Social Class and Local Tradition in Nubia: the Evidence from Archaeology
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William Y. Adams SOCIAL CLASS AND LOCAL TRADITION IN NUBIA: THE EVIDENCE FROM ARCHAEOLOGY It is a common practice among both archaeolo- Pharaoh” (Williams 1980; Adams 1985), there gists and ethnologists to offer a single, generalized is nothing among the thousands of excavated or “normative” description for each of the graves to suggest the existence of marked social peoples or the cultures that they study, without distinctions among these tribal-level peoples. We taking account of differences between persons or can, as always, recognize substantial differences in class or regions. In the case of archaeology there is wealth as reflected in the rich and the poor often no other possibility, since there is rarely graves, but the difference is very largely in the enough evidence to recognize intracultural varia- quantity rather than the quality of their contents. tions. However, this is not true in the case of Significantly, we can observe no differences in northern Nubia, thanks to the wealth of data burial ritual which might suggest the existence of resulting from the three Aswan Dam surveys. For a distinct elite class. the Meroitic and later periods, in particular, two The situation is obviously very much other- quite distinct sources of intracultural variation wise in the case of late Kerma, with its succession can be recognized: those based on class distinc- of incredibly opulent royal tombs. Nevertheless it tions, and those based on localized cultural seems possible to recognize, up to now, only two preferences. In this paper I will discuss some of classes, the rulers and the commoners, though an the differences of both types, as they are revealed additional class of slaves can surely be inferred. chiefly through archaeology. Kerma as we now understand it calls to mind especially the historically recorded Bantu king- THE EVIDENCES OF SOCIAL CLASS doms of Central and South Africa, whose despotic We may safely assume, without reference to and often ruthless rulers maintained an extra- either archaeology or written texts, that the vagant lifestyle among a population otherwise societies of ancient and medieval Nubia were composed only of peasant cultivators. We have of not merely stratified but formally and legally course to recognize an intermediate class of stratified, with royalty at the top of the scale and Egyptian factors at the town of Kerma, but these slaves at the bottom. This was true of every would appear to have been resident foreigners. human society from the early Bronze Age to the The Kerma rulers, like the Bantu kings of later Industrial Revolution. But there are many kinds times, probably gained their position initially and degrees of stratification, and we must turn to through the control of export trade. texts or to archaeology to determine how many For the long period of Egyptian domination, classes existed, how clearly were they differentiat- during the New Kingdom, we have surprisingly ed, what were their distinguishing features, and little evidence as to the structure of society. The how wide were the gaps between them. For much dwellings that have been excavated are almost of the world such questions have been sufficiently entirely those of Egyptian colonists rather than of answered by the ancient and medieval chronic- native Nubians, while among the graves it is lers, but this is emphatically not the case in Nubia, impossible to distinguish between those of where reliable documentary accounts are mostly Egyptians and those of Nubians. The elaborate lacking. Archaeology however provides some very graves of Heka-Nefer (Simpson 1963), Jehuty- telling clues, especially for the Meroitic and later Hetep (Thabit 1957; Sa¨ve-So¨derbergh 1960), and periods. Amenemhat (Sa¨ve-So¨derbergh 1963) show us that a few Nubians were able to achieve high status in THE EARLIEST PERIODS the colonial administration, but otherwise we For the Neolithic, A-Group, and C-Group remain in the dark in regard to the social status of periods our social evidence comes almost exclu- the indigenous population. It seems likely that sively from burials. If we exclude the always- they were at first a recognizable underclass, but ambiguous case of the so-called “A-Group their social disadvantage disappeared or at least PAM Supplement Series 2.1 19 William Y. Adams lessened as they became more and more Egyptia- between royals and commoners. The titled nized in culture. bureaucratic officials buried at Karanog and at For the Napatan period the evidence is even Sedenga were provided with graves substantially more insufficient. Apart from a few palaces, more elaborate than those of commoners, and almost no dwellings of Napatan age have been were accompanied by such distinctive imported uncovered. At least in Lower Nubia there is the goods as inlaid wooden caskets, ornate bronze further problem that we are often unable to and glass vessels, and fancy textiles — objects distinguish graves of the Napatan period from very rarely found in the graves of commoners those of the New Kingdom. The royal tombs at [Fig. 1]. The graves were further distinguished at Barkal and Meroe are clear evidence of a small the surface by the presence of ba statuettes, ruling class, but for the time being we are able to offering tables, and inscribed stelae: all status recognize only the same kind of two-class society, symbols belonging to a distinct class of literate of rulers and commoners, that we postulate for and wealthy officials. The evidence of texts Kerma. suggests that their offices were occasionally THE MEROITIC PERIOD When we reach the Meroitic period we are presented with much more abundant and diverse evidence, especially from Lower Nubia. To begin with we have the continuation of the royal and noble tombs, testifying to a distinct ruling class which claimed divine sanction if not identity [Fig. 2]. Although there are, at Meroe, distinct cemeteries which have been designated respecti- vely as royal and noble, there is nothing to suggest that the rulers and the nobles were actually separate classes. The individuals buried in the West Cemetery at Meroe were simply lesser members of the royal families, any one of whom might under other circumstances have become king (cf. Adams 1977: 307). But in Lower Nubia we have for the first time Fig. 1. Inlaid chest from the cemetery of Karanog (From evidence of a distinct elite class, intermediate Woolley and Randall-MacIver 1910: Pl. 21) Fig. 2. The royal pyramids in the Meroe North Cemetery 20 PAM Supplement Series 2.1 Social class and local tradition in Nubia: the evidence from archaeology appointive, but more often hereditary (see and a local landed gentry. There are further especially To¨ro¨k 1979). evidences of differentiation within the peasant For the social divisions of the Meroitic class itself, with the lowest stratum possibly period, we have for the first time the additional consisting of landless sharecroppers. evidence of housing. At the top of the architectur- al scale, obviously, are the great royal palaces of THE BALLAN˜ A PERIOD Meroe, Barkal, and Kawa, whose antecedents go For the social situation in post-Meroitic times we back to Napatan times. However, these are not can thus far speak only about Lower Nubia; there our only examples of elite housing. At several is simply not enough yet known about social Lower Nubian communities, including Wadi conditions further to the south. Even for Lower el-Arab (Emery and Kirwan 1935: 108-122), Nubia the evidence is not as good as in either Karanog (Woolley 1911: 26-40), Ash-Shaukan Meroitic or Christian times. As far as we can tell, (Jacquet 1971), Arminna (Trigger 1967: 35-70), however, the structure of society seems to have and Meinarti (Adams 1965b: 132), there were been pretty much a continuation of that in stoutly built, two-storey houses which were much Meroitic times. more regular in plan and sturdier in construction There was certainly still a class of highly than the peasant houses that surrounded them despotic rulers, revealed to us by the excavations [Fig. 3]. They were not necessarily the residences of Emery and Kirwan at Ballan˜a and Qustul of the titled officials whose graves we observe at (1935). The ruler is designated in Graeco- Karanog; their scattered distribution suggests that Egyptian texts as basileus, the Greek word for they were more probably the dwellings of a local “king”, while below him were lesser feudatories landed gentry, whose prominence was based not referred to in the texts as basiliskos, or “little on bureaucratic status but on landholding. The kings”. It is possible that these were the persons fact that these buildings are often directly buried in the especially opulent “X-Group” tombs adjoined by flimsier and more irregular dwellings at Qasr Ibrim (Mills 1982), Gemai (Bates and suggests that the occupants of the latter may have Dunham 1927), and Firka (Kirwan 1939). been dependents of the local magnates. Perhaps it was one of these grandees who was commemo- rated in the rather crude grave stela and the ba head that we found in an otherwise unremarkable cemetery in the Second Cataract. The social gap between landed gentry and peasantry was probably not as great as in the case of titled officials. No recognizably elite goods have been found in their houses, nor are there especially elaborate graves in the nearby ceme- teries. It is doubtful therefore that they constituted a formally distinct class, like the feudatories of medieval Europe. They may be compared rather to the so-called “rich peasants” of China – a de facto rather than a de jure class. Even among peasant dwellings some differ- entiation is observable. The thin-walled but relatively regular, brick-built residential aggrega- tions at Gaminarti (Adams 2004: 32-36; see Fig.