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THE middle of the 19th century was the heyday of Egyptology. Hieroglyphs had been deciphered and people could finally grasp the full richness of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The pyramids, the mummies, the statues 鈥� it all came to life. But some European Egyptologists felt the best was yet to come. As they worked their way further south, they believed they would find older relics, perhaps even the cradle of the Egyptian culture.

In this atmosphere, Prussian archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius began an expedition up the Nile valley. Late on 28 January 1844 he reached Mero毛 in what is now Sudan and found a scattering of pyramids. But even by the light of his candle, he could see the structures weren鈥檛 as old as he had hoped. As he investigated further, he concluded they weren鈥檛 Egyptian.

Lepsius later drew a dividing line between ancient Egypt and the people who built the pyramids at Mero毛, who belonged to a separate civilisation called Nubia. In the next century, researchers followed his lead and saw Egypt as sophisticated, and Nubia as its inferior neighbour. Egyptian artefacts were given pride of place in museums, Nubian work was largely ignored.

But attitudes are changing. Fresh research is bringing ancient Nubia out of the shadows and its story can now be told. These were diverse peoples with their own beliefs and customs. Far from being a boring backwater to Egypt, the Nubians exchanged cultural ideas with their neighbours, even setting fashion trends for kings like Tutankhamun. In truth, we can鈥檛 grasp the history of this part of the ancient world without understanding both Egypt and Nubia together.

Ancient Egypt is arguably the most famed of the ancient civilisations. With its pharaohs and fabulous treasures, it captures the imagination. The Egyptian civilisation, which broadly covered the northern two-thirds of modern Egypt, is rightly seen as impressive, with a writing system, legal codes and careful civic organisation.

What was ancient Nubia?

Ancient Nubia is less well known, and for decades the little that was understood about its people came from Egyptian texts and artworks. From these, scholars learned that Nubia was rich in natural resources, including gold, that their neighbours to the north coveted and occasionally controlled. They also noticed that the Egyptians generally depicted Nubians as Black and often described them using negative language. Nubian people they captured during raids often became slaves.

It is fair to say that all this tainted researchers鈥� views over the past century. Influenced by outdated racist and colonialist views, some saw Egypt as a great power exploiting its weaker neighbour. Today, however, we are realising that this framing of Nubia could have blinded us to its true character and many are seeking out new evidence and reconsidering old artefacts.

As the true nature of ancient Nubia comes into focus, it is becoming clear how complicated the region鈥檚 history is (see 鈥淭he rise of Nubia鈥�, above). Many researchers now argue there was rarely a common Nubian identity. Although there are some overarching similarities in the pottery produced across ancient Nubia, the archaeology in its north is typically distinct from that to the south, and both are distinct again from the archaeology of the desert region of eastern Nubia. 鈥淭here are sometimes three or four different cultures active at the same time,鈥� says at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

The different Nubian cultures

The earliest culture to appear in ancient Nubia, starting in around 3800 BC, is known to archaeologists as the A-Group. We know relatively little about these people 鈥� not even how they referred to themselves 鈥� but we have discovered some of the rock art and graves they left behind.

By around 2500 BC, the A-Group had disappeared and there were at least three groups living in the area. A culture called the C-Group, based around cattle herding, had emerged in the north. There was also a group of farmers who lived in large settlements, called the Kerma culture, in the south. To the east, an unnamed group of herders wandered the deserts, and these people would give rise a few centuries later to the Pan-Grave culture, so named because they are mostly known from the graves they left behind.

All three were ancient Nubians, but each was also apparently keen to carve out a unique identity. This is particularly obvious for the C-Group people, says at Volda University College in Norway. Her research over the past 20 years suggests these people were never sold on the concept of an afterlife, unlike the Kerma people and the Egyptians. This idea is based on the fact that C-Group individuals went to the grave with few of the possessions that their neighbours considered vital for life after death. Instead, C-Group people placed pottery outside the graves, suggesting they venerated their dead family members as ancestors. 鈥淭hey did things differently,鈥� says Hafsaas.

Not only was ancient Nubia not a homogenous mass, it also wasn鈥檛 as separate from Egypt as Lepsius thought. By around 2000 BC, the Kerma people established the Kingdom of Kush, a political force centred at the large, fortified city of Kerma. And by around 1800 BC, raiding parties from Kush were attacking Egypt. This would have triggered counter-attacks from Egypt, says Hafsaas, and the C-Group people found themselves caught in the middle between two powerful fighting forces.

They had to seek an alliance for protection. But Hafsaas鈥檚 research in recent years suggests they didn鈥檛 choose their 鈥渇ellow鈥� Nubians from Kush. After analysing Nubian archaeology and Egyptian texts, Hafsaas concluded that the C-Group people sided with the Egyptians, and eventually became assimilated into that society to some extent. 鈥淒espite all the well-established efforts in the academic field to create these archaeological cultures and fit them into boxes, it doesn鈥檛 really work,鈥� says at the University of Munich, Germany, whose research has explored Kushite-Egyptian relations.

Evidence from a soldier named Tjehemau

What it was to be an ancient Nubian seems to have varied between individuals too. For evidence of this, look no further than a Nubian soldier named Tjehemau, who was born around 2050 BC. He is thought to have been from a C-Group community, where he may have been trained as a warrior to guard the family herds. At that time, many such men travelled north seeking well-paid work as mercenaries in Egypt, where their fighting skills were prized. One Egyptian tomb from about 2100 BC even includes figurines of Nubian archers.

Unlike Egypt, none of the early ancient Nubian cultures developed writing. But Tjehemau, who was exposed to Egyptian culture, did leave behind written material, possibly produced by a scribe on his behalf. Inscriptions on a rock in the Nubian desert record thoughts he poured out about his life and achievements. at Yale University analysed Tjehemau鈥檚 text about 20 years ago. 鈥淗e contrasts his bravery to the cowardice of [ancient Egyptian] troops,鈥� says Darnell. More significantly, Tjehemau takes credit for being an important fighter who helped the Egyptian pharaoh Mentuhotep II gain great power 鈥� which the pharaoh then used to take control of Tjehemau鈥檚 home region of Lower Nubia around 2040 BC for a period. The inscription is 鈥渞ather remarkable鈥�, says Darnell. It shows that some Nubians adopted Egypt as their home 鈥� so much for the stark dividing line.

Some of the newest work on ancient Nubian societies is providing perhaps the most touching insights. De Souza studies archaeological sites related to the Pan-Grave culture, a group of herders known for their simple, but distinctive, pottery and for the way they buried their dead. They tended to place bodies in shallow graves and surround them with cattle and goat skulls that had been carefully painted with abstract patterns.

In 2017, he helped excavate a Pan-Grave cemetery site in Hierakonpolis in modern day Egypt. The graves had been covered in a thin layer of mud, which was marked all over with hand prints. It could have been that the dead person鈥檚 relatives had pressed their hands into the mud as a final act of saying goodbye. At one point, de Souza placed his own hand into one of the 3800-year-old prints, replicating a gesture made by a member of the ancient community. It was a deeply moving experience, he says.

He also worked on the excavation of a child鈥檚 burial at the same site, and in the mud around the body there were ancient footprints 鈥� evidence of a funeral, with people gathered at the graveside. One of the footprints was half underneath the basket in which the little body had been placed. 鈥淲hoever鈥檚 footprint that was, was the person who put the basket down,鈥� says de Souza. The sad scene came instantly and vividly back to life. 鈥淚 actually cried during that excavation,鈥� he says. Work like this is helping to show that the Pan-Grave community wasn鈥檛 a cultural backwater to be looked down upon in comparison with Egypt, but a community suffused with its own customs.

How ancient Nubia influenced Egypt

Even more telling, de Souza has been studying how the Pan-Grave people interacted with ancient Egypt. We already knew that from about 1800 BC some of them had migrated from Nubia鈥檚 eastern desert to settle in Egypt. It was assumed that these people lived on the margins of Egyptian society and had no influence on it. But in a lecture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York earlier this year, de Souza explained how pottery evidence suggests otherwise. He has discovered examples of pots from Egyptian settlements that were clearly made using Egyptian technology 鈥� a potting wheel 鈥� but which bear Pan-Grave motifs. Were the pots made by Nubians using Egyptian techniques or by Egyptians borrowing their designs? Whichever is the case, de Souza told his audience, the boundaries between the two cultures were blurring.

This blurring goes high up the ranks of Egyptian society. Tutankhamun鈥檚 gold death mask is a quintessential symbol of ancient Egyptian culture. It shows the boy king had pierced ears, as did many pharaohs at that time. But this was a Nubian tradition, points out de Souza, one that Egypt seems to have adopted a few generations before Tutankhamun鈥檚 reign.

Still, in telling the story of ancient Nubia and Egypt, we can鈥檛 forget that it unfolds over nearly three millennia and a lot changed during that time. Much of the recent research has been showing how the early Nubians were sophisticated in their own right. But we have long known that later in the region鈥檚 history, around 1500 BC, pharaonic Egypt became so extraordinarily powerful that it could invade and rule over the Kingdom of Kush. The ancient Egyptians built towns and temples as far south as Kerma and the people living in Nubia were brought into the fold and used to run this part of the empire.

Budka suspects this had a profound effect on the ancient Nubians. Egyptian rule persisted for centuries. As the years rolled on, Nubian people began to see aspects of the Egyptian belief system and architecture as part of their heritage. When Egyptian rule ended and the ancient Nubians regained control of the Kingdom of Kush, they continued to use and develop many Egyptian traditions 鈥� because by then they had become Nubian traditions too.

In time, a powerful new force emerged in Kush, the Napatan dynasty, which by 745 BC, had swept north and taken control of all of Egypt. The pendulum had swung the other way, and for nearly a century, Egypt was ruled by Nubian pharaohs, who were buried in tombs beneath pyramids in southern Nubia.

It was during this time that the pyramids at Mero毛 were built, the ones that Lepsius discovered by candlelight. In years gone by, researchers have argued that the ancient Nubians built these structures because they were consciously mimicking the ancient Egyptians to justify their right to rule as pharaohs. But Budka thinks there is more to it; the ancient Nubians had been so exposed to ancient Egyptian practices that pyramid burial wasn鈥檛 a foreign custom. 鈥淚t was part of their cultural heritage,鈥� she says.

Nubia today

Even today, the region that was once ancient Nubia is a melting pot of differences. During , for example, female protest leaders called themselves Kandake, an ancient Kushite term for queen. 鈥淧eople would sing songs, and say they originated from a very strong people,鈥� says , an archaeologist and inspector with Sudan鈥檚 National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. But the dominant religion in Sudan is Islam, and many people trace their ancestry to the Arabian peninsula, not ancient Nubia, says Mohamed Faroug Ali at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan. 鈥淭hey are more likely to look at Islamic history than Kushite history,鈥� he says.

To complicate things further, communities that consider themselves Nubian still exist in Sudan and Nubian languages are still spoken 鈥� and for some in these communities, the connection with ancient Nubia can feel stronger. For the past 20 years, Ali has been working with Michele Buzon of Purdue University in Indiana at a site called Tombos near Kerma. 鈥淲e were excavating the burial of an elderly woman, and the locals on site said: 鈥極h, this must be my grandmother,'鈥� says Buzon. 鈥淚t was said in a friendly way and not meant literally 鈥� but there is clearly some personal connection there.鈥�

Even if attitudes vary across Sudan, there is agreement on one important point. No one shares the 19th-century view of ancient Nubians as inferior to the ancient Egyptians. 鈥淚 would say people from all across Sudan are proud of their culture,鈥� says Elamin. The rest of the world is finally starting to catch up.

Colin Barras is a features editor for 快猫短视频

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