UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
'Nubian Corridor' in providing a link between Africa and the Mediterranean.
By —3200, under the first dynasty, the Egyptians already had sufficient
knowledge of the country to risk sending a body of troops as far as the
beginning of the Second Cataract. We can hazard a guess as to the reasons
for this expedition. First, there was the need to find raw materials which
were lacking or becoming scarce in Egypt - especially wood. The belt
of forest which, in former times, must have lined the banks of the river
was becoming sparser and would progressively disappear as the lower Nile
was increasingly brought under control and the irrigation system, with
its networks of 'basins', was gradually extended.
A second important reason for the Egyptian army to intervene in Nubia
was the desire to keep open the passage southwards: incense, gum, ivory,
ebony and panthers come not from between the First and Second Cataracts,
but from much farther south. At this time, however, Lower Nubia was
densely populated, as we can see from the number and size of A-Group
burial grounds (see Chapter 9).
These people did not come from the north, as was believed until a few
years ago. They were the descendants of Neolithic groups which had settled
in the valley between the First and Third Cataracts, but they were probably
related to those which occupied the upper valley between the Fourth and
Sixth Cataracts, judging by the household objects discovered by archaeologists
in both areas. Some of these people were still hunters and fishermen,
but those near the river were mainly engaged in agriculture, whereas the
inhabitants of the outlying savannah on both sides of the Nile led an
essentially pastoral and perhaps even semi-nomadic life. For the climate
was still in the humid phase which ended the African Neolithic period,
and the 'Nubian Corridor' was not restricted to the narrow river valley,
but probably extended a considerable way from each bank, so that its
inhabitants could if they wished intercept the Egyptian caravans heading
south overland as well as along the river.
In any case, evidence of the Egyptians' interest in Lower Nubia is to
be found in the many ethnic terms or place names referring to this region
which are preserved in the most ancient Pharaonic texts. But these concern
no more than about 325 kilometres of the valley, from Elephantine in the
north to the firstrapids of the Second Cataract at Buhen (such sites are now
submerged under the waters of the High Dam), which the Egyptians
certainly reached under the reign of King Djer of the first dynasty if not
in the time of King Scorpion himself, at the very end of the predynastic
period.
Around —2700, information on north-south contacts obtained from
excavations on A-Group sites suddenly dries up, at least in Lower Nubia:
there are no longer more than a very few Nubian tombs or settlements.
It is as if the inhabitants had suddenly deserted their land. Why the formerly
dense population between the First and Second Cataracts should disappear
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