~Nubian Culture~

Nubia is a region along the Nile, 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 of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899-19556. The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom Meroe. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was used mostly in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, Nubia was known as Kush , or in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia. Historically, the people of Nubia spoke at least two varieties of the Nubian language group, a subfamily which includes Nobiin (the descendant of Old Nubian) and Midob and several related varieties in the northern part of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan. Throughout its history, the people of Nubia were broken up. They had to live in three different regions. Lower Nubia which is in modern Southern Egypt, and Upper and Southern Nubia which resides in modern day Northern Sudan. Lower and Upper Nubia are so called because the Nile flows north, so Upper Nubia was farther upstream and of higher elevation, even though it lies geographically south of Lower Nubia. The Nile was of so much importance to this culture. Ancient Egypt conquered Nubian territory in various eras, and incorporated parts of the area into its provinces. The Nubians in turn were to conquer Egypt under its 25th Dynasty. Relations between the two peoples however also show peaceful cultural interchange and cooperation, including mixed marriages. The Medjay – represents the name Ancient Egyptians gave to a region in northern Sudan–where an ancient people of Nubia inhabited. They became part of the Ancient Egyptian military as scouts and minor workers. During the Middle Kingdom "Medjay" no longer referred to the district of Medja, but to a tribe or clan of people. It is not known what happened to the district, but, after the First Intermediate Period, it and other districts in Nubia were no longer mentioned in the written record. Written accounts detail the Medjay as nomadic desert people. Over time they were incorporated into the Egyptian army. In the army, the Medjay served as garrison troops in Egyptian fortifications in Nubia and patrolled the deserts as a kind of gendarmerie. This was done in the hopes of preventing their fellow Medjay tribespeople from further attacking Egyptian assets in the region.They were even later used during Kamose’s campaign against the Hykos and became instrumental in making the Egyptian state into a military power. By the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom period the Medjay were an elite paramilitary police force. No longer did the term refer to an ethnic group and over time the new meaning became synonymous with the policing occupation in general. Being an elite police force, the Medjay were often used to protect valuable areas, especially royal and religious complexes. Though they are most notable for their protection of the royal palaces and tombs in Thebes and the surrounding areas, the Medjay were known to have been used throughout Upper and Lower Egypt. Various pharaohs of Nubian origin are held by some Egyptologists to have played an important part towards the area in different eras of Egyptian history, particularly the 12th Dynasty. These rulers handled matters in typical Egyptian fashion, reflecting the close cultural influences between the two regions.