Chapter I

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE ARAB INVASION (A.D. 640).

The name of Ethiopia,[143] or Kush, was applied in ancient times vaguely to the East African interior south of Egypt, from about lat. 24° to about lat. 9°. (The name of Nubia, as representing the more northern portion of “Ethiopia,” say between the 3rd and the 1st Cataracts, does not appear till Roman times, but for convenience sake that portion will be so termed in the following account. It was termed Kenset by the Ancient Egyptians.)

The whole tract was, as we know, for the most part sandy or rocky desert, rich in minerals, interspersed with oases, but contained along the course of the Nile a valuable strip of territory; while, south and south-east of the point where the Nile receives the Atbara, it spreads out into a broad and fertile region, watered by many streams, diversified by hills and woodlands, and of considerable fertility; of this but little now remains. This ancient Ethiopia did not, in all probability, include the present Abyssinia.

At no time did the whole of this vast tract—1,000 miles long by 800 or 900 broad—form a single state or monarchy. Rather, for the most part, was it divided up among an indefinite number of states, or rather of tribes, some of them herdsmen, others hunters or fishermen, very jealous of their independence, and frequently at war one with another. Among the various tribes there was a certain community of race, a resemblance of physical type, and a similarity of language. Their neighbours, the Egyptians, included them all under a single ethnic name, speaking of their land as Ta Kes, Kesh, or Kush, and of the inhabitants as Kashi or Kushi—a term manifestly identical with the Kush of the Hebrews. They were a race cognate with the Egyptians, but darker in complexion, and coarser in feature, not by any means negroes, but still more clearly allied to the negro than the Egyptians were. Their best representatives in modern times are believed to be the Gallas and the like, who are probably their descendants.[144]

From the earliest times there appears to have been a constant infiltration from South Arabia into Abyssinia[144] and the Eastern Sudan; indeed, the dynastic Egyptians themselves are believed by some high authorities to have been a Semitic tribe which came over from Arabia, landed somewhere about Massaua (?), and proceeded northwards along the coast, leaving colonies as it went, till it struck the valley of the Nile _viâ_ Kosseir, the Wadi Hammamat, and Kena (or Koptos). Here they found the Neolithic “New Race,” and exterminated or expelled them (?); but it is doubtful how far this New Race extended up the Nile valley.

[Sidenote: B.C. 4000 (?).]

The earliest mention that we have of the land south of Egypt dates from the time of Snefru (? 3rd or 4th Dynasty), who conquered the land of the Negroes, and took captive 7,200 men and women, and 200,000 cattle.

[Sidenote: B.C. 3400 (?).]

An inscription of the Fifth Dynasty informs us that King Assa sent one Ba Ur Tettu to the “Land of Ghosts, which is south of the land of the Negroes,” to fetch him some Pygmies. The quest was successful, and is confirmed (?) by some dwarfish skeletons found in the tombs of that period.

This would seem to show that there were communications, and possibly even a brisk commerce, between the countries at an even earlier date.

[Sidenote: B.C. 3230.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 3200.]

In the time of the Sixth Dynasty Una, a high official under Pepi I, raised Sudanese levies, natives and negroes, to fight in Eastern Egypt and Sinai. He also cleared a canal in the 1st Cataract (of which there are now no traces), and Nubian chiefs, whom he had fought and conquered five times, brought wood for him. Mer-en-Ra (of Sixth Dynasty) sent one Her-Khuf three times to Nubia on trading expeditions, and he returned with ivory, ebony, etc., which would seem to show that he had penetrated some distance. He reached Amani, Arerthet, Meskher, Terres, etc., but the locality of these places is unknown. At this period the Nehes—negroids of the Sudan—occupied the country as far north as Aswan; some of their tribes were termed the Aam, Wauat, etc., the latter living probably near Korosko.

By the end of the Early Empire, B.C. 2530 (First to Tenth Dynasties), Egyptian armies had certainly advanced into the Eastern Sudan.

[Sidenote: B.C. 2500.]

In the Eleventh Dynasty there was regular communication between Egypt and the debateable land of Punt, and we are told that one Hennu, in the reign of Seankhka, made a trading expedition thither by sea, _viâ_ Kosseir, for unguents. This is not the place in which to discuss the position of the land of Punt, but it seems probable that it lay somewhere in the “horn” of Africa, and was not as far south as the Pungwe or Rhodesia, as some have recently tried to prove.

[Sidenote: B.C. 2460.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 2430.]

The next we hear of Nubia is that Amenemhat I (Twelfth Dynasty) conquered the Wauat and Machaiu Nubians, and then raided the Libyans to the west; and 30 years later his son, Usertsen I, sent an armed caravan under Ameni into Ethiopia and “enlarged the borders of Egypt between the 1st and 3rd Cataracts.”

[Sidenote: B.C. 2366.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 2325.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 2317.]

The Nubians attacked the quarries at Aswan in the following reign (Usertsen II), but were repelled, and in the next generation a serious expedition on a large scale was undertaken by the great Usertsen III. This monarch worked through the canal in the 1st Cataract, conquered the “abominable Kash,” and at the 2nd Cataract he set a boundary stone. Eight years later he beat the Kash again, and built the great temples and forts of Semna and Kumna, 40 miles south of Halfa, to guard the defile of the Nile. He also issued edicts for the prevention of any natives from descending the Nile in boats or otherwise, except for the purpose of trade.

[Sidenote: B.C. 2300.]

A few years later Amenemhat III cut a Nile gauge in the rock near Semna, and this is visible to this day. The height of the Nile flood is curiously enough, marked as being 26 feet higher than it is now. (This was the monarch who also built the Labyrinth in the Fayum.)

The statues of Sebek Hetep III on Argo Island probably prove that the kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty occupied and garrisoned the present province of Dongola; but for the following 600 years no further records are available (Hyksos period).

[Sidenote: B.C. 1700.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1660.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1630.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1628.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1610.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1600.]

During the Eighteenth Dynasty (B.C. 1700 to 1400), Ethiopia was a good deal _en évidence_. Amâsis I invaded Nubia, slaughtered the “Anti of Kenset” somewhere south-east of Halfa, and returned; Amenophis I sent punitive expeditions to the Eastern Sudan and took many prisoners; Thothmes I had a river fight with the Nubians, killed their king, and fastened his “vile dead body” to the bows of his boat; he proceeded as far as Kerma (Tombos) and probably beyond, and set up a Viceroy as Prince of Kush; and two years later he proceeded again thither _viâ_ the canal above-mentioned, clearing it out on his way. A few years afterwards, Thothmes II raided Nubia severely, killing all males except “one of the damned sons of the Chief of Kesh,” whom he used as a footstool. Under Queen Hatshepset[145] the Nubians paid tribute to Egypt, but revolted against her successor, the great Thothmes III. This monarch, however, seems to have crushed them in an expedition through the 1st Cataract, and to have consolidated the Egyptian conquests in Ethiopia.

[Sidenote: B.C. 1590. B.C. 1560. B.C. 1500.]

Amenhotep II, son of Thothmes III, again overran Nubia on a large scale, and his successor, Amenhotep III, extended the Egyptian frontier to the 4th Cataract and possibly to the Atbara, building a large temple to Ammon at Napata, which lay close to Jebel Barkal (the present Merowe) near the foot of the 4th Cataract.

[Sidenote: B.C. 1400.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1333.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1360.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 1300. B.C. 1200.]

About this date there was formed a priestly colony at Napata,[146] in close touch with the Egyptian religion, and forming a strong link between the two countries. Civilization appears to have greatly increased in the Napata region, but the Nubians to the north seem to have remained in a barbaric condition, for we find Rameses I making an expedition against them, and the great Rameses II forcing them to pay tribute. The father of the latter, however, Seti I, as well as his son, devoted his chief energies in Nubia to erecting temples and works,[147] and more particularly to digging for gold, minerals, and precious stones in the Eastern Desert. Starting from Kubban, opposite Dakka, Rameses II dug wells in the Wadi Alagi and other regions and worked gold mines with considerable result. The warlike operations in these regions of himself and his successors, Manephtha and Rameses III, seem to have been chiefly confined to beating the Libyans in the Western Desert.

[Sidenote: B.C. 966.]

Meanwhile the hierarchy of Napata was growing in power. The Ethiopians of this region, a plastic race, adopted to a considerable extent the Egyptian civilization, worshipped Egyptian gods in Egyptian shrines, and set up inscriptions in the hieroglyphic character and in the Egyptian, as well as the Nubian, tongue. Napata and the Nile valley both below it and above it, was already half Egyptianised when, on the establishment of the Sheshonk Libyan (Twenty-second) Dynasty in Egypt (B.C. 966), the descendants of Herhor of Thebes resolved to quit their native country and remove themselves into Ethiopia, where they had reason to expect a welcome. They were probably already connected by marriage with some of the leading chiefs of Napata, and their sacerdotal character gave them a great hold on a peculiarly superstitious people. Retaining their priestly office, they became at once Ethiopian monarchs, and High Priests of the Temple of Ammon, which Amenhotep III had erected at Napata. Napata, under their government, flourished greatly, and acquired a considerable architectural magnificence. Fresh temples were built, in which the worship of Egyptian was combined with that of Ethiopian deities; avenues of sphinxes adorned the approaches to these new shrines; the practice of burying the members of the royal houses in pyramids was reverted to, and the necropolis of Napata recalled the glories of the old necropolis of Memphis.

Napata was also a place of much wealth. The kingdom whereof it was capital reached southward as far as the modern Khartoum, and south-eastwards stretched up to the Abyssinian highlands, including the valleys of the Atbara and its tributaries, together with most of the tract between the Atbara and the Blue Nile. This was a region of reputed great natural wealth, containing many mines of gold, iron, copper, and salt, abundant woods of date palm, almond trees, and ilex, some excellent pasture ground, and much rich meadow land suitable for the growth of dura and other sorts of grain. Fish of many kinds and excellent turtle abounded in the Atbara and the other streams, while the geographical position was favourable for commerce with the tribes of the interior, who were able to furnish an almost inexhaustible supply of ivory, skins, and ostrich feathers.

[Sidenote: B.C 966-800.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 760-733.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 730-667.]

In course of time the Napata kingdom extended its sway to Aswan, and even to Thebes. The kings of the Twenty-second (Libyan) Dynasty did not attempt to make Egyptian authority felt south of Aswan, and at last the Nubian opportunity came. In about 734 B.C., Piankhi, King of Napata, seeing the weakened and divided sway of the Twenty-third Dynasty, chose a favourable moment in the revolt of Taf Nekht, Prince of Sais and Memphis, swooped down on Egypt, assaulted and occupied Memphis, and became master of the country. Bak-en-Renf, sole representative of the Twenty-fourth Dynasty, was killed; the whole of Egypt, with the exception of a portion of the Delta, became a province of Ethiopia, and the Twenty-fifth Dynasty was composed of Ethiopian princes.

[Sidenote: B.C. 700.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 672.]

These Kings were named Shabaka (Sabaco), Shabataka, and Taharka (Tirhakah), the latter of which trio delivered Hezekiah from Sennacherib. He was, however, heavily defeated by Esarheddon, son of the latter, somewhere near Tel-el-Kebir, and Egypt was overrun by the Assyrians.

[Sidenote: B.C. 652.]

Fierce fighting continued for the next 20 years between Ethiopia and Assyria over the prostrate body of Egypt, and the latter was reduced to utter ruin. Finally Mi-Ammon-Nut, Prince of Napata, and son (?) of Taharka, partly relieved the country from the Assyrians, but he had no successors, and died soon afterwards.

[Sidenote: B.C. 650 (?).]

[Sidenote: B.C. 648 (?).]

[Sidenote: B.C. 590 (?).]

Psammetichus I (Twenty-sixth Dynasty), of Libyan descent, finally shook off the Assyrian yoke a few years later. His connection with Ethiopia is chiefly confined to the fact that a large number of his troops (200,000 to 240,000, according to ancient authorities—but this number must be grossly over-stated) quitted him as a protest against the favouritism shewn to his foreign (Greek and Lydian) mercenaries, and took service with Ethiopia. Several versions of this story exist, but no serious disturbance of the balance of power would seem to have resulted. Herodotus states that they[148] were given land to the south of Meroe, in the land of the Macrobii (Sennar?). His descendant Psammetichus II appears to have attacked Ethiopia, and it is stated that Nebuchadnezzar II, after beating Necho, the previous king, made a fruitless expedition into Nubia.

[Sidenote: B.C. 566.]

As far as can be gathered the following kings of Ethiopia succeeded Piankhi between about 730 and 525 B.C.; little is known about them except what is given below:—

Ra Usr Maat.

Mer-Ka-Ra.

Wach-Ka-Ra.

Aspelta, 625 B.C. Killed a colony of raw-meat-eaters at Barkal.

Pankhaluru, before 560 B.C.

Heru-Sa-Atef, Amen Sa Meri. A great warrior. 560-525 B.C.

Nastasenen, 525-517 B.C. Ruled over Kenset and the kingdom of Alut (Napata and Soba?); conquered many people.

Between the years 625 and 560 the capital seems to have been shifted from Napata to Meroe. The kingdom ruled by these monarchs included Alwa, a place identified with the later Soba on the Blue Nile. The connection with Egypt was weakened; Heru-Sa-Atef found the royal palace at Napata in ruins and restored it; his successor Nastasenen re-visited it and went on a journey of inspection as far north probably as the 3rd Cataract, but Meroe was the principal seat of his kingdom. Nastasenen mentions on his inscription five campaigns, apparently against the rich pastoral peoples of the Eastern Desert, from whom he captured in all nearly 2,000,000 head of cattle, sheep, goats, etc. At Meroe, about 40 miles to the south of the Atbara, at a place now termed Bagarawiya, were built temples and pyramids copied from Napata.

[Sidenote: B.C. 527]

It was in his reign that, according to Herodotus, Cambyses, first king of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty (Persian), sent an Embassy into Ethiopia, and on this being received by the natives with jeers, collected a large army and sent it south against them. He detached 50,000 men from the army when it arrived at Thebes against Siwa, or more probably Kharga, Oasis, but these were all overwhelmed by a sandstorm and were never heard of again. The remainder, ill-supplied with food or transport, marched into a desert on the way south, ate their transport animals, and finally began on each other; the greater part undoubtedly perished of hunger and thirst. It is impossible to trace where the disaster happened (Arbain road?), but it appears not to have been very far south, perhaps no further than the latitude of Aswan. The latest critic (Heinrich Schäfer) argues from Nastasenen’s inscription that Cambyses sent, in concert with the desert expedition, another one by river. This latter expedition seems to have reached the 3rd Cataract, where it was met and defeated by Nastasenen; this is, however, not yet universally accepted. Cambyses is reported to have himself reached the “Island” of Meroe, to have built a town there, and to have named it after his sister Meroe, who died there; but this is certainly a fable.

Between B.C. 525 and 260 came 11 more kings, but their chronology is more than doubtful, and little is known of them beyond their names, which are as follows:—

Heru Nekht.

Sekheper en Ra, Senka Amen Seken.

Khuka Ra, Athlenersa (and four other names).

Kheper ka Ra Amen Netek.

Amen-tani-Ralbath.

Amen Arit, Kenthahebit.

Ankh Ra Ra, Arkenkhernlu.

Kenrethreknen.

Khenem ab Ra, Amenarkneb.

Kalka, Kaltela.

Ankh nefer ah Ra, Amen Mer Aser.

These names are here given for reference in case of future discoveries.

[Sidenote: B.C. 300.]

About 300 B.C. (?), or perhaps earlier, the frontier of Egypt was then fixed at a point about 80 miles south of Aswan.

[Sidenote: B.C. 260.]

Ark Amen, better known as Ergamenes, who was brought up at the court of Ptolemy II, was a man of some character, for besides building a temple at Dakka he set a new fashion in Priest-Kings by refusing to commit suicide at the request of the priests and by executing those who demanded it.

[Sidenote: B.C. 210.]

In the days of Ptolemy V, Nubia caused trouble to Egypt, and the Egyptian king added the country between Aswan and Napata (?) to his possessions, dividing it into 13 districts.

In later Ptolemaic times the kings of Ethiopia evidently became more negroid, and owned barbaric names; and as time went on, the Kingdom of Meroe seems to have been governed by a series of queens or queen-mothers, bearing the title of Candace. Little is known of this period.

[Sidenote: B.C. 30.]

When Egypt became a Roman province, an embassy from Ethiopia arrived at Philæ, and the king of the country near Khartoum was taken under Roman protection.

[Sidenote: B.C. 22.]

Eight years after, a Queen Candace attacked Aswan and routed the Roman garrison there. She was, however, heavily defeated by the Prefect Petronius, who pursued her as far as Napata (?) and destroyed that town, leaving Roman garrisons there and near to Dongola.

[Sidenote: A.D. 200.]

In the time of Strabo, who visited Egypt during the government of Ælius Gallus, Petronius’s successor, Aswan was again the frontier, the Romans having, as he observes, “confined the province of Egypt within its former limits.” Philæ then belonged “in common to the Egyptians and Ethiopians.” This did not, however, prevent the Cæsars from considering Lower Ethiopia as belonging to them or from adding to the temples already erected there.

The descendants of the priest-kings of Ethiopia seem to have died out about A.D. 200.

Strabo says the Ethiopians above Aswan consisted of the Troglodytæ, Blemmyes, Nubæ, and Megabari. The Megabari and Blemmyes inhabited the Eastern Desert north of Meroe, towards the frontiers of Egypt, and were under the dominion of the Ethiopians.[149] The Ichthyophagi[150] lived on the shore of the Red Sea; the Troglodytæ, from Berenikê southwards, between it and the Nile; and the Nubæ, an “African” nation, were on the left bank, and independent of Ethiopia, which country, he states, did not extend north of Halfa.

[Sidenote: A.D. 296.]

From Procopius we learn that in A.D. 296, in the reign of Diocletian, these Nubæ, or Nobatæ, were brought from the Oasis of El Kharga, and given the country above Aswan, on condition of their protecting Egypt against the incursion of the Blemmyes. This treaty was annually ratified by a religious sacrifice, according to the rites of the ancient Egyptian religion, on the Island of Philæ, in which the Roman garrison took part. There are still the remains of the wall which Diocletian built across the valley near here; and, according to some authorities, not venturing to trust entirely to the Nubians to defend the Egyptian frontier, he agreed to pay a yearly tribute both to the Nubians and the Blemmyes.

[Sidenote: A.D. 330.]

A few years afterwards two young Christians of Tyre, Edesius and Frumentius, were, on their return journey by sea from India (?), kidnapped on the coast of Abyssinia. According to their story they became advisers to the widow of the king who had captured them, and used all their influence to promote Christianity in the land. They succeeded so well that Frumentius, on his return to Alexandria, was consecrated by Bishop Athanasius and returned to Abyssinia, where he spent the rest of his life in proselytizing, with excellent results.

[Sidenote: A.D. 451.]

Little or nothing is known of the history of internal or Upper Nubia during these centuries, but the Blemmyes continued to give trouble to the Roman rulers of Egypt. They gradually succeeded in occupying the five towns of the Commilitium Romanum, making Talmis or Kalabsha their capital, and even penetrated into the Thebaïd, where in A.D. 451 Maximinus, the general of Marcian, was forced to make a treaty with them for 100 years. But it was soon broken by the barbarians.

[Sidenote: A.D. 400-500.]

In the fifth century the Nubians, whose religion at that time was chiefly limited to star-worship, were gradually converted by monks and others of the Alexandrian Church. The first important convert was one Bahriya (?), nephew of the king, and he built many churches and monasteries.

[Sidenote: A.D. 545.]

During the sixth century the entire nation adopted Christianity. In A.D. 545 their King Silko defeated the Blemmyes and took the already well-known town of (old) Dongola for his capital.

The Egypto-Roman-Christian remains at Nagaa[151], and those of the kingdom of Alwa, or Soba, then under the King of Nubia, may belong to this or even to an earlier period, for there are legends of Christianity having penetrated to the Blue Nile in the third century, and St. Mark is reported to have preached in the Sudan, or at all events, in “Ethiopia,” in the first century, A.D. 1.

[Sidenote: A.D. 560.]

In the days of Justinian there seems to be no doubt that Christianity was the established religion of the whole of Ethiopia and Nubia.

[Footnote 142: Authorities:—Acknowledgments to the works of Dr. Budge, Prof. Rawlinson, Mrs. Butcher, etc., as mentioned in Appendix H, and to some notes of Mr. Crowfoot, for history up to a.d. 1493.

A.D. 1493 to 1837. — Col. Stewart, “Report on the Sudan, 1883,”
and various other writers.

„ 1837 to 1882. — From “Report on the Egyptian Provinces of
the Sudan.” I.D., 1884.

„ 1882 to date. — Compiled from various authorities, mainly Col.
Wingate’s works, Intelligence Reports and
Publications, &c.

]

[Footnote 143: Ethiopia is nowadays considered to mean Abyssinia, and is the word employed by the ruler of that country to denominate his dominions.]

[Footnote 144: _Vide_ also Appendix E.]

[Footnote 145: This lady sent a large (five-ship) trading expedition to Punt, and did much business in gold, incense, and gum, in consequence.]

[Footnote 146: _Vide_ Appendix D, p. 311.]

[Footnote 147: _e.g._, Abu Simbl, Gerf Husên, Derr, Wadi Sebûa, etc.]

[Footnote 148: Referred to by Herodotus (430 B.C.) as Automoloi; their descendants were later known as Sebridæ or Sembritæ, _see_ p. 319 for an explanation of the story.]

[Footnote 149: Query—the ancestors of the present Bisharin and Ababda?]

[Footnote 150: The inhabitants of Elephantine Island, Aswan, were also thus termed in the 6th century B.C.]

[Footnote 151: _Vide_ p. 315.]