UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

The importance of Nubia: a link between Central Africa and the Mediterranean
Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to find out details of the links
which grew up between these two societies. Our knowledge of their relations
from the end of the third millennium onwards depends entirely on Egyptian
sources. Moreover, the literary texts give a false impression, because they
tend to deal only with military expeditions, and the archaeological evidence,
except for Lower Nubia, is quite inadequate, for it is limited to Nubian
articles found in Egypt or, at best, to Egyptian objects discovered in Nubian
sites between Aswan and the Second Cataract.
Such as it is, this information suggests that the upper and lower Nile
valley were in quite close touch. Their common cultural origin must not
be overlooked, and it was, after all, an asset. Protodynastic and Thinite
Egyptian pottery ware is found in areas as far south as, and beyond, the
Dal Cataract, and this shows that manufactured articles were exchanged
between north and south, for while Egyptian objects - vases, pearls, amulets
- have been discovered in Nubia, a great deal of ebony, ivory, incense,
and perhaps obsidian from the south was used in Egyptian tomb furniture
of this period. This commerce may have helped ideas and techniques to
spread from one region to the other, but our knowledge is still too patchy
for us to gauge the importance or even the direction of such influences.
To take but two examples: did the technique of enamelling, as applied
to beads and amulets, for instance, originate in the north or in the south?
It appears at almost the same time in both societies.
The same is true of the red pottery with a black border which is so
characteristic of the potter's art throughout the ancient Nilotic world. It
seems to appear first in the upper Nile valley between the Fourth and
Sixth Cataracts, before we have evidence of it in the lower valley, in Egypt.
But again dating is too hazardous for us to be sure.
On the other hand, the pottery made from a buff-coloured fossil clay,
known to specialists as 'Qena ware', is unquestionably Egyptian; both the
raw material used and the technique of manufacture leave no room for
doubt. A great deal was imported, at least into Lower Nubia, from the
end of the fourth millennium until the beginning of the third millennium
before our era. It is often found at Nubian sites south of the First Cataract,
which suggests that there was a brisk trade between the Theban region and
Lower Nubia. The Qena clay was suitable for making large vessels capable
of holding liquids or solids, but unfortunately we have no idea of what they
contained -oils, fats, cheese? However, they are a clear sign that exchanges
between Egypt and the Nubian Corridor were frequent, and probably of
greater historical importance than the occasional raids which from about
—3000 onwards the Pharaohs were in the habit of launching against the
Ta-Seti - the Land of the Bow - between the First and Second Cataracts.
These raids, however, which are referred to in the earliest Egyptian
texts (see Chapter 9), provide the first indication of the dual aspect -
military and economic - of north-south contacts along the Nile valley.
Despite their ambiguity, these contacts reveal the importance of the
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