Burials

Burials during the Egyptian Conquest

Around the mid 1500s BC, Egyptian pharaohs successfully conquered Kushite territories as far south as the third cataract.¹ Burial traditions were not consistent throughout the different Nubian colonies. Location, being associated with the type of colonial administration, was a major factor that influenced the kinds and styles of burials.

The town of Tombos, was one of the most important Egyptian colonial sites in Nubia. Archeological excavation at Tombos were highly valuable for shedding light on the nature and degree of interaction between the Egyptian colonial community and the local Nubians. However, since Nubian and Egyptian cultures have always been closely intertwined, it is usually difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish between Egyptian and Nubian burial traditions. Fore example, although in most Nubian burials the bodies were laid in contracted positions on their right sides with the the heads facing north; however, examples of extended Nubian burials were also found, especially in Lower Nubia. Since the Egyptians favored the same extended body position, most archeologists believe that such burials were due to cultural influences from Egypt during the New Kingdom. I don’t think this assumption is valid; that is because extended burials have been found in Sudan dating as far back in time as prehistoric periods.²

Mirror from tomb at Semna. Middle to New Kingdom. Source: Wildung, Dietrich. Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile.

However, burials excavations at Tombos were still valuable for widening our scope on the Nubian-Egyptian relations. Evidence from the site seem to indicate that the Egyptians were well assimilated to their surrounding Nubian culture. Intermarriage between the Egyptian administrators and local Nubians was not rare by all means. Evidently, the Egyptian colonial policy in Tombos was not as harsh as it was towards the C-Group of Lower Nubia centuries before.

Although some Nubians would have viewed the tolerant Egyptian rule as a foreign institution that needed to be expelled; one would assume that some Nubians would have also accepted the Egyptian rule as many historical evidence indicate.

Some graves discovered elsewhere in Nubia for the period, which belonged to a Nubian viceroy who worked for the Egyptian bureaucracy, indicate a high degree of assimilation to Egyptian rule and culture.

In the Winters of 2000 and 2002, the University of California, Santa Barbra (UCSB), carried an expedition led by Dr. Stuart T. Smith in the town of Tombos (in Sudan). The expedition uncovered a pyramid, which belonged to an Egyptian colonial governor named Siamun, which means "Son of Amon".³ Other mummies of Egyptian personnel have also been uncovered in the site.

Findings in some of the Egyptian burials included personal adornments like Kohl tubes, ebony fragments, shawabiti of Egyptian figures, and pottery with some Mycenaean Jars included.

• ^{1. See: I. Omer, History-Egyptian Conquest.}
• ^{2. R. Gerharz, Jebel Moya (Meroitica 14) Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1994, and F. Addison, "Second Thoughts on Jebel Moya", Kush 4 (1956): 4-18.}
• ^{3.   S. T. Smith, Wretched Kush: Ethnic Identities and Boundaries in Egypt's Nubian Empire (Routledge, 2003) 141.}