Meroë
Encyclopedia
Meroë Meroitic
Meroitic language
The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...

: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi
Shendi
Shendi or Shandi is a town in northern Sudan, situated on the east bank of the Nile 150 km northeast of Khartoum. Shandi is also about 45 km southwest of the ancient city of Meroe. Located in the River Nile wilayah, Shandi is the center of the Ja'aliin tribe and an important historic...

, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....

 for several centuries. The Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë gave its name to the Island of Meroë, which was the modern region of Butana
Butana
Butana is a region in Sudan. It is bordered by the Nile from Khartoum to Atbarah, by the Atbarah River from Atbarah to Ethiopia, by the Ethiopian border from the Atbarah River to the Blue Nile, and by the Blue Nile from Ethiopia to Khartoum. It includes most of the state of Al Qadarif plus parts...

, a region bounded by the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 (from the Atbarah River
Atbarah River
The Atbarah River in northeast Africa rises in northwest Ethiopia, approximately 50 km north of Lake Tana and 30 km west of Gondar. It flows about 805 km to the Nile in north-central Sudan, joining it at the city of Atbarah...

 to Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

), the Atbarah, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

, and the Blue Nile
Blue Nile
The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile...

.

The city of Meroë was on the edge of Butana
Butana
Butana is a region in Sudan. It is bordered by the Nile from Khartoum to Atbarah, by the Atbarah River from Atbarah to Ethiopia, by the Ethiopian border from the Atbarah River to the Blue Nile, and by the Blue Nile from Ethiopia to Khartoum. It includes most of the state of Al Qadarif plus parts...

 and there were two other Meroitic
Meroitic
Meroitic is an adjective referring to things related to the kingdom of Meroë in pre-Islamic Sudan.* The Meroitic period was approximately 300 BC to 400 AD.* The Meroitic script was their writing system....

 cities in Butana
Butana
Butana is a region in Sudan. It is bordered by the Nile from Khartoum to Atbarah, by the Atbarah River from Atbarah to Ethiopia, by the Ethiopian border from the Atbarah River to the Blue Nile, and by the Blue Nile from Ethiopia to Khartoum. It includes most of the state of Al Qadarif plus parts...

, Musawwarat es-Sufra, and Naqa
Naqa
Naqa or Naga'a is a ruined ancient city of the Kushitic Kingdom of Meroë in modern-day Sudan. The ancient city lies about 170 kilometers north-east of Khartoum and about 50 kilometers east of the Nile River...

.

The site of the city of Meroë is marked by more than two hundred pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

s in three groups, of which many are in ruins. They are identified as Nubian pyramids
Nubian pyramids
Nubian pyramids are pyramids that were built by the rulers of the Kushite and Egyptian kingdoms. Prior to the Kushites building these pyramids , there had been no pyramid construction in Egypt and the Nile Valley for more than 500 years.The area of the Nile valley known as Nubia, which lies within...

 because of their distinctive size and proportions.

History

Meroë was the southern capitol of the Napata/Meroitic Kingdom, that spanned the period c. 800 BC - c. 350 AD. According to partially deciphered Meroitic texts, the name of the city was Medewi or Bedewi (Török, 1998).

Excavations revealed evidence of important, high ranking Kushite burials, from the Napata Period (c. 800 - c. 280 BC) in the vicinity of the settlement called the Western cemetery.

The culture of Meroë developed from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

, which originated in Kush
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....

. The importance of the town gradually increased from the beginning of the Meroitic Period
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....

, especially from the reign of Arrakkamani (c. 280 BC) when the royal burial ground was transferred to Meroë from Napata
Napata
Napata was a city-state of ancient Nubia on the west bank of the Nile River, at the site of modern Karima, Northern Sudan.During the 8th to 7th centuries BC, Napata was the capital of the Nubian kingdom of Kush, whence the 25th, or Nubian Dynasty conquered Egypt...

 (Jebel Barkal
Jebel Barkal
Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia....

).

Rome's capture of Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 led to border clashes and expansion by both Meroë and Rome.
It appears that during the skirmishes that ensued, Meroe often came out the better, sacking settlements in and near Aswan, even looting a head from a statue of the emperor Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

 and burying it under their temple steps Back and forth conflict eventually lead to both sides meeting at the Island of Samos, where a peace treaty (that was surprisingly favorable to the Kushites) had been reached through emperor Augustus. Meroe eventually settled down to a healthy trading relationship with Rome and the Mediterranean. However, the kingdom of Meroe began to fade as a power by the 1st or 2nd century AD, sapped by the war with Roman Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries.

Meroe is mentioned succinctly in the 1st century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea or Periplus of the Red Sea is a Greco-Roman periplus, written in Greek, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and India...

:
The last period of the city is marked by the victory stele of an unnamed ruler of Aksum (almost certainly Ezana
Ezana of Axum
Ezana of Axum , was ruler of the Axumite Kingdom located in present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, he himself employed the style "king of Saba and Salhen, Himyar and Dhu-Raydan"...

) erected at the site of Meroë; from his description, in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, that he was "King of the Aksumites and the Omerites," (i.e. of Aksum and Himyar
Himyar
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar , historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a kingdom in ancient Yemen. Established in 110 BC, it took as its capital the modern day city of Sana'a after the ancient city of Zafar...

) it is likely this king ruled sometime around 330
330
Year 330 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallicanus and Tullianus...

. Two more inscriptions in Ge'ez script
Ge'ez alphabet
Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjad used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church...

 have been found on nearby pyramids; it is uncertain whether they are contemporary with the royal stele, or belong to a later date.

Civilization

Meroë was the base of a flourishing kingdom whose wealth was due to a strong iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 industry, and international trade involving India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. So much metalworking went on in Meroë, through the working of bloomeries
Bloomery
A bloomery is a type of furnace once widely used for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. A bloomery's product is a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom. This mix of slag and iron in the bloom is termed sponge iron, which...

 and possibly blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...

s, that it has even been called "the Birmingham of Africa" because of its vast production and trade of iron to the rest of Africa, and other international trade partners.

At the time, iron was one of the most important metals worldwide, and Meroitic metalworkers were among the best in the world. Meroë also exported textiles and jewelry. Their textiles were based on cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 and working on this product reached its highest achievement in Nubia around 400 BC. Furthermore, Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

 was very rich in gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. It is possible that the Egyptian word for gold
Gold (hieroglyph)
The ancient Egyptian Gold hieroglyph is a member of the crowns, dress, staves hieroglyphs. Its major importance is as one of the Fivefold Titulary names of the Egyptian pharaoh, the Horus of Gold name....

, nub, was the source of name of Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

. Trade in "exotic" animals from farther south in Africa was another feature of their economy.

The Egyptian import, the water-moving wheel, the sakia
Sakia
A sakia , tympanum or tablia is a water wheel, somewhat similar to a noria, and used primarily in Egypt. It is a large hollow wheel, normally made of galvanized sheet steel, with scoops or buckets at the periphery...

, was used to move water, in conjunction with irrigation, to increase crop production.

At the peak, the rulers of Meroë controlled the Nile valley north to south over a straight line distance of more than 1000 km (621.4 mi).

The King of Meroë was an autocrat ruler who shared his authority only with the Queen Mother, or Candace. However, the role of the Queen Mother remains obscure. The administration consisted of treasurers
Treasury
A treasury is either*A government department related to finance and taxation.*A place where currency or precious items is/are kept....

, seal bearers, heads of archives, and chief scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...

s, among others.

By the 3rd century BC a new indigenous alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

, the Meroitic
Meroitic language
The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...

, consisting of twenty-three letters, replaced Egyptian script. The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language
Meroitic language
The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...

 of the Kingdom of Meroë
Meroë
Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...

/Kush
Kingdom of Kush
The native name of the Kingdom was likely kaš, recorded in Egyptian as .The name Kash is probably connected to Cush in the Hebrew Bible , son of Ham ....

. It was developed in the Napatan Period (about 700 - 300 BC), and first appears in the 2nd century BC. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian language
Old Nubian language
Old Nubian is an ancient variety of Nubian, attested in writing from the 8th to the 15th century . It is ancestral to modern-day Nobiin and related to other Nubian languages such as Dongolawi. It was used throughout the medieval Christian kingdom of Makuria and its satellite Nobadia...

 of the successor Nubian kingdoms.

Although the people of Meroë also had southern deities such as Apedemak
Apedemak
Apedemak, alt Apademak, was a lion-headed warrior god worshiped in Nubia by Meroitic peoples. A number of Meroitic temples dedicated to Apedemak are known from the Butana region: Naqa, Meroe, and Musawwarat es-Sufra, which seems to be his chief cult place...

, the lion-son of Sekhmet
Sekhmet
In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet , was originally the warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing for Upper Egypt. She is depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. It was said that her breath created the desert...

 (or Bast, depending upon the region), they also continued worshipping Egyptian deities they had brought with them, such as Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...

, Tefnut
Tefnut
In Ancient Egyptian religion, Tefnut, transliterated tfnt is a goddess of moisture, moist air, dew and rain. She is the sister and consort of the air god Shu and the mother of Geb and Nut.- Etymology :...

, Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...

, Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

, and Satis
Satis
In Egyptian mythology, Satis was the deification of the floods of the Nile River, and her cult originated in the ancient city of Swenet, now called Aswan on the southern edge of Egypt. Her name means she who shoots forth referring to the annual flooding of the river...

, though to a lesser extent.

Archaeology

For a list of pyramids and their owners see Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah)
Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah)
Near Meroe three royal cemeteries were constructed.* South Cemetery features nine royal pyramids. Four of the pyramids belonged to Kings and five belonged to queens. One hundred ninety-five other tombs complete the cemetery....


The site of Meroë was discovered in 1821 by the French mineralogist Frédéric Cailliaud (1787–1869), who published an illustrated in-folio describing the ruins. Some treasure-hunting excavations were executed on a small scale in 1834 by Giuseppe Ferlini
Giuseppe Ferlini
Giuseppe Ferlini , of Bologna, Italy, was an Italian doctor turned explorer and archaeologist who destroyed over 40 pyramids in a quest for treasure in the 1820s in Egypt and Sudan. He served as surgeon the Egyptian army, occupying Sudan...

, who discovered (or professed to discover) various antiquities, chiefly in the form of jewelry, now in the museums of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

.

The ruins were examined more carefully in 1844 by Karl Richard Lepsius
Karl Richard Lepsius
Karl Richard Lepsius was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist and linguist and pioneer of modern archaeology.-Background:...

, who brought many plans, sketches, and copies, besides actual antiquities, to Berlin.

Further excavations were carried on by E. A. Wallis Budge
E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East.-Earlier life:...

 in the years 1902 and 1905, the results of which are recorded in his work, The Egyptian Sudan: its History and Monuments (London, 1907). Troops furnished by Sir Reginald Wingate, governor of Sudan, made paths to and between the pyramids, and sank shafts.

It was found that the pyramids were commonly built over sepulchral chambers, containing the remains of bodies, either burned, or buried without being mummified. The most interesting objects found were the reliefs on the chapel walls, already described by Lepsius, which present the names and representations of their queens, Candaces, or the Nubian Kentakes, some kings, and some chapters of the Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

; some stelae with inscriptions in the Meroitic language
Meroitic language
The Meroitic language was spoken in Meroë and the Sudan during the Meroitic period and went extinct about 400 CE. It was written in two forms of the Meroitic alphabet: Meroitic Cursive, which was written with a stylus and was used for general record-keeping; and Meroitic Hieroglyphic, which was...

; and some vessels of metal and earthenware. The best of the reliefs were taken down stone by stone in 1905, and set up partly in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, and partly in the museum at Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

.

In 1910, in consequence of a report by Archibald Sayce
Archibald Sayce
The Rev. Archibald Henry Sayce , was a pioneer British Assyriologist and linguist, who held a chair as Professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford from 1891 to 1919.- Life :...

, excavations were commenced in the mounds of the town, and in the necropolis, by John Garstang
John Garstang
John Garstang was a British archaeologist of the ancient Near East, especially Anatolia and the southern Levant....

, on behalf of the University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...

. Garstang discovered the ruins of a palace and several temples built by the Meroite rulers.

Modern archaeology in Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

 has been difficult because of the on-going civil war
Sudanese Civil War
The term Sudanese Civil War refers to at least two separate conflicts:*First Sudanese Civil War - 1955–1972*Second Sudanese Civil War - 1983–2005...

.

World Heritage Listing

In June 2011, the Archeological Sites of Meroë were listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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