Lost Kingdoms of Africa 1 of 4 Nubia

Summary

Lost Kingdoms of Africa: Nubia, part of a four-part series by Sully Man, uncovers the ancient civilization of Nubia, offering new insights into its spectacular monuments and vibrant culture. The documentary is hosted by art historian Gus Casley Hayford and follows his journey to uncover the mysteries of Nubia, a kingdom that thrived in what is now Sudan. With the help of archaeologist Mahmud Basher, the series reveals the lost history preserved in artifacts, rock art, and the enduring traditions of the Nubian people despite challenges posed by conquest and environmental changes. From pyramids outnumbering those of Egypt to depictions of cattle and the integration of ancient customs into modern practices, the series highlights the resilience and influence of this civilization.

Highlights

• Nubia, once deemed a barren wasteland by Romans, showcased astonishing monuments. 🏛️
• Nubia thrived with a cattle-herding society and developed complex communities over 10,000 years ago. 🐄
• The Egyptians and Nubians had a complex relationship, but Nubia eventually ruled over Egypt. 👑
• Despite environmental challenges, Nubian traditions have persisted through millennia, even influencing modern cultures. 🌿
• The documentary highlights the resilience and richness of Nubia's cultural and historical legacy. 🏆

Key Takeaways

• Nubia was an advanced civilization known for its spectacular monuments, including more pyramids than Egypt! 🏜️
• Gus Casley Hayford, an art historian, explores Nubia's lost history through artifacts and traditions. 🏺
• The series reveals how Nubia thrived despite lacking written records, using art and legends to uncover its past. 📜
• Environmental changes and conquest by Egypt challenged but did not erase Nubia’s cultural legacy. 🌍
• Nubia's influence is still felt in modern Africa, especially in traditions like wrestling and cattle reverence. 🐃

Overview

In the captivating documentary 'Lost Kingdoms of Africa: Nubia,' art historian Gus Casley Hayford embarks on a profound journey into the heart of ancient Nubian civilization. Sully Man, the creator, brings to life Nubia's rich history through a vibrant narrative showcasing its incredible monuments, many of which outnumber those of Egypt. The backdrop of Sudan's deserts reveals a civilization that was not only advanced but fiercely resilient despite being portrayed as primitive by early Egyptians and Romans.

Guided by esteemed archaeologist Mahmud Basher, Hayford discovers the indelible marks left by early Nubians on Sudan's arid landscapes. This journey unveils Nubia’s sophisticated society that existed over 10,000 years ago, demonstrated by artifacts such as rock art and ancient gongs—showing communication modes from eras long past. Despite challenges such as climate shifts and Egyptian conquests, Nubian culture adapted and survived, leaving an enduring legacy felt to this day.

The narrative concludes by drawing connections between ancient Nubian practices and current African traditions, with insights into cultural continuity seen in rituals like wrestling and cattle veneration. 'Lost Kingdoms of Africa: Nubia' isn't just a tale of a bygone era; it’s a celebration of a culture that continues to influence and resonate within modern African societies, representing a lasting testament to human ingenuity and adaptability.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to the Lost Kingdoms of Africa Africa, the birthplace of the human race, is home to nearly a billion people, exhibiting an incredible diversity of communities and cultures. Historically, we have known less about Africa’s past compared to other regions, but that is starting to change.
• 01:00 - 05:00: The Search for the Kingdom of Nubia In recent decades, researchers and archaeologists have started to uncover remarkable histories comparable to any other on Earth. This history, long neglected and largely lacking written records, is preserved through the gold, statues, culture, art, and legends of the people.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Exploring the Nubian Desert and Rock Gongs The chapter introduces the presenter, Gus Casely-Hayford, an art historian with a focus on African history and culture. His approach involves deriving narratives from historical objects. The chapter sets the stage for exploring the mysteries and history of the Lost Kingdoms of Africa, particularly as they relate to the Nubian Desert and rock gongs.
• 05:30 - 20:00: The Civilization of Kerma The narrator begins their exploration in northern Sudan, historically known as Nubia, located near the Egyptian border. This region was once home to a powerful civilization known as the Kingdom of Nubia, which held significant influence over what's now the eastern Sudanese area for thousands of years.
• 25:00 - 35:00: Egyptian Conquest and Influence The chapter titled 'Egyptian Conquest and Influence' explores the historical perspective of the Sahara Desert from the viewpoint of ancient civilizations. Initially described by the ancient Egyptians, the Sahara was seen as a primitive outpost, rich in resources such as slaves and treasure, including dancing girls. The Romans also considered it a barbarian wasteland. Despite these perceptions, the Sahara's inhabitants were conquerors with their own significant history. However, their eventual downfall came not from rival powers but from the harsh environmental conditions. The chapter also discusses the remarkable monuments left by Nubia, which are considered among the most spectacular in both Africa and the world.
• 45:00 - 65:00: The Nubian Revival and Kingdom of Maroe There are more pyramids in Nubia than in Egypt, highlighting the grandeur of this ancient civilization.
• 65:00 - 75:00: The Decline of the Nubian Kingdom The chapter titled 'The Decline of the Nubian Kingdom' begins with a setting where the narrator is being led by a guide named Mahmud through ancient Nubian sites. Mahmud Basher is introduced as a highly respected archaeologist in Sudan, recognized for his deep knowledge and expertise. The journey they embark on is not only across physical space but also back in time, exploring nearly 10,000 years into the past. This period marks a significant era when humans first started practicing agriculture with crop planting and animal domestication. The narrative promises an insightful exploration of the historical evolution and cultural heritage of the Nubian Kingdom.
• 75:00 - 95:00: Legacy and Influence of Ancient Nubia The chapter titled "Legacy and Influence of Ancient Nubia" delves into the geographical significance of the Nile River, highlighting its crucial role in transforming the surrounding barren desert into a fertile strip of land capable of sustaining life. The chapter mentions the transition from the lush green corridor of the Nile to the arid desert beyond, emphasizing the harshness of the desert environment. This setup potentially lays the groundwork to explore the historical, cultural, and agricultural implications of Ancient Nubia's location and how the Nile shaped its development and legacy.

Lost Kingdoms of Africa 1 of 4 Nubia Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Africa where the human race began nearly a billion people live here and it's a continent with an incredible diversity of communities and cultures yet we know less of its history than almost anywhere else on Earth but that's beginning to change
• 00:30 - 01:00 in the last few decades researchers and archaeologists have begun to uncover a range of histories as impressive and extraordinary as anywhere else on [Music] Earth it's a history which has been neglected for years and it's largely without written records but it is preserved for us in the gold and statues in the culture art and legends of the people
• 01:00 - 01:30 my name is Gus casley Hayford over many years I've studied the history and culture of Africa as an art historian I'm used to drawing stories from mute objects from the past I'm going to discover the history and find out what really happened to the Lost kingdoms of Africa
• 01:30 - 02:00 I'm beginning my search in the far north of the continent in what is now known as the Sudan I'm looking for the legendary Kingdom of Nubia Nubia is a traditional name for the northern part of Sudan near the Egyptian border for thousands of years a civilization dominated the area there in what's now the Eastern
• 02:00 - 02:30 Sahara it's first mentioned by the ancient Egyptians as a primitive Outpost a source of slaves and treasure dancing girls and resters to the Romans too it was a barbarian Wasteland yet these people were conquerors in their own right ultimately defeated not by their Rivals but by their environment Nubia has left us some of the most spectacular monuments not only in Africa but in in the whole world
• 02:30 - 03:00 there are more pyramids here than there are in Egypt this was a major civilization but its history is barely remembered so what was Nubia actually like how powerful was it and what happened to it in the end to begin my search I'm leaving the Sudanese Capital cartoon and flying North into Nubia this is every School Boy's dream this ancient old helicopter
• 03:00 - 03:30 is going to take us up to see some of the ancient Nubian SS I've got this fantastic guide here this is my mood it's going to help to tell me what some of the sites [Music] mean Mahmud Basher is one of Sudan's most respected archaeologists he's taking me on a journey not just through space but time going back nearly 10,000 years to the time when humans first began to plant crops and to keep domestic
• 03:30 - 04:00 animals we're going northwards along the Nile if it weren't for the Nile and it's irrigation this whole scene would be desert and from the air it's easy to see how narrow the cultivation strip really is but mmud tells me we're going to leave the green Corridor of the Nile and head out into the desert proper out here is one of the toughest places on Earth the temperature here is
• 04:00 - 04:30 more than 120° F and yet there are still people working [Music] here this is where I'm going to start my journey right in the back of Beyond [Music]
• 04:30 - 05:00 we flown more than 250 Mi North from cartoon into the middle of the Nubian desert 15,000 square mil of arid Sandstone with scarcely a single Oasis from here we're going to drive across the scorching Sands and mmud tells me we're going to start with the very beginnings of Nubian culture more than 7,000 years
• 05:00 - 05:30 [Music] ago oh it's hot it'sing what are you doing to me I can't believe we've come out here it must it feels like the middle of nowhere it's one of the driest most remote places
• 05:30 - 06:00 I've ever been but Mahmud says that here there's something that makes all the suffering we've gone through really worthwhile so let's have a look but why did you bring me out here actually because this is a it's very important place and here actually where our story will begin something interesting oh it's a
• 06:00 - 06:30 bell it's not a bell what it's what we call the r gong so how old is this m it's not less than 5,000 5,000 [Music] [Applause] wow so I'm playing a 5,000 BC instrument yes [Music]
• 06:30 - 07:00 the actual sound is the natural result of the consistency of the rock but it's been worn Smooth by the actions of people playing it more than 7,000 years ago long before the Romans long before the Pharaohs this is a sign of human civilization so would they sing along to this I don't know exactly but I think they can imagine more dancing than singing more dancing [Music]
• 07:00 - 07:30 [Laughter] in the last few years archaeologists have found hundreds of rock gongs like this in the Nubian desert possible evidence of a sizable population I imagine You' be able to hear it from a long distance from a long a long distance and I think we think actually it's the same as what we have now about the drum language in Africa yes it's probably the was doing the same function at that time [Music] [Applause]
• 07:30 - 08:00 archaeologists think that people here may have used the rock gongs to communicate Across The [Applause] Valleys now this is the beginning of the Nubian [Music] culture but why here this is the middle of one of the harshest deserts in the world mmud has something to show me it's been a secret until recently now I will
• 08:00 - 08:30 show you a very special thing oh have a look at it oh wow that's amazing it's cat yeah and how old is that something like 5,000 6,000 BC DC 5,000 6 it's just astounding when when were these discovered uh it's just last March can you
• 08:30 - 09:00 imagine last March we are in August not many people mons ago yes you the the second after the the mission who discover the set really really yeah the second to be here rock art is the oldest form of pictorial representation known research has shown that the pictures are unlikely to be just a depiction of everyday life instead they concentrate on subjects that are of great significance to the the people who made them so I'm
• 09:00 - 09:30 amazed to discover that out here deep in the Nubian desert they should be making images of cattle but this is Desert though but it wasn't there desert in 7 or 6,000 BC mmud tells me it's a story of catastrophic climate change Recent research has shown that some 7,000 years ago most of the Sahara was in fact green
• 09:30 - 10:00 you can see the outlines of dry valleys or Wes they were once big Rivers which flowed into the Nile and between them stretch grassland savanas of the kind that you have to go much further south to see today so this area here once upon a time would have had grass in it it would have been Lush it would have supported cattle and probably complex communities as well yes and even wild animals what what kind of animals
• 10:00 - 10:30 actually based on the Rock drawings we have around here we have Lions we have elephants we have giraffes so the the the wildlife and the Ecology of subsaharan Africa once existed yes that's amazing and this is the proof of that yeah so you can imagine sort of the cattle M well with a the stretch of the imagination the cattle in this Valley the river just down there yes yes and people someone at some point coming up here and with one of these Stones just
• 10:30 - 11:00 and making this deting all this kind of drawings yeah it's amazing maybe the same people who play the the rock gong are the same who de B this uh drawings [Music] here it took thousands of years for the desert to dry out completely so the cattle her in or pastorless society
• 11:00 - 11:30 which created the rock art was able to develop into a much more complex community and I'm told that they produce something quite spectacular and that's where I'm headed for now we're pushing northwards along the Nile some 700 mil from cartoon and less than 200 from the Egyptian border our destination is the small town of kerma which sits by the
• 11:30 - 12:00 Nile this was once the capital of the Kingdom which the Egyptians knew as Kush this was the heart of the kingdom of Nubia over the last few decades archaeologists have uncovered the remains of an impressive City here dating from around 2,000 BC this extraordinary structure looms like a man-made Mountain over the ruins Karma it's kind of uh development of the
• 12:00 - 12:30 community who make the rock art so we have here like more organization at the heart of this great city was a huge mud brick structure known as the defa it's the oldest known mud brick building in Africa and one of the largest but it has no rooms it's a solid block of Masonry
• 12:30 - 13:00 they've actually built a piece of geography CU it's absolutely solid mud and what what is it and what what might it have been used for I believe that it's something associated with rituals it's something like a temple or something like this we don't know who the god or gods were that these people worshiped but according to my mood it was the temple
• 13:00 - 13:30 on the top of the deua which was the main focus here it was surrounded by palaces for royalty or priests now we are on the top of the the fufa yes and uh you can see around surrounding the f is Administration city of K so these are the raised foundations of the foundation of the buildings they had been found here and this kind of a reconstruction of the foundation to show
• 13:30 - 14:00 us the the plans of this building I see judging by the buildings that the archaeologist have uncovered in the last 10 years kerma was not so much a residential city as a place of pilgrimage where people would come from miles around for ceremonies then of course it would have looked very different and it's easy to forget but all of this was really green yes it's more green and uh
• 14:00 - 14:30 it's surrounded by green and so there enough food enough water so it could have been a fairly wealthy area it really developed a very strong Kingdom at that time so all this economical sources supported the the state to be very strong uh [Music] State there's a small Museum here with some of the finds from the excavations which give a flavor of the Nubian culture and even when it's laid out like
• 14:30 - 15:00 this with the artifacts numbered off and cataloged you can see quite how distinctive it is take the pottery archaeologists now know that people were making Pottery here even before they began to plant crops and long before ancient Egypt the polished surfaces and black rims imitate the forms of polished drinking GS I've seen and used elsewhere in Africa it's extremely finely made but but it's done entirely by hand they
• 15:00 - 15:30 weren't using a potter's wheel for this and the extraordinary thing is that this technique can still be found today 4,000 years [Music] on everywhere you go around here you see these characteristic water jars they aren't Mass produc in a factory instead they're made by women in
• 15:30 - 16:00 a local Village just Gathering some um go poo I think it is which apparently is used in the mixture with the clay and this is a village across the Nile from where we've been staying where they create these amazing clay pots and we're being shown by one of the local women how they actually do that from the point of leading the clay to the finished
• 16:00 - 16:30 product I've done some pot myself and I know from hard experience that this technique is actually extremely difficult it's as sophisticated as the mud brick architecture of the defer this technique may be ancient but it's perfectly adapted to the conditions here the red slip is designed to get the surface of the pot just right poorest enough for slow evaporation to keep the
• 16:30 - 17:00 contents cool these continuities of tradition and practice are an even more important insight into the culture of ancient Nubia because a Nubians of kerma never developed writing but archaeology has revealed some more astonishing insights into this ancient city this is where the Nubians of kerma
• 17:00 - 17:30 buried their dead the cemetery was first excavated by an American Le team in 1913 what they uncovered told an astonishing story we are in the what we call the Eastern cemeter this is a cemetery belong to the karma we're standing on the edge of what was once an enormous funeral Mound
• 17:30 - 18:00 nearly 100 m across the center's marked by a mysterious White Rock and there's a kind of smooth Avenue which crosses the space it's a huge area and it seems to be the burial mound of a king but he wasn't buried alone within this we have the the human sacrifices inside and so can see the importance of
• 18:00 - 18:30 the person has been uh bued here how how many people were sacrificed more than 300 person has been buried as a human sacrifice go the archeologists think that the victims men women and children too were sacrificed to provide servants and retainers for their master in the Life Beyond the vast Cemetery itself was used for
• 18:30 - 19:00 over a thousand years and contains over 30,000 Graves it must have been quite an eerie and Melancholy place I mean if anything is going to really make you think about life and and death it's it's a place like this something archaeologists have also found something which ties kerma directly to the people of the rock AR
• 19:00 - 19:30 cattle around the the on the edges of the of the mound yes 5,000 uh catalis has been found on this uh edge of the tombs so this would be a king or something I mean 5,000 cattle yes would have I mean were these cattle that were slaughtered especially for yes commemorate death of this exactly and it's part of the offering has been offered with this uh person wealth is
• 19:30 - 20:00 measured in cattle yes during that time yes absolutely yes and uh cut was the just the main things we can find that in the Karma Culture in many aspects but if that many cattle that many people are being sacrificed for one person one it suggests they were incredibly powerful and two that there must have been an enormous cattle culture here and probably a big population that that supported I mean that really does get me
• 20:00 - 20:30 thinking in a different way about Kera I mean this was an enormous civilization it's a real king Kingdom the scale and relative sophistication of the Nubian civilization here in kerma LED Western archaeologists in colonial sadan to assume that this culture must have been brought in from Egypt or elsewhere but now it's believed that this was an indigenous development m a civilization created by the descendants
• 20:30 - 21:00 of the people who created The Rock [Music] heart 4,000 years after it was built the people of kerma still gather like ghosts around the temple at the Dua although the Nubian kingdom is long gone it still exerts a the
• 21:00 - 21:30 pool and these ruins have really affected me in a sense Kera is the lost kingdom that I'd always dreamt of seeing it's every bit as spectacular as anything that I seen in Egypt 4,000 years ago the Nubians of kerma were apparently thriving with
• 21:30 - 22:00 their great mud brick Monument their herds of cattle and a sizable population so why did they disappear and where did they go water was the key to this Nubian Kingdom it provided the Lush fertile
• 22:00 - 22:30 land on which their cattle hering Society was based it was a different story for nubia's Northern neighbors the Egyptians their lack of pastoral land had led to the development of irrigation technology drawing as much water as they could from the Nile to transform their parched desert soil but even with this technology it was a lot harder for them to create the rich Greenery that nuia had at this time
• 22:30 - 23:00 in abundance thanks to the rivers which ran through [Music] it Nubia was a tempting Target for the ambitious pharoh there were frequent raids and retaliations then around 1500 BC the records show us that the Egyptians invaded
• 23:00 - 23:30 their target wasn't just kerma they continued another 180 Mi along the Nile to a place called Jebel [Music] barkle Mahmud and I are following the Egyptians Invasion route up the River Nile our objective is the same as the ancient pharaohs the Apparently symbolic mountain of Jebel barkle
• 23:30 - 24:00 you can see that there is also say kind of feature on the mountain itself like uh this very interesting Pinnacle here if you can just see from the top like a crown on a head of a [Music] cobra I'm not seeing a cobra I must admit can you you can see just if you look at The
• 24:00 - 24:30 Pinacle on the top this is a like a crown that's okay and you can see just beneath like uh this SI you can see a mouse of a cobra and even you can if you concate like part of the eye see I think so we're looking at something which is sitting like that and you can imagine a sort of dancing Cobra and on its head yes there's a crown wearing a crown long Crown is a crown the the kingship I see
• 24:30 - 25:00 it to the ancient Egyptians the rearing Cobra was a symbol of kingship and here was a natural sculpture which signaled to them it seems that within the Mountain dwelt amoon King of the Egyptian gods they felt that justified their conquest of Nubia and so they built an enormous Temple to our moon at the foot of the mountain how did the Nubians feel about the Egyptians actually being here at that time the nubio was uh completely
• 25:00 - 25:30 uh controlled by the Egyptian it does seem a little bit like colonialism exactly it's for the at that time for the Egyptian just looking at the Nubian as a as a barbaric Savage Egyptian images at the time of the conquest were explicit about the subjugation of the Nubian people they clearly regarded them as inferior
• 25:30 - 26:00 area the Egyptians they used to call Nubia during that time a miserable Nubia miserable [Music] Nubia the images also make it clear that the Egyptians made the most of nubia's natural resources and demanded riches as well as respect here the Nubians are bringing tribute gold Ivory along with wild animals monkeys and leopard skins and of course cattle are
• 26:00 - 26:30 [Music] prominent they even seem to have imported Nubian wrestlers to entertain them like Gladiators the people who built kera's magnificent buildings had it seemed been reduced to Slaves or certainly that's what the Egyptians wanted everyone to [Music] think there's a suggestion that even the name by which we know them is pejorative
• 26:30 - 27:00 the word nuba originally meant slave it's clear that whatever their justification the Egyptians claim jebil barkle is a holy Place what's amazing is that more than 3,000 years later it still is [Music] [Music]
• 27:00 - 27:30 this evening Mahmud and I have come here to share the devotions of a local Sufi Muslim [Music] sect they honor the memory of a local shik who's buried in a shrine at the foot of the Holy Mountain [Music]
• 27:30 - 28:00 Sufi Mystics were instrumental in the conversion of Sudan to Islam in the Middle Ages in the process they adapted and made use of local cultural [Music] Customs so although this ceremony is clearly Islamic it's likely that it contains glimpses of far more ancient religious observances from this area [Music] you
• 28:00 - 28:30 [Music] [Music] [Music]
• 28:30 - 29:00 and in the clearer light of dawn seeing the Egyptian temple and the Sufi Shrine from the top of the mountain I'm struck by the continuities which seem to persist history piled upon history here you can just feel it's one of those special places and sets me thinking back about
• 29:00 - 29:30 those gongs hearing those sufis those repeated rhythms it gives you a sense of the way in which those repetitions of prayers of incantations of thoughts reflect back over Generations over Millennia but in some way are still very special to the people of this land today the Egyptians had painted the Nubians as mere slaves what mmud wants to show me is that the story isn't so
• 29:30 - 30:00 simple it's just astoundingly hot today apparently it's above 50° and I've never experienced it before but it gets above 50 in this environment and it's no longer just hot from the Sun it just feels like it's coming at you from every [Music] direction the Egyptians only ruled Nubia for just a few centuries and then there's hard evidence that the Nubians are able to get their
• 30:00 - 30:30 own back on their [Music] conquerors but surrounded by all these massive Egyptian remains I find that hard to believe my mood says that if I had any lingering doubt that the news turn the tables on the Egyptians that that would be completely extinguished by having a look at what's in here
• 30:30 - 31:00 this is absolutely stunning stunning so what is this it's a temple apparently built by a Nubian ruler called tahaka in around 700 BC you can see here depiction of the Holy Mountain J with The Pinacle on the shape
• 31:00 - 31:30 of with the Sisk so that that is where we actually sat just under at the bottom of that and that's exactly where we are now here just beneath on the the here inside the mountain and we have here Amon depiction of Amon actually inside inside the mountain duing in here yes and in front of it we have
• 31:30 - 32:00 tahara giving offering to um so tahara representing the people here yes but what these images show is that tahaka wasn't just a ruler of Nubia he was also a pharaoh of Egypt the conquered had become the conquerors he was one of a whole dynasty of Nubian pharaohs which ruled over the entire Nile Valley under the orices of our
• 32:00 - 32:30 moon and the wearing the crown with the two cobos which mean that he the king of the D yeah cuz usually these things are so ambiguous and that you have to make a bit of a Leap of Faith with history or archaeology this is absolutely categorical and suddenly I'm seeing that snake again
• 32:30 - 33:00 these are Black Pharaohs Nubians part of that lost kingdom of Nubia but they didn't just rule over Nubia they also ruled over Egypt as one continuous Kingdom this is D these hieroglyphs show
• 33:00 - 33:30 how tahaka celebrated his joint Nubian Egyptian Kingdom in the sanctuary of this temple on the one side he depicted the Nubian gods and there's a ro here with the Egyptian deities on the other this black African civilization held sway from the upper Nile all the way to the Lebanon for over a century these statues discovered only a few
• 33:30 - 34:00 years ago give us a portrait of the Nubian pharaohs in all of their self-confidence these people ruled the whole area from here down in the Nubian territory right the way up into Egypt and you can tell that by looking at their headdress these two snakes one for Nubia one for Egypt and you can tell how threatening they were to the Egyptian cuz they've all at some point had their heads
• 34:00 - 34:30 knocked off just look at them and though they were unable to keep their hold on Egypt the Nubian Kingdom survived for centuries afterwards but now they had acquired some Egyptian habits from this time onward Nubian rulers would be buried in pyramids like the Pharaohs of old there are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt but the this wasn't simple imitation it
• 34:30 - 35:00 had been centuries since Egyptian rulers used pyramids and these pyramids are of a very different shape this was the Nubian celebrating their own [Music] Glory but the Nubians had another greater enemy than the Egyptians the environment at the time of tahaka around 700 BC the archaeological records showed that the desert was approaching ever closer and kermer itself lost its grazing land the pressure of the desert meant
• 35:00 - 35:30 that the heartland of the Nubian Kingdom now moved further south another 350 Mi along the Nile around a place called marow [Music]
• 35:30 - 36:00 today the desert here is littered with the remains of pyramids and temples the society that built them flourished between 700 BC and 400 ad The Rebirth of the Nubian Kingdom at marow still green and Lush back then is marked by countless palaces and temples and although the Egyptians had left their mark on the Nubian culture there's
• 36:00 - 36:30 evidence here also of more ancient Nubian beliefs I can see the Egyptian influence in the shape of this Temple but the relief sculpture on the walls expressed a decidedly un Egyptian world view by 200 BC the Egyptian god Horus has been demoted to the back of the line so this is in a line of seniority exactly even the great amoon of jebo Baku is
• 36:30 - 37:00 playing second fiddle to the completely non-egyptian war god appademic he's more senior shown presenting the sign of kingship to the Nubian ruler and there's another way the Nubians held on to their Traditions from before mmud has brought me to one of the most spectacular sites in Sudan the Royal Cemetery itself
• 37:00 - 37:30 where the Nubian Kings of this period were buried in their distinctive pyramids there's evidence of a return to their traditional way of life where one thing was of the utmost importance you can see this line of cuttles two line one of on the top one of the bottom of the wall so there's a whole row of of cattle of CLE yes just going from from right to left and you
• 37:30 - 38:00 can see the in the ecography itself the the scale of the people and the scale of the cow so they're more concentrating on the cows to so so the thing that they value is obviously cattle exactly and the whole of their social world is can be translated into value through cattle and and connected also is cattle as a the major part in this life I think that ow amazing so in a sense there does seem to be a
• 38:00 - 38:30 link between kingship and cattle something quite fundamental probably yes because as far as we saw now in here at Mar and at Karma the connection with c and the they keep representing ctil in their ecography here in all the the thing connected with life and life after death 700 years after they were subjected to
• 38:30 - 39:00 Egyptian domination the Nubians of marow were still a distinct and African culture a Heritage that still connects them to African cultures today it's time to leave the ruins and head to the inhabited part of marow We're Off to the Royal City of me they supplied some fantastic [Music]
• 39:00 - 39:30 modern maroin is where mmud carries out his main [Music] [Music] research his speciality is the history of the iron trade and many of the old techniques survive unchanged so for thousands of years people have been
• 39:30 - 40:00 foring using the same Techni really the newans are thought to have developed the earliest iron industry in Africa the first Iron technology appeared here during the first millennium BC around the same time as our own Iron Age a number of the archaeologist they believe that the knowledge of uh producing iron it has been invent here in at Mari and then spread to the rest of Africa and even some of them they go
• 40:00 - 40:30 further and they called Mari as a Birmingham of ancient Africa the archaeology shows us that marow became a relatively large industrial center producing vast amounts of iron for a thousand years after the loss of the Egyptian Kingdom the Nubians of marow flourished by the second Century BC they'd even developed writing
• 40:30 - 41:00 but whilst archaeologists long ago decoded the sounds of the alphabet no one has yet cracked the language itself this was a confident independent civilization far from the Barbarian Wilderness described by the ancient writers a place that was justly famed for its Iron Work its wrestlers and its cattle it's possible that the encroaching desert was their friend as well as their
• 41:00 - 41:30 enemy protecting them from another Invasion from the [Music] north but the desert continued its Relentless incursion it had long ago destroyed their civilization at kerma now too the Nubians of marway saw their grazing lands disappearing this land is just dry and desicated
• 41:30 - 42:00 nothing could grow here but can you imagine actually having invested your livelihood in living here as a farmer just to see it all turn to dust and you can imagine the people thinking this was just obviously something which might have been seasonal perhaps a few dry Summers or Winters and then it just lasted forever changed the culture changed the landscape and eventually the people would have had to have given up
• 42:00 - 42:30 with the desert came one of the few animals to thrive in its conditions the camel they were first domesticated in Arabia about 1,000 BC and took some time to reach Nubia when they did they eventually brought a nomadic way of life to the Eastern Sahara and everything changed by the end of uh the 4th Century ad the nomads around the all the tribe around Mari they start to control the
• 42:30 - 43:00 trade routs making problem for the martic state Mahmud believes it was the loss of its trade routs to camel riding Nomads which destroyed the nuban Kingdom at marow others debate this but by 400 ad archaeologists agree the ancient Kingdom of Nubia was in terminal decline the Nubian way of life had become impossible but what became of the
• 43:00 - 43:30 Nubian people we're on our way south and we're suddenly confronted by the new Kings of the desert it's an enormous camel train on its way it seems to the great camel markets of Southern Egypt some of the guys who are on this train that they have fairly sort of dicey reputation we're going to be okay are we yes uh hopefully we should be okay uh we
• 43:30 - 44:00 will uh be very careful when we approach uh as you said um there have been some problems there's someone under that tree [Music] there when we meet up with the camel herders we're given a friendly greeting
• 44:00 - 44:30 [Music] these men have traveled all the way from darur near the border with Chad they've covered more than 700 miles and have hundreds more to go this is the way of life that now dominates the desert where once the Nubians ruled their days are spent guiding their camels from Well to Well from Oasis to Oasis but they don't seem to think it's any hardship they they're enjoying very much
• 44:30 - 45:00 their trip and they don't feel like it's very difficult or tough or something they enjoying the com the same as the way we are enjoying this fancy cars these men will travel 40 days at a time 10 km a day and rest when the sun is highest in the sky but there are still small communities here people who eek out a living off
• 45:00 - 45:30 this harsh land they too are dependent on the camel are we close now yes we are almost there turn right from here I wonder if these people are among the descendants of the original Nubians but where once their ancestors live lives defined by Lush grazing land these people must cluster around small Wells I can do the pulling but there's
• 45:30 - 46:00 something quite sophisticated going on with the wrist which I think is probably avoiding it being Tangled and this thing that actually oh this this is your it's a sharp contrast to the Pastoral way of life which once thrived here and getting thirsty animals watered
• 46:00 - 46:30 is laborious work wow I imagine it's going to take about 10 of these to make any real decent sort of um attempt on on this I imagine we probably got our work cut out for the evening with this this is a culture perfectly honed to the desert but it isn't
• 46:30 - 47:00 Nubian to see if there are any traces of the old Nubian civilization I'm going to have to head out of these desert zones further south central Sudan and here is the landscape of ancient nuia it's just great to see this green environment and it's just so reminiscent of what must have been like not just the housing the
• 47:00 - 47:30 farming technology but just the landscape this Green Landscape is just what it must have been [Music] like 700 M south of kerma the land that still enjoys regular rainfall is sought after by pastoral communities and the frontier between desert and green continues to be a source of conflict just as it was for Egyptians
• 47:30 - 48:00 and Nubians 3 and2 thousand years ago these are un Vehicles going off to darur I mean it's fascinating that the same sorts of issues of food resources of Power are still in a way the dynamic thing that infuses this landscape even today a key component of the recent fighting
• 48:00 - 48:30 in darur in Western Sudan was a dispute over Lush well-watered pastures the same issues were a factor in the deadly Civil War that engulfed southern Sudan for over 20 years these Lush Green Hills were recently a Battleground It's So Glorious so idilic here it's
• 48:30 - 49:00 hard to believe that only a decade ago that this place was the site of a Civil War I was just wandering around just a few minutes ago and found a spent bullet coast and there were dozens of them scattered across here and it's not just a recent thing over centuries people had fought over this landscape and in a sense this history the story that we're telling is of that being replayed over centuries and centuries the name of these Hills reflects that
• 49:00 - 49:30 history these are the newba hills and the nuba people believe that they are descended from the ancient Kingdom of nuia
• 49:30 - 50:00 I've come here with shazar Rahal educated in Britney but a member of a traditional ruling family [Music] here her uncle the leader of the village community remembers the family traditions
• 50:00 - 50:30 [Music] well an M he comes from a royal family they arrived many years ago and many years ago how many years might that be this is rough around 300 years ago their tradition says that they
• 50:30 - 51:00 originally came from an area near marway that ancient Nubian City more than 500 miles away I'm really Keen to find out if there is a connection between the people of this region the nuba and ancient of Nubia I'm just really Keen if this very much living place has a connection with that old methology [Music]
• 51:00 - 51:30 they're all the same people they just separated so there's some that stayed in Egypt some stayed in some came to Sudan and and BAGI the rest went to stayed in maroi the only difference between here and there you will see is the color of the skin but in terms of the Lang language is the same the Traditions are the
• 51:30 - 52:00 [Music] same can there really be a connection between the people in this region and the ancient civilization of Nubia born more than 7,000 years ago to the sound of a rock gong the extraordinary thing is that although we're miles from ancient Nubian lands they do see to be some Echoes of those far off
• 52:00 - 52:30 times today the young men still compete in what has become their most famous sport wrestling the wrestling's in just the same style as in the pictures from 1500 BC that Mahmud showed me a jeble ble the same Stars the same grips
• 52:30 - 53:00 [Music] even can I finally get to grips with this ancient civilization I've been searching for I have to have a goit
• 53:00 - 53:30 [Applause] n [Applause]
• 53:30 - 54:00 just amazing but suddenly begin to realize this is just like those ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs of resters just just like [Applause] of course the similarities in style of
• 54:00 - 54:30 their wrestling may be a coincidence if they're really is an inheritance from old Nubia it should show up in more fundamental features of the nuba way of life Abdu a cattle drover certainly believes that the way of doing things hasn't changed in a long [Music] time it's has gone through tradition through history through family um and from an early age um everyone has
• 54:30 - 55:00 allocated a certain number of cows really yes so that they can raise them and they they feed from them like they use the milk from them to to grow their children um and then they build on those um so obviously then the More Cows you have the more wealth you have so cattle are absolutely integral to to politics to culture to we the whole of this community together [Music]
• 55:00 - 55:30 yes there are cattle cultures like this one right across Africa from here in the hills of Sudan down to quaz Zulu in South Africa and so many of them are connected to kingship it's possible that many of these stories may have begun in ancient Nubia right the way back to the rock art people and kerma [Music]
• 55:30 - 56:00 [Music] the Cala is a noa's most important dance its Origins are in ceremonies which initiate young men as full members of nuba society these headdresses are made out of cattle scares [Music] [Applause]
• 56:00 - 56:30 and I'm struck by something at kerma the great burial mound was surrounded by 5,000 cattle skulls just like these perhaps they were once the headdresses worn by dancers at the King's [Music] funeral who could fail to be convinced by this I mean this is those kerma those ancient kerma cultures just brought to
• 56:30 - 57:00 life I mean the cattle I you can just feel it this is women singing about the CLE this is men reliving those ancient traditions this is absolutely everything that I've seen along the journey but made it alive in this incredible dance are these people the descendants of that ancient Kingdom there seems to be an inheritance expressed in Traditions about cattle
• 57:00 - 57:30 about wrestling and in legends about an ancient Homeland beyond that it's difficult to be certain of the links between the people of nuba and those of ancient Nubia but such a connection would only be icing on the cake the most important thing is the weight of evidence we now have the existence of Nubia as a remarkable long longlasting and Indigenous
• 57:30 - 58:00 Kingdom nuia wasn't a barbarian Wasteland on the fringes of civilization as the Egyptians and Romans would have us believe it was a real power which developed independently and rivaled the Pharaohs a place with a distinctive way of life in the end it became a victim of climate change but I think that Nubian ideas of power wealth and kingship
• 58:00 - 58:30 continue to resonate in modern Africa we're setting off on a journey of Discovery in the wake of Egypt's first female ruler tomorrow here on bbc4 the pharaoh who conquered the sea is at 9 oh
• 58:30 - 59:00 [Music]