairly well-carved reliefscene (Fig 2) showing Queen Kadimalo and aprincess before Isis. The queen is wearing avulture headdress surmounted by a tall plumed

176 Dunham 1963, 304.177 Ibid., 8.178 Cairo 48862, Great Triumphal Stela, lunette and line 116.179 D. Dunham : ~ An Outline of the Ancient History of the Sudan V ,., SNR 38 (1947) 1-104f.180 Torok n.d., Chapter 2.4.1.181 Grapow 1940 ; PM VII, 145 ; D. Dunham - J.M.A. Janssen: Semna Kumma. Boston, 1960, 10.

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Fig". 2 - Semna West, Temple of Dedwen and Sesostris III, fa~ade.

Quenn Kadimalo and a princess before Isis(after a drawing of W. Weudenbach, 1844, in Grapow 1940, PI. III)

46


superstructure with sundisc and with ribbonshanging down at back; further a broad collarnecklace, armlets, and a transparent double robewith short arms. 182 In her righi hand she holds ascepter (perhaps the jm3t or the ~ts ?), 183 and inher left hand she carries a flail. Similarly to thesmaller figure behind her, the queen is alsowearing a steloform ear pendant of a type familiar from representations of post-Twenty-FifthDynasty Kushite queens,l84 and her figure isprotected by the vulture goddess Nekhbet wearing the atef crown and extending her wings overthe queen's head. In front of the royal figure andabove the offerings the following title is engraved : nsw-bjt ~mt nsw wrt s3t nsw, «King (sic !)of Upper and Lower Egypt, great wife of theking, daughter of the king ».

The actual genre of the text is difficult todetermine. The scene depicts apparently theoffering of Kadimalo and a princess presented toIsis. It leaps to the eye, however, that theofferings on two of the three traditional offeringstands are turned towards the queen, who is thustheir beneficiary, and only one offering is directed to the goddess. The queen turns neverthelessto the goddess and presents her an offering withthe following words : ... take the [...j flowers 18S

and the words of the goddess are :186 Isis, the

Mother of the God, Eye of Re, Mistress of AllGods, speaks:"I grant, that the heart of thegreat royal wife and royal daughter, Ka[dimaloj,be satisfied.

The libation- and lotus offering presented toKadimalo becomes meaningful if we realize thesignificance of the fact that her titulary in the inscriptions that accompany the scene is completedwith the word « justified », thus she is referred toas deceased: J:tmt-nsw wrt s3t nsw K3-t-y-m-lm3'[tjlJrw, « great wife of the king, daughter ofthe king, Kadimalo, justified» e.g. in theintroduction of Isis' speech. 187 Accordingly, themain part of the inscription does not recordKadimalo's speech but that of an unnamed kingwho is speaking in first person singular and isreferring to himself as «His Majesty» and« Pharaoh ».188 That it is this anonymous kingwho is speaking becomes clear from the introduction which after the date «Year 14, second(month ot) Peret, day 9 »189 reads thus: 4d.inlJ,m.f n ~mt-nsw wrt etc., «His Majesty speaks(or spoke) to the great royal wife etc. »190 In thefollowing the anonymous king gives a descriptionof war-like events, a rebellion, a conflictconcerning gold mines. Some passages where themeaning is less obscure are worth quoting herein Hermann Grapow's translation :191

182 For the Ramesside style of the dress cf., e.g., the representations of Nefertari Merytmut, wife of Ramesses II, at AbuSimbel, Chr. Desroches-Noblecourt Ch. Kuen!:?: : Le petit temple d'Abou Simbel I. Le Caire, 1968, PI. 33 ; in Tomb 66 in theValley of the Queens, K. Lange - M. Hirmer : Agypten, Miinchen, 1967, PI. LVI.183 Cf. Troy 1986, 189f. ~_~

184 See Torok 1987,2, Nos 31, 59, 64f., 75f., 87a, 89, 91, 109.185 Grapow 1940, 26, restores the lacuna as sIn, lotus.186 Ibid., 26.187 For the meaning of the sign Gardiner Sign List M 2 as m3' hnv, fern. m3't hnv see Wb. II 17, 16-18 ; W. Erichsen, ActaOr. 6, 272 ; Caminos 1964, 89 note 3 ; B. Gessler-Lohr, GM 116: 1990, 25-43. v

188 The analysis of the text rests upon Professor R.H. Pierce's unpublished comments prepared for the publication in the BergenFontes Historiae Nubiorum (FHN I, No.1).189 Pierce. - Grappw 1940, 29 also proposes the reading « Regierungsjahr 16, Ister der prt-Zeit, Tag 9 ».190 Grapow 1940, 29.191 Ibid., 30-40.

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(col. 2) der Feind will sterben, der die Sache dieses Jahres verursachte, die uns zugestossen ist...(col. 3) Ich habe nicht mehr an die Sache gedacht, die [gegen mich] geschehen ist in diesem Jahre,

als ich mich dem Amun zuwandte .(col. 4) ich mache es in den Goldbergen .(cols 4f.) ist der zauber (/J,k3y) des [...J stark ? ..(col. 5) der Pharao (p3 pr- £3) kiimpft mit seinem Schwert (Arm) ...(col. 6) someone feared no (?) and was quiescent... 192

(col. 7) good to harm someone without his knowledge (?) ... bad to harm people... 193

(col. 8) es ist gut dem Amun zu machen [...] denn der welcher dem Amun eine andere Stoltemacht...

(cols 9f.) the citizens are to curse the m3k3rs3 daily.. .194 or .. .Leuten der Stadt die den Makareschtiiglich verjluchen... , where the city would be Thebes according to Grapow. 195

(col. 11) evil reaching his heart like the reaching the heart of the army [...J he who does good tothe whole land... 196

Grapowl97 stressed the Third IntermediatePeriod character of the text and compared it tothe language of the Nesikhons papyrus198 andrelated texts. The tenor of the inscription recallsthe phraseology of magical texts what is alsocorroborated by the remarkable expression hlf,3yemployed in cols 4f.

The Semna West inscription commemoratesthus a deceased royal wife in the historicalcontext of a difficult situation in which theunnamed king appears to tum for aid to Amunand to powerful magic. What is most remarkableabout the inscription is, however, that it invokesthe queen as a mediator in the trouble andreveals thus the Egyptian backgrounds of thewhole monument - which is, from this aspect, asupplication of a mortal through an intermediaryto the deity. It is strange, however, that it is herea king who would appear in the position of asupplicant, whereas in Egypt the king alone is inthe position to tum directly to the gods. Yet it is

a High Priest of Amiln of Thebes, Pinodjem II,who turns in the Nesikhons papyrus to magic,thus, after all, the Semna West inscription is notso strikingly anomalous as it would appear at thefirst glance. It may also be speculated that theanonymous king was. not aware of the ·charismatic possibilities of an Egyptian king, and theauthor of the text did not consider him to possesscharismatic privileges. On the other hand, theauthor of the text reveals his education by the·relief scene showing the deceased queen in thecompany of a princess and conveying thus theconcept of female dualityl99 associated with theideology of royal succession, and in particularwith the renewal of royal power. The concept ofgenerational duality is also prevalent in Kadima10's titulary : she is wife of a king and daughterof a king (see Chapter 17 passim and esp.Chapter 17.7).

Despite the ambiguous attitude of the authorof the text towards the anonymous king, the

192 Pierce.193 Pierce.194 Pierce.195 Grapow 1940, 40.196 Pierce.197 Grapow 1940, 41 and passim.198 P. Cairo 58032, decree for Amun, Cat. Gen. Mus. Caire I, 132 ; B. Gunn, lEA 41, 1955, 83-105. It is most significantthat through this papyrus Pinodjem II, Nesikhons' surviving husband, tried to secure that his deceased wife does not do him harmfrom the Netherworld, cf. J. Czerny in : R.A. Parker: A Saite Oracle Papyrus from Thebes in The Brooklyn Museum (PapyrusBrooklyn 47.218.3), Providence, 1962, 39.199 Cf. Troy 1986, 107ff.

48


political significance of the scene and inscriptionis quite obvious - the use of royal titularies andsymbols of authority is an expression of a claim,which is also indicated by the clearly comprehensible language of iconography : the queen isprotected by Nekhbet and is thus associated withthe rule over Upper Egypt.

But who was this lady titled « King of Upperand Lower Egypt» and « great royal wife, royaldaughter » ? A part of the answer is revealed byher name in which it is not difficult to recognizethe Meroitic words kdi, «woman» and mio,« good ».200 According to this name, she originat-

_ed from the homeland of the Meroitic-speakingpopulation, the Butana region - the area whichappears to have been united with the ancestralterritories of the el Kurru chiefs around the firsthalf of the eighth centuryBC, Le., some timeunder the reign of Alara or Kashta. Although shebears high-sounding titles, her name is notwithstanding not written in cartouche. The -reliefdepicts her in the possession of the traditionalroyal regalia of late New Kingdom queens anddressed in their style and the iconography of thescen~ in all details displays a knowledge of lateNew Kingdom queenship. The accompanying textdescribes the troubles of an anonymous king,probably her consort, in rather trivial terms and,besides alluding to the royal virtue of fighting, italso reveals that he did not shrink back from thenon-royal use of magic. The genre of the text isonly partly monumental (dating and narrativesections) and gives the impression of a halfeducated author and of a commissioner who wasnot aware of the Egyptian traditions of royalutterances and of the nature of king-deityinteraction. In other words, the Semna Westmonument is basically ambivalent. It was meantto be a royal monument by the person who commissioned it and who doubtless was in a positionto order the execution of such a monument. Yet,

the men carrying out his order knew Egyptianroyal iconography and titulary better than theiremployer - the omission of the cartoucheappears to have been due to the malice of theformer, while the significance of the omissionapparently escaped unnoticed by the latter.

It is thus tempting to hypothesize: the Kadimalo scene and inscription is a monument of theinitial stage of the occupation of Lower Nubia bysouthern conquerors who usurp the titles andiconography of the former masters of theterritory and who receive an ambivalent welcomefrom the surviving lower priesthood of theEgyptian province. The conquerors apparentlybelong to the first generation of newcomers inLower Nubia possessing only a vague knowledgeof the edifice of traditions they attempt toappropriate. They must content themselves withthe service of the available poorly educatedliterati who nevertheless fmd some clever waysto give an expression to their reluctance to acceptthe legitimacy of the conqueror.

It may be thus concluded that the Kadimaloinscription is a monument of the el Kurrudynasty's advance into Lower Nubia, but itpredates the stage of the Kushite expansion whichis marked by Kashta's appearance in UpperEgypt.

The - not numerous -. monuments ofKashta (disregarding here his mentions asAmonirdis I's father201) contain his name writtenin the royal cartouche. The list of them is short :1/ an offering table fragment found in asecondary context at el Kurru and originatingprobably from his plundered burial Ku. 8 ;202 2/a stela fragment from Elephantine ;203 3/ a bronze(1)204 aegis with counterweight of unknownprovenance.205

The fragment under 1/ is too small to becommented upon here. More can be learned fromthe other two. The fragment under -2/ is from the

200 M.F.L. Macadam in : Dunham - Janssen.op. cit., note 181, 10.201 Leclant 1965, 53 : Karnak, Osiris Heqadjet Chapel; 161: block from Medinet Habu; 169 : offering table from MedinetHabu ; 181 : offering table from Thebes.202 Dunham 1950, fig. tfc and Pl. XXXnfC203 Cairo JE 41013, Leclant 1963, 74ff. ; Priese 1970, 16ff.204 The material is determined simply as « metal» in Leclant 1963, 78.205 Ibid., 78ff.

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lunette of a small granite stela dedicated byKashta to Chnum-Re, Lord of the Cataract, andto Satet, Lady of [Elephantine] (and perhaps tothe third associated deity, the goddess Anuket)and was discovered at Elephantine.206 Kashta- whose representation is badly damaged - isstyled nsw-bjt Nj-M3It-RI207 s3-R I nb-t3wy,« King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Possessorof Truth (M3 It) is Re, Son of Re, Lord of theTwo Lands». According to the stela fragmentKashta whose Son of Re-, Le., personal nameprobably has the meaning «the Kushite »208 had thus assumed a traditional Egyptian royaltitulary and used it on Egyptian soil. More precisely, in the territory of the Theban «State ofAmful », the realm of the Theban Twenty-ThirdDynasty.209 The dedication to Chnum-Re conveysthe clear message of Kashta's claim to LowerNubia whose sovereignty was traditionallyassociated, together with the authority over theAswan region, with the god of the First Cataract.

According to the recently accepted chronologyof the Theban Twenty-Third Dynasty, Kashtawas a contemporary of Takeloth III andRudamun. Takeloth III appears to have beenco-regent of his father Osorkon III from ca. 761Be and was followed on the throne by hisbrother Rudamun ca. 754 BC210 (cf. Table I). Ifthe dating of the Kadimalo inscription suggestedabove is not entirely wrong, Kushite power mustalready have been present by Osorkon Ill's reignin Lower Nubia and was then firmly establishedduring the subsequent reigns of Takeloth III andRudamun. This chronology is also corroboratedby the data quoted above at the conclusion ofChapter 2 according to which the last attested

Egyptian Viceroy of Kush, Pamiu, was activearound 775-750 BC.

For lack of narrative sources, it cannot bedecided whether Kashta' s appearance inElephantine and his use of the Egyptian royaltitulary on -his stela dedicated to Chnum are to beinterpreted as the result of an aggressive attemptor, on the contrary, was he encouraged by someTheban circles to come to Upper Egypt ; and thathe was offered the kingship of Egypt. This latterpossibility is suggested by the monument listedabove under 3/. The « legitimacy» of hisadvance is indicated by the aegis and counterweight in subtle terms of traditional iconography.The aegis is made in the form of the goddessMut wearing the Double Crown of Egypt. On thecounterweight the scene shows Kashta beingsuckled by the same goddess.211 The « allaitementroyal » is an episode of the enthronement rites212

and an act of legitimation.213 In his fascinatingstudy of the Kashta counterweight Leclantobserved that Mut,consort of Amun-Re, is notonly associated with the notion of the divineorigin of royal power but, through her DoubleCrown, in this case is also connected with theGod's Wife of Aml1n who assumed as her royalinsignium Mut's crown - alongside her divinequeenship.214 One may perhaps. risk thespeculation that the counterweight scene alludedto Kashta's daughter Amonirdis I as the« source »of Kashta's royal power in Egypt provided that Amonirdis I was adopted as God'sWife of Amlln Elect by Shepenupet I, daughterof Osorkon III and reigning God's Wife of Aml1nstill in the lifetime of Kashta. Not all scholarsaccept that Amonirdis I was installed in Thebesby Kashta/15 and several assume that her

206 Leclant 1963, 74f. and fig. 1.207 Reading of Priese 1970, 17f. Cf. also with E. Iversen: «Reflections on Some Ancient Egyptian Royal Names ». in:Pyramid Studies ... Presented to I.E.S. Edwards, London 1988, 78-88, 83f. ; yet see also H.G. Fischer, GM 108, 1989, 21-29,27 contra Iversen Ope cit. and J. Bennett, lEA 51, 1965, 206f. according to whom the adjectival phrase in nomen and prenomenrefers to the king. .. -208 J. Leclant : Kaschta, LA III, 353f.209 Cf. Aston - Taylor 1990.210 Aston - Taylor 1990, 143ff.211 Leclant 1963, figs 4, 5.212 See J. Leclant : « The Suckling of the Pharaoh as a Part of the Coronation Ceremonies in Ancient Egypt », Proceedings ofthe IXth Int. Congr. for the History of Religion, Tokyo, 1960, 135-145.213 Leclant 1961 ; for a scene of Taharqo's suckling by Rattaoui see Leclant 1965, 89 and PI. LV, Karnak North.214 Leclant 1965, 80.215 So von Zeissl 1955, 68f. ; Priese 1970 ; Baer 1973, 20 ; Leclant 1961, 80 and Leclant 1965, 357ff. (latter hesitatingly).

50


instalment occurred only under Piye.216 I preferto see a causal interconnection between Kashta'sappearance in Egypt, his pharaonic titulary, andAmonirdis I's adoption into the office throughwhich in the subsequent period the king's powerwas secured in Upper Egypt. In the frrst place, itis attested in the cases of Shepenupet 1217 andNitocris218

--= and may be assumed in other casestoo - that the God's Wife Elect was installed,as a rule, by her father and was adopted by theruling God's Wife of Amun.219 The appointmentof Amonirdis I by Kashta or, what would beequivalent, her adoption by Shepenupet I under apolitical pressure that was motivated by theinitiative to use Kashta's power in the re-unification of Egypt, is also supported by thechronology of the Theban monuments inscribedwith her name as God's Wife Elect and thenGod's Wife of Amftn.220

That Amonirdis I was the « source » ofKashta's kingship in Egypt can of course beunderstood also in terms of the theology oflegitimacy. The situation must have been delicateand the basis of the legitimacy could only be anelliptic argumentation: Amonirdis I could beinstalled on the strength of Kashta's beingaccepted as king and at the same time herposition as «daughter» of the reigning God'sWife of Amftn secured Kashta's charisma. Seenin this light, Kashta's advance towards Upper

Egypt can hardly be imagined· without positiveencouragement received from Thebes.

In his study on the Beginn der kuschitischenHerrschaft in Agypten Karl-Heiz Prieseassumed221 that Kashta's kingship was fullyacknowledged in Upper Egypt, that monumentswere dated with his regnal years, and that he socompletely replaced the Theban dynasty ofOsorkon III that it was he who was includedunder the name « Ammeris the Kushite» inManetho's work (Eusebius) as the first ruler ofthe Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.222 It is indeed worthconsidering that, though maintaining ties withThebes, Rudamun's successor Peftjauawybastseems to have ruled in Heracleopolis and not inThebes.223 The absence of the Twenty-ThirdDynasty and the presence of the Kushites inThebes in this period is also indicated by the factthat when Piye started in ca. 728 Be his waragainst the Delta princes he could put into actionarmy contingents stationed in Upper Egypt?24The presence of descendants of Osorkon III,Takeloth III, Rudamun, and also Peftjauawybastin Thebes under Kushite rule during the centuryfollowing Kashta's appearance may well beexplained as a consequence of some treatybetween Osorkon Ill's dynasty and Kashta'sdescendants securing the rule of the former overMiddle Egypt in return for acquiescence to theKushite supremacy over Upper Egypt.225

216 H. Kees : Die Hohenpriester des Amun von Karnak von Herihor bis zum Ende der A'thiopenzeit, Leiden 1964, 158ff. ;Kitchen 1986, 359f. ; Redford 1986, 314. - Baer 1973, 18, lists among the monuments of Osorkon III ~ the scenes in thetemple of Osiris Heqa-djet, where he is depicted together with his successor Takelot III, his daughter the divine votaressShepenupe I, and the divine votaress Amenardis I, daughter of Kashta ». Such a synchronism would be an excellent proof of theinstallation by Kashta. However, the chapel of Osiris Heqadjet was originally built by Osorkon III (his representation on the rearwall of the sanctuary under the ished-tree : P. Barguet, BIFAO 52, 1953, 111 note 3) and extended later towards the north byShebitqo, Shepenupet I, and Amonirdis I ; and no such synchronism as indicated by Baer is contained in the relief scenes ofeither the original building or of the extension, cf. Leclant 1965, 47ff., 218, 342. For the representations of Osorkon III withTakeloth III see R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz : Les temples de Karnak, Paris 1982 I, 163f. ; II, PIs 236f.217 Kitchen 1986 356.218 Caminos 1964.219 The appointment into this office cannot be regarded as a usual installation into a priestly office. Cf. Sander-Hansen 1940,29ff. For the monuments and their chronology see Gitton - Leclant 1977 ; J. Yoyotte, RdE 8, 1951, 229.220 Leclant 1965, 356ff., with a detailed review of the evidence.22i Priese 1970, 18ff.222 On Ammeris, with a different interpretation, see Kitchen 1986, 145-147, 454, Table 4.223 Cf. Aston - Taylor 1990, 146f. For a romanced history of the period before Piye's campaign see W. Spiegelberg: DerSagenkreis des Konigs Petubastis, Leipzig, 1910.224 Great Triumphal Stela lines 28ff., Lichtheim 1980, 69. The nature of the contacts with Thebes is also indicated by thestatue of a Nesnebnetem, envoy of the God's Wife Amonirdis I to Nubia (jpwtj n Dw3t-nt.r r T3-stj) in Kiev, see R. Moss, Kush8, 1960, 269-271 ; E. Graefe: Untersuchungen zur Venvaltung und Geschichte der Institution der Gottesgemahlin des Amun vomBeginn des Neuen Reiches bis zur Spiitzeit I, Wiesbaden 1981, 108, document n75 ; and cf. M. Valloggia : Recherche sur les« messagers » (wpwtyw) dans les sources egyptiennes profanes, Geneve 1976,228.

. 225 For such a reconstruction of the situation see Aston - Taylor 1990, 147 and see also Redford 1986, 313ff.

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Before turning to later developments initiatedby Kashta's advance, a few sentences shouldstand here about his Egyptian throne name. Theprogrammatic phrase Nj-M3 t t-R t

, «ThePossessor of Truth/Equity (Ma'at) is Re », suitswell a king ascending to the throne in troubledtimes as well as a foreigner who seeks legitimacythrough accepting the central idea of traditionalEgyptian kingship (see Chapters 15, 19).Interestingly, however, Nj-M3 tt-R t was also thethrone name of Amenemhat III, the TwelfthDynasty pharaoh who built out Egypt's southernfrontier at Semna after Sesostris III hadconquered Lower Nubia. The name Nj-M3 tt-R tAmenemhat could be read in several Nile levelinscriptions at Semna East (Kumma)226 as well asin the inscriptions of his temple in nearbyKuban.227 It cannot· be excluded that Kashta wasimpressed by the implications of the name whichhe encountered while establishing Kushite rule inLower Nubia : we should not forget that SemnaWest was a place of importance for theadvancing Kushites, as already revealed by theKadimalo inscription. An alternative explanationof the throne name would be that it alluded toMa'at as daughter of Re, the mediatof,228 andthus to the « source» of Kashta's sovereignty inEgypt achieved through his daughterAmonirdis I.

Piye, son of Kashta, inherited from his fathera vast kingdom extending from the Butana toUpper Egypt. He also inherited not only ties withEgypt, but also the discovery - or re-discovery- of the significance of her religion, writing,administration, and industries. His monuments inNubia (and, evidently, in Egypt as well) displaythe features of a renaissance which cannot bediscussed here. 229 The vigour of his epoch was

doubtless also determined by his personalintellect. As is also indicated by the SandstoneStela erected early in his reign in the greattemple of Amen-Re in Napata,230 he was probably educated, and later surrounded, by Egyptianpriests and professionals of best capacity. It isthus no wonder that the foundations of theKushite myth of the state were created in hisreign. Thanks to previous research, Piye's periodand especially his activities in Egypt are wellknown and do not need to be discussed here.Instead, the following chapters will be confmedto the issues of legitimacy, succession, at:tdkingship dogma viewed from the aspect of theindigeneous backgrounds of Piye and hissuccessors.

10. Excursus 1. The problem of the«New Chronology »

In the foregoing the emergence of the elKurru dynasty was placed into two, to an extentindependent, chronologies. The internalchronology was built on an analysis of theancestral cemetery, the presumed number,sequence, and duration of its generations. Thisinternal chronology was fi~ed in absolutechronology retrospectively, counting backwardsfrom Taharqo's reign and on the assumption thateach anonymous generation reigned for anaverage of twenty years. This chronology wasconfronted with historical events and reigns inEgypt in the framework of the conventionalchronology of the late New Kingdom and theThird Intermediate Period as presented in the

226 Dunham-Janssen, Ope cit., inscr. RIK 9, 112, 116-118, 119a.227 PM VII, 83f.228 Cf. Assmann 1990, 202ff.229 For literature on Piye and his reign see Grimal 1981,1 ; Kitchen 1986, 362ff. ; J. Leclant: «Pi(anchi),., LA: IV, 10451052 ; on the intellectual life and arts of the period and their relationship with processes in the Libyan period see, e.g.,Russmann 1974 ; R.A. Fazzini, Miscellanea Wilbouriana 1, 1972, 64ff. ; ide : Ancient Egyptian Art in the Brooklyn Museum,New York 1989, Cat. 69 ; for the issue in general see the stimulating paper of A. Leahy: «Royal Iconography and DynasticChange, 750-525 BC: The Blue and Cap Crowns ,., lEA 78, 1992, 223-240. Unfortunately, this latter study was published afterthe editing of this book and I was not able to discuss in my text Leahy's opinion concerning the beginnings of the Egyptianizationof Kushite intellectual life.230 Reisner 1931.

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epochal study of Kenneth A. Kitchen and asamended by a number of other authors writingon Egyptian chronology.231 In recent years anumber of studies were published to challengethe conventional chronology. Setting out fromcontroversial and contradictory points in thearchaeological and historical chronology of theMediterranean and the Near East, a group ofancient historians came to the conclusion that Old 'World chronology within the time-range 1100700 BC is unreliable because Egyptian ThirdIntermediate Period chronology itself is unreliable. In their view the starting date of theThird Intermediate Period (henceforth TIP)around 1070 BC was founded on astronomicaldata of doubtful validity ; but also independentlyof the value of Egyptian Sothis dates the innerstructure and chronology of the TIP requires initself a thorough revision. An impressive surveyof the problematic aspects of Mediterranean andNear Eastern Late Bronze Age chronology, asdetermined by conventional Egyptian chronology,was presented in 1991 in a book in which PeterJames, I.J. Thorpe, Nikos Kokkinos, RobertMorkot and John Frankish proposed to replacethe established chronologies with considerablylower ones.232 According to James' reasoning,233which I' do not repeat here,234 the TIP should becompressed so that the Twenty-First, TwentySecond, and Twenty-Third Dynasties plus theTwenty-Fifth Dynasty would be largely contemporaneous with each other and would embracethe period between the middle of the ninthcentury BC and the conventionally accepted dateof the beginning of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty in664 BC.235 This would mean that the length of

the TIP is reduced to less than 200 years and thatthe dates for the New Kingdom (Nineteenth andTwentieth Dynasties) are lowered by some250 years.

James' «New Chronology» for Egypt wouldobviously also affect Nubian chronology. Indeed,it is seemingly supported by the scarcity ofarchaeological and textual fmds from post-NewKingdom Nubia and Robert Morkot gives apenetrating survey of some of the data discussedin this book in Chapters 2, 6, and 12 in order todemonstrate that the Middle Nile evidenceprovides independent indications for a low TIPchronology. In the discussion of el Kurru Morkotmaintains that ... it is impossible to have acompromise solution which spreads the ancestralburials over the 300 or so years from the late20th Dynasty to the mid-8th century, because ofthe limited number of graves236 thus disregardingthe fact that the century between Kashta andTanutamani alone is adequately covered by onlyfive burials in the very same necropolis - andthat a cemetery analysis cannot be replaced by asimple quantitative estimate. He also leaves outof consideration that in a royal necropolis (wherethe cemetery of the queens is separated from theburial ground of th~:rulers) there do not need tobe more graves than the number of the royalgenerations interred there. Instead of a revisionof the cemetery, Morkot, while acceptingReisner's internal chronology, concluded at thesame time that the el Kurru sequence spans theentire TIP, ranging thus from the end of theTwentieth Dynasty - which would be loweredto somewhere around 850 BC - to the

231 Kitchen 1986.- Cf. also E. Hornung: Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte des Neuen Reiches, Wiesbaden1964, 101ff. ; Baer 1973 ; A.J. Spalinger: «The Year 712 BC and Its Implications for Egyptian History »-, lARCE 10, 1973,95-101 ; Bierbrier 1975 ; D.B. Redford: «Some Observations on Egyptian Chronology of the Eighth and Seventh CenturiesB.C »-, AlA 81, 1977, 82f. ; Niwinski 1979; Wente 1979; Weeks 1981 ; K.A. Kitchen: «Further Thoughts on EgyptianChronology in the Third Intermediate Period »-, RdE 34, 1982/1983, 59-69 ; D.B. Redford: « Sais and the Kushite Invasions ofthe Eighth Century BC ,., lARCE 22, 1985, 5-15 ; P.A. Spencer - A.J. Spencer: « Notes on Late Libyan Egypt ,.,. lEA 72,1986, 198-201 ; A. Dodson: «Psusennes II,., RdE 38, 1987, 49-54; D.A. Aston: «Takeloth II - A King of the"Twenty-Third Dynasty" ? »-, lEA 75, 1989, 139-153 ; Aston-Taylor 1990 ; Leahy 1990 ; and see literature cited in these works.232 James et al., 1991. For the problem of absolute chronology see also the papers of the International Colloquium on AbsoluteChronology Gothenburg 1987 in : P. Astrom (00.) : High, Middle or Low?, Gothenburg, 1987 (see esp. W. HeIck, pp. 18ff. ;E. Hornung, pp. 27ff. ; K.A. Kitchen, pp. 37ff.).233 James et al., 1991, 220-259. .234 Ibid.235 Ibid., Table 10 : 4.236 Morkot 1991, 213.

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emergence of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty (Le., theascension of Piye in ca. 747 BC).237

The first reactions to the ~ New Chronology»were unfavourable. While the diagnosis of thedifficul ties connected to the conventionalEgyptian chronology is impressive, its radicalcompression does not really seem to be acompletely acceptable remedy. This is not theplace, and it is not within my competence, topresent detailed arguments against James' andMorkot's suggestions 0 As to the latter, therelevant data were discussed in Chapters 1-4 and7 and further evidence will be presented inChapter 12. The el Kurru sequence summarizedabove in Table A starts about 1000 BC and if wesuppose that the first chieftain buried therestarted his reign at the Egyptian withdrawal, elKurru would indeed speak for a lowering of theend of the Twentieth Dynasty by about 80 years.Such a possibility may to a degree also besupported by the presence of late New Kingdomtype objects in the earliest el Kurru grave (seeabove, Chapter 7). Yet James also argued on thebasis of textual evidence concerning TIP royaland non-royal genealogies. Since the data discussed in Chapter 2 are connected to theevidence analysed by him, and since the radicalcompression of the TIP would se~iously affectour picture of Egyptian-Nubian contacts, I cannotavoid presenting an explanation of why do I notfollow James and Morkot in eliminating completely the « Nubian Dark Age ».

On pp. 240f. of their book James presents acomposite genealogy of royal and elite familiesof the TIP. He gives the royal pedigree of theTwenty-Second and Twenty-Third Dynastiesfrom Shoshenq I to Rudamun combined with the

family tree of Ankhefenkhons whose seventhgeneration before Shoshenq I would becontemporary with Merenptah of the NineteenthDynasty,238 and also juxtaposed with theMemphite Genealogy in whi~h Ramesses II andShoshenq I would be divided from each other byseven generations.239 The disparity between theabsolute chronological scheme based on Sothicdates and the chronology that derives from theAnhkhefenkhons genealogy and the MemphiteGenealogy is indeed considerable. Kitchenassumed therefore that, due to a haplography, inthe Memphite Genealogy there was an omissionof six or -seven generations between Ramesses IIand Shoshenq 1,240 while Bierbrier suggested thatthere is a gap of three or four generations in theAnkhefenkhons genealogy.241

Thus the following question emerges : isJames right when rejecting the assumption ofgaps - and if he is right, can a genealogy of theTwenty-First Dynasty and the genealogical datarelating to the Theban High Priests of Amlin beaccomodated in the space provided by his shortchronology between Ramesses· II andShoshenq I ?

Table I suggests an answer in the negative. In'its lower half I have accepted a number ofcorrections proposed by James and earlier studiesversus Kitchen. In its upper half I present agenealogy of the Twenty-First Dynasty and ofthe HPAs on the basis of recent studies byNiwinski,242 Wente,243 Weeks,244 and Dodson.245

Although there are still obscure and hypotheticalpoints in this sketchily drawn genealogy, andalthough the reign lengths proposed for theindividual kings of the Twenty-First Dynasty byKitchen and others are open to doubts, the basic

237 Ibid., 216ff. In the course of this century between ca. 850 BC and 747 BC he supposes the « reign of local princes whoassumed the Egyptian royal style ~ and dates two Kushite kings with « neo-Ramesside ,. titularies to this period, viz., a KingMenmaatre-Setepenamun and a King Ary-Meriamun, and also dates Queen Kadimalo to this century. However, the first-namedking is identical with king Ktsn, the Aktisanes of Hekataios of Abdera (in Diodorus, I, 60), a ruler probably contemporary withPtolemy I (see Priese 1977 and Torok 1988, 164). For the early Ptolemaic dating of the « neo-Ramesside » style titularies inKush see Chapter 20 below.238 For the Ankhefenkhons genealogy see Bierbrier 1975, 2-5, 51-53 ; Kitchen 1986 202.239 For this genealogy see Kitchen ·1986, 187ff.240 Kitchen 1986, 189ff.241 Bierbrier 1975, 51ff.242 Niwinski 1979. See, however, also the criticisms of Kitchen 1986, 533ff. and D.A. Aston, JARCE 28, 1991, 234f.243 Wente 1979.244 Weeks 1981.245 A. Dodson: « The Takhats and Some Other Royal Ladies of the Ramesside Period », lEA 73, 1987, 224-229.

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genealogical connections between the HPAs andtheir succession is reasonably secure.246 It isapparent that, even though the genealogy ofTable I is shorter than Kitchen's Twenty-FirstDynasty genealogy,247 it still conflicts with. theMemphite Genealogy. James' version of thegenealogy of the Twenty-Second and TwentyThird Dynasties spans eight generations fromShoshenq I to Rudamun, which corresponds wellwith Table I. Thus the synchronism of theTwenty-First, Twenty-Second, and Twenty-ThirdDynasties suggested by James as a basis of theshort « New Chronology» of the TIP can only beestablished at the expense of the Twenty-FirstDynasty.248 (It is worth noting that James did notpresent any solution for the genealogy of theTwenty-First Dynasty itself!) A radical shortening of this part of the genealogy would bepossible if the descent of Maatkare B fromPinodjem II and Psusennes II could be doubted,and if we refused to believe the family relationsand their genealogical implications suggestedrecently in connection with Herihor and hisdescendants ; with Pinodjem I's relation toRamesses XI (which would thus have secured the

legitimacy of his line) etc. Such doubts, however, appear unjustified,249 and we still have toaccomodate about six generations betweenRamesses XI and Shoshenq I, Le., between theend of the Twentieth, and the beginning of theTwenty-Second Dynasty.

It would thus seem that although the revisionof a number of details may well result in acertain compression of the TIP, nevertheless Isee no possibility of compressing the TwentyFirst to Twenty-Fifth Dynasties into a period ofabout 180 years and regarding them as largelycontemporaneous - nor do I see the possibilityof a radical lowering of New Kingdom datessuch as would follow from the suggested, yet notfully demonstrated, contemporaneity of thedynasties in question. The scale of the necessaryand verifiable compression of the TIP is stronglyindicated by the gap we have observed betweenthe date of the Egyptian withdrawal from UpperNubia (about 1080 BC in the traditional chronology) and the beginning of the el Kurrunecropolis (about 1000 Be if counting back fromthe firmly established regnal dates of Taharqoand if accepting my long el Kurru chronology).25o

246 According to M.L. Bierbrier: « Hoherpriester des Amun »>. LA II, 1241-1249, 1246f. the HPAs included in my Table I areattested in the following regnal years: Herihor in Y. 19 of Ramesses XI. Paiankh in Y. 25-28 of the same. Pinodjem I in Y.1-15 of Smendes. Masaharta in Y. 16-21 of the same. Djed-khons-ef-ankh and Menkheperre from Y. 25 of the same to Y. 48 ofPsusennes I. Smendes under Amenemope and in Y. 10 of Siamun. Psusennes (=Har-Psusennes) is probably identical withPsusennes II. Iuput in Y. 10-20 of Shoshenq I. Shoshenq II under Osorkon I. Iuwelot and Smendes under Takeloth I. Nimlot Cunder Osorkon II. Takeloth F from Y. 23 of Pedubast (=Y. 30 of Shoshenq III) to' Y. 6 of Shoshenq IV (? = Y. 39 of ShoshenqIII). Osorkon from Y. 11 of Takeloth II to Y. 39 of Shoshenq III.247 Kitchen 1986, Table 9 and pp. 537f. from where I have adopted Scheme B for Herihor's position.248 James et al., 1991, Table 10 : 4.249 See Kitchen 1986, 6Of.250 Remarkably, Bierbrier 1975, 112 concluded on the basis of the evidence also used by Kitchen that « •••24 or 25 generationswould have elapsed between approximately the beginning of the reign of Ramesses II and the year 664 BC (Le., the ascension tothe throne of Psammetich I). Calculating on the minimum figure of 20 years per generation, a total of 480 or 500 years isobtained for this period ... To reach a more acceptable total of near 600 years, the number of generations would have to beraised to a minimum of 30 ... On the generation analysis set forth in this study, a total of 30 generations is not possible. If eachgeneration is estimated at 25 years, then a' total of 600 or 625 years is obtained. »> Thus, we are confronted also here with thesame ca. 80 to 100 years 4C missing»> between Ramesses XI and the beginning of the el Kurru cemetery.

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II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH Nubia/_Private/Torok 1995 Part II... · II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE KINGDOM OF KUSH 6. The dynasty ofKush and the el Kurru cemetery Before going