The
C-Group was a culture in ancient
NubiaNubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt...
. It was named by George A. Reisner. With no central site, and no written evidence about what these people called themselves, Reisner assigned it a letter. The C-Group arose after Reisner's
A-GroupA-Group is the designation for a distinct culture that arose between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Nubia betweenthe Egyptian 1st dynasty and the 3rd millennium BC.The A-Group settled on very poor land with scarce natural resources, yet...
and B-Group cultures around the time the
Old KingdomThe Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The...
was ending in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
.
While today many scholars see A and B as actually being a continuation of the same group, C-Group is more distinct.
The
C-Group was a culture in ancient
NubiaNubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt...
. It was named by George A. Reisner. With no central site, and no written evidence about what these people called themselves, Reisner assigned it a letter. The C-Group arose after Reisner's
A-GroupA-Group is the designation for a distinct culture that arose between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Nubia betweenthe Egyptian 1st dynasty and the 3rd millennium BC.The A-Group settled on very poor land with scarce natural resources, yet...
and B-Group cultures around the time the
Old KingdomThe Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The...
was ending in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
.
While today many scholars see A and B as actually being a continuation of the same group, C-Group is more distinct. The C-Group is marked by its distinctive pottery, and for its tombs. Early C-Group tombs consisted of a simple "
stone circleA stone circle is an ancient monument of standing stones. It is not always precisely circular, often forming an ellipse, or more rarely a setting of four stones laid on an arc of a circle. The size and number of stones in a 'circle' varies from example to example...
" with the body buried in a depression in the centre. The tombs later became more elaborate with the bodies being placed in a stone lined chamber, and then the addition of an extra chamber on the east: for offerings.
The origins of the C-Group are still uncertain. Some scholars see it largely being evolved from the A/B-Group. Others think it more likely that the C-Group was brought by invaders or migrants that mingled with the local culture, with the C-Group perhaps originating in the then rapidly drying
SaharaThe Sahara , , "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometres , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe. The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean...
.
The C-Group were farmers and semi-nomadic herders keeping large numbers of cattle in an area that is today too arid for such herding. Originally they were believed to be a peaceful people due to the lack of weapons in tombs. Their settling around the forts built by the
EgyptiansEgyptians is the name of the nationality and Mediterranean North African ethnic group native to Egypt....
was seen as further evidence. Today some scholars argue the lack of weapons in tombs may have been cultural and that the forts might have been constructed by the Egyptians to control the C-Group peoples.
Most of what is known about the C-Group peoples comes from
Lower NubiaLower Nubia is the northern portion of Nubia, downstream on the Nile from Upper Nubia. It lies between the First and Second Cataracts, roughly from Aswan in the north to Wadi Halfa in the south. A great deal of Lower Nubia was flooded with the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the creation...
, due to the extensive archaeological work conducted in that region. The northern border of the C-Group was around Kubaniek. The southern border is still uncertain, but C-Group sites have been found as far south as
EritreaEritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The east and northeast of the country have an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen...
.
During the Egyptian Sixth Dynasty, Lower Nubia is described of consisting of a number of small states, three of which are named: Setju, Wawat, and Irjet. At this same time in Upper Nubia the
Kingdom of KermaThe Kingdom of Kerma was a state in Nubia from around 2500 BC to about 1520 BC. It was based in the city of Kerma in Upper Nubia and emerged as a major centre during the Middle Kingdom period of Egypt...
was emerging. The exact relation between the C-Group and Kerma are uncertain, but early Kerma shows definite similarities to the C-Group culture.
Under the
Middle KingdomThe Middle Kingdom may refer to*China*The Middle Kingdom of Egypt*A group of midwest U.S. states associated with the Society for Creative Anachronism*A part of Ocean Park Hong Kong*Middle Francia*The Middle Kingdom, an album by Celtic metal band Cruachan...
much of the C-Group lands in Lower Nubia were conquered by Egypt; after the Egyptians left, Kerma expanded north controlling the region. With the conquest of Nubia by Egypt under Tuthmosis I in the late 16th century BCE, the C-Group disappears, merged, along with Kerma, into the Egyptianized
KushThe Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley...
.