War & Trade With the Pharaohs

by Garry J. Shaw

  The Egyptians probably perceived this prosperous and expanding civilization, based at Kerma, just south of the Third Cataract, as a threat, both to Egypt’s control of Nubian trade and its security, and sought to prove their domination of the region.

  We can gain an insight into the work of the soldiers at the Nubian forts thanks to the survival of the ‘Semna Dispatches,’ a collection of papyri, found in a Middle Kingdom tomb at Thebes. These show that the Egyptians not only monitored the movement of Nubians and Medjay near the forts –

  sometimes tracking them for days – but that they captured and interrogated people too. Other dispatches talk of five Medjay travelling to Elephantine to ask for jobs as mercenaries, because ‘the desert is dying of hunger,’ and of War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 55

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  56 War and Trade with the Pharaohs

  Nubian merchants arriving by boat and donkey to trade at one of the forts.

  In fact, Nubians (presumably not including C-Group Nubians living north of the Second Cataract) were not allowed to pass the fortress of Semna, either by water or land, unless they were traders, in which case they received permission to exchange their goods at Mirgissa. Only in special circumstances could this rule be broken.

  The soldiers stationed at the forts didn’t just rely on weapons and defensive architecture to achieve and sustain their domination of Lower Nubia.

  Magic – heka to the Egyptians – was just as powerful in their worldview.

  They were particularly fond of execration rituals – known in Egypt from the Old Kingdom through to the Roman Period – in which a person destroys

  a symbol representing his enemies in order to harm or neutralize them.

  Sometimes red pots were smashed, the colour red being associated with evil, or clay figurines of bound enemies were broken or burnt. The names of foreign princes and civilizations, and lists of locations in Nubia and the Levant could also be written on the objects destroyed. The most extreme example of execration so far known in Egypt was discovered by archaeologists in pits close to the fortress at Mirgissa. These contained nearly 200 broken inscribed red vessels and ostraca, 437 uninscribed broken red pots, 346 mud figurines (including severed feet, heads, torsos, and animals), three lime-stone prisoner figurines and the head of a fourth. Other objects appear to have been burnt. But, most grisly of all, there was also the decapitated body of a Nubian. The skull, placed upside down on a cup, was found nearby,

  melted red wax beside it, and a flint sacrificial knife.

  Punt and Mersa Gawasis

  If visiting Mersa Gawasis, a port with a shallow bay on the Red Sea coastline, in around 2000 BCE, you’d have been met with the sight of twen-

  ty-four small huts erected on a coral terrace, providing space for around forty to fifty soldiers as temporary accommodation. Although the site

  lacked permanent structures, rock cut galleries penetrated the mountain side, where the Egyptians stored disassembled boats, as well as ropes and other equipment. One gallery might have served as a workshop. All around, men would have been grinding emmer and barley, baking bread, and making beer. Others would have been eating seafood – fish and crabs – as well as domesticated and desert animals. The men made fires from whatever wood

  was at hand – even fragments of valuable foreign imported woods, such as ebony and cedar, too small to be used for other purposes – and found fresh War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 56

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  An Expanding World 57

  water at nearby Bir Umm Al-Huwaytat. Small shrines and ritual platforms served the soldiers’ religious needs. One stele was dedicated to Osiris of the Sea, a local maritime version of the god, and there was probably a shrine to Hathor. An open air altar bore 650 conch shells, seemingly dedicated to the god Min.

  In ancient times, this port was known as Saww. It was from here that the Egyptians launched missions to Punt in the late Old Kingdom and First

  Intermediate Period, and then again in the 12th and early 13th Dynasties, as well as in the early New Kingdom. Every item used by the sailors, soldiers, and workmen had to be dragged across the Eastern Desert from the Nile Valley; even the boats were designed to be disassembled and reassembled, making it easier for the Egyptians to store them when not in use, or to move them across the desert. Boxes used for transporting goods – a useful resource – were re-used: these were sent to their destination, filled with items, sealed by an administrator, and only opened again after arrival at Mersa Gawasis. From there, the goods were transferred across the desert to the Nile Valley.

  The Egyptians launched many missions to Punt during the Middle

  Kingdom. In the eighth year of Montuhotep III, a man named Henenu led

  one such mission, reinitiating contact with Punt after a hiatus during the First Intermediate Period. He travelled from Coptos to Mersa Gawasis via the Wadi Hammamat, supported by 3,000 men. Each man received twenty

  loaves a day and two jars of water, as well as a carrying pole and an animal skin – perhaps combined for carrying items – and sandals when needed.

  It’s unclear whether soldiers normally received sandals when on the march, because those trudging through the rocky Eastern Desert plateau may have needed extra foot protection. Similarly, at the start of the 12th Dynasty, Antefiker, vizier under Senwosret I, led an expedition of 3,200 soldiers, 500

  sailors, fifty escorts, five scribes, and one steward to Punt. If these numbers are to be believed, it was a large scale operation. Missions to Punt are also attested under Amenemhat II, Senwosret II, Senwosret III, Amenemhat III, and Amenemhat IV. Another location that the Egyptians sailed to during the Middle Kingdom was Bia-Punt, which may have been a gold mining region

  south-east of Kerma.

  And it wasn’t only goods that travelled from Punt in the Middle

  Kingdom. On the stele of Ded-Sobek, dated to the end of the 12th Dynasty, one woman, only partly preserved due to a break in the stele, is referred to as ‘the female servant of Punt, Sat-Mesuty(?).’ This is the only reference to a servant from Punt known on an Egyptian stele.

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  The End of the Middle Kingdom

  By the end of the 12th Dynasty, the Egyptians had reasserted themselves on the world stage, putting the turmoil of the First Intermediate Period behind them: Nubia, down to the Second Cataract, had been pummelled and placed under Egyptian rule; and routes into Egypt from the west and east were

  closely monitored. Whether in the south, east or west, fortresses built in the borderlands physically represented the edge of Egyptian control, providing secure bases from which the Egyptians could track the movements of people and goods coming and going from their territory. Meanwhile, maritime trade missions brought prestige goods to the Egyptian court from across the known world; and any threats to their access to these luxuries met with swift action: violent raids, which not only brought war plunder to Egypt, but thousands of prisoners too – people that were forcibly settled across the country, and particularly in the eastern Delta. But Egypt’s renewed phase of unity and dominance would not last: like each stable phase in the country’s history, the Middle Kingdom came to an end, bringing about a time of foreign domination: the Second Intermediate Period.

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  Chapter 5

  The Hyksos and the Kermans: Their Rise and Fall

  (1781–1549 BCE)

  The events surrounding the demise of the Middle Kingdom are

  rather shadowy. When King Amenemhat IV died towards the

  end of the 12th Dynasty, a female pharaoh came to power, named

  Queen Sobekneferu. She reigned for four years, after which a new line

  of kings took the throne: the 13th Dynasty. Their appearance marks the

  start of the Second I
ntermediate Period, a 200 year phase of renewed

  disunity and warfare. Many of the 13th Dynasty kings ruled briefly and

  only a few monuments attributed to them are known; indeed, because

  their reigns were so rapid, some scholars have argued that power cycled between important families (and some kings even appear to have been

  of foreign origin, adding to the confusion). The 13th Dynasty, however, was not immediately a time of collapse – some Egyptologists even prefer to include it in the Middle Kingdom. The government remained strong,

  at least initially, and the people of Lower Nubia continued to live under Egyptian control. Scribes of the vizier even escorted Nubian rulers to the 13th Dynasty court.

  Foreign trade continued in the Levant under the 13th Dynasty.

  Archaeologists have found seals, many dating to the reigns of King

  Neferhotep I and King Sobekhotep IV, at Tell el-Ajjul, Lachish, Jericho, Megiddo, and Byblos, indicating a renewed escalation in foreign relations during their reigns. Egyptian treasurers, stewards, soldiers, and priests were all active in the Levant, and ties with Byblos remained strong. Items buried with the rulers of Byblos even mention the names of 13th Dynasty kings: a relief of the Mayor Yantinu depicts him seated on a throne in front of the name of King Neferhotep I, and a cylinder seal of Mayor Yakin-Ilu includes one of the royal names of King Sewesekhetawy and makes reference to Hathor, Lady of Byblos. The Egyptians continued to receive wood from Byblos at least until the reign of King Sobekhotep IV, who imported cedar to make two doors for the Temple of Amun at Karnak in Thebes.

  Slowly, however, Egypt weakened and royal influence waned. This pro-

  vided an opportunity for various regions to declare independence. Notably, War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 59

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  an Asiatic line of rulers – though heavily Egyptianized – took control of the north-eastern Delta, becoming the 14th Dynasty. At the same time, the weakened 13th Dynasty fully withdrew from Nubia, enabling the Kerma

  Civilization (centred on the city of Kerma, just beyond the Third Cataract) to expand into what had previously been Egypt’s Lower Nubian territory.

  Faced with all these troubles, the 13th Dynasty eventually abandoned the north entirely, leaving their Egyptian successors to rule a portion of Egypt stretching from Cusae in Middle Egypt to Aswan at the First Cataract,

  with their major royal residence at Thebes. So, for much of the Second

  Intermediate Period, Egypt’s fortunes were influenced by three major players: the Kerma Nubians in the south; the Egyptians at Thebes; and the rulers of Levantine descent in the Delta, better known as the Hyksos.

  A general breakdown of the overlapping dynasties of the Second

  Intermediate Period (and their major residences) can be visualized as follows: Nubian Kings

  Asiatic Kings

  Egyptian Kings

  Kings of Kerma

  13th Dynasty

  (Itj-Tawy)

  14th Dynasty (Tell

  el-Daba)

  15th Dynasty/Hyksos 16th Dynasty (Thebes)

  (Tell el-Daba)

  17th Dynasty (Thebes)

  Disruptions in Lower Nubia

  Lower Nubia remained under Egyptian control until the reigns of King

  Neferhotep I and his successor King Sobekhotep IV of the 13th Dynasty,

  when the unified Egyptian State began to fragment. However, the Egyptians had been closing their Nubian forts since the late 12th Dynasty: Amenemhat III abandoned Semna South, and Amenemhat IV closed Serra West. During

  the 13th Dynasty, the closures continued, with the most expensive forts to operate abandoned first. Askut, as one of the largest, shut its massive fortified gateway at the start of the Second Intermediate Period. The most southerly forts closed last, indicating that the Egyptians wished to monitor their Nubian territory’s southern border until the last possible moment.

  The soldiers stationed at the Nubian forts had by now, after genera-

  tions of service, grown used to their surroundings and probably didn’t

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  The Hyksos and the Kermans: Their Rise and Fall 61

  want to leave, despite the volatile political situation. Indeed, around the reign of Neferhotep I, just as society began to crumble, some of Lower

  Nubia’s Egyptian soldiers attempted to create their own mini-state. These ephemeral individuals, attested at various locations, awarded themselves royal titles and names (‘why not?’ they probably thought), allowing us to identify ‘kings’ Kakare Iny, Ii-ib-khent-Re, and Segerseni. Under the last of these, Segerseni, warfare broke out in a region called Per-senbet, a so far unknown location. If scholars are correct in regarding these individuals as wannabe kings of Lower Nubia, their reigns didn’t last long. The entire period can only have lasted between twenty and thirty years, and ended with the kings of Kerma – the powerful Nubian state to the south – absorbing the soldier-kings’ territory into their own expanding kingdom, which now stretched from Kurgus in the south to Elephantine in the north – a distance of about 1,200 km along the Nile.

  The Egyptian soldiers garrisoned in the Nubian forts now served Kerma,

  alongside newly arrived Nubian soldiers – cemeteries at Buhen and Mirgissa attest to the presence of these newly installed Kerma garrisons. Among the remaining Egyptians at Buhen were the descendants of an administrator

  named Sobekemhab I, who had served there under the 13th Dynasty. One

  member of this family, Sopedhor, ‘built’ (more like renovated) the Temple of Horus ‘to the satisfaction of the ruler of Kush.’1 Another family member, called Ka, says on a stele, ‘I was a brave servant of the ruler of Kush. I washed my feet in the waters of Kush in the following of the ruler of Nedjeh.

  I returned safe and sound with my relatives.’2 Such individuals were not only invaluable for the continued running of the fortresses under their new management, but were useful as traders and intermediaries between the

  Kermans to the south and the Egyptians to the north. That trade continued between the Kermans and the Egyptians – now confined to Upper Egypt –

  after the collapse of the unified state is attested by archaeological findings, including seals at Kerma, which identified trade goods. But the Kermans also traded with the Hyksos in the north – the Asiatic dynasty that took advantage of Egypt’s political fragmentation to set up their own state in the north-east Delta (more about them soon). The Kermans transported these

  goods along desert routes via the oases, bypassing the Egyptians in the south.

  The Kingdom of Kush at Kerma

  The centre of this expanding Nubian empire was the city of Kerma, just

  south of the Third Cataract. It had existed since around 2100 BCE, and had War and Trade with the Pharaohs.indd 61

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  become powerful due to its fertile fields and its domination of trade routes.

  Although the origins of the Kerma Culture are unknown, it may originally have been the Yam known from Old Kingdom and early Middle Kingdom

  sources. During the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians began to refer to

  Upper Nubia as ‘Kush.’ This word is first found under King Senwosret I, on a stele set up to commemorate his wars in the region; here, Kush is one of nine places represented by bound prisoners. After also being mentioned by a couple of Senwosret I’s courtiers, ‘Kush’ isn’t found again until the reign of Senwosret III, when it is repeatedly cited as a place to be overthrown.

  Egypt’s construction of the Second Cataract forts under Senwosret III was probably a reaction to the growing importance and power of this expanding

  ‘Kingdom of Kush,’ controlled by its rulers from the city of Kerma.

  As a prosperous city, Kerma boasted a harbour, re
ligious structures, palaces, storehouses, kilns, bakeries, and domestic and administrative buildings. Workshops produced high quality bronze items, such as daggers and razors, others made faience figurines, vessels, and tiles to decorate funerary chapels. The ceramics produced by the Kermans were of the highest quality.

  Dry ditches and a mud-brick wall surrounded Kerma as protection from

  danger; nonetheless, the city was burned down multiple times and rebuilt.

  A large circular building, surrounded by smaller huts, was probably a royal audience hall, and the city’s most prominent buildings were the two deffufa, massive mud-brick constructions that dominated the skyline. The Western Deffufa was the city’s main temple, around which the early city seems to have expanded during the Middle Kingdom. The Eastern Deffufa was a

  funerary chapel in the eastern necropolis; this was surrounded by the tombs of Kerma’s kings, who were buried beneath enormous tumuli – the largest burial structures in Nubia. Within these mounds, the Kermans laid their kings to rest on wooden beds, surrounded by grave goods. They sacrificed human retainers – men, women, and children – at the time of the king’s

  death too, burying them alive during the tumulus’ construction. Tumulus KX, for example, contained over 400 sacrificed individuals.

  From clothing remains found during excavations in Kerma’s necropolis –

  which contained over 20,000 graves, as well as large funerary monuments –

  it’s possible to reconstruct how the city’s population dressed in life. Leather was the most popular material: people wore leather sandals and loin-cloths, and even wrapped themselves in either linen or leather. Women sometimes wore leather hairnets. In Kerma’s graves, archaeologists also found bronze mirrors, distinctive pottery, and jewellery with semiprecious stones. Men in particular were sometimes buried with weapons, including bows; some