Forgotten Fortress Returning to

Laurel Bestock Uronarti fortress seen from the north. Kite aerial photograph by Kathryn Howley and Laurel Bestock.

ronarti, located in northern , is the site of one the physical relationships between modern nation-states is at all of a series of fortresses built by the Egyptian kings times problematic when applied to , and in cer- of the Twelfth Dynasty to control the gold-bearing tain periods the territorial control of Egypt certainly extended well beyond its notional boundaries. The Middle Kingdom (ca. Uterritory of Lower . Long thought to be inaccessible to 2055–1650 b.c.e.) was the first great period of expansion; dur- further archaeological research due to the flooding behind the ing this period the kings of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty established High Dam, two of the forts have recently been found to control over (now in southern Egypt and northern be remaining above water. The rediscovery of these forgotten Sudan) and maintained that control with a series of monumen- fortresses and the beginning of a new project at Uronarti allow tal fortifications (fig. 1). Most of these were built along the us to pose questions about not only the state-imposed stamp of itself, although we increasingly recognize that control over the desert was an integrated part of this system. colonialism in this place but also the more complex long-term The fortress-based domination of Lower Nubia in the Middle engagements and lifestyles that grew up around it. The Uronarti Kingdom had interwoven military, economic, and ideologi- Regional Archaeological Project is investigating some aspects cal components, and was a major undertaking of the complex of lived experience in this outpost.1 bureaucratic state of the time. From a military perspective, the growing wealth and complexity of the Kerma culture to the south seems likely to have posed a threat. Economically, the region of Egyptian Colonialism in Nubia in the Lower Nubia was and still is an important location for gold min- Middle Kingdom ing, and Kerma may have represented an attractive trading part- ner despite also being a potential threat. That the region of the The ancient Egyptian state had its southern boundary at the fortresses was the part of the Nile most difficult to navigate pre- first Nile cataract, a point of both geographic and ideological sumably added both to its military importance and to interest in significance. Nonetheless, the idea of a strict border as defines controlling economic activity along it. Ideologically, the size and

154 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) Region Shalfak

Uronarti Elephantine El-Hudi western desert Eastern wall desert forts Semna

Kumma 0 5km Semna South Ikkur Kuban

W a d i Areika A Aniba l l a q i

Faras Serra East N Kor

Askut see inset above 0 50 100km

Figure 1. Map showing the locations of the Middle Kingdom fortresses in Nubia. ordered construction of the fortresses served as visible celebration of the strong arm of the Egyptian king that sent the “vile” Nubians scurry- ing before it. While this mixture of imperatives was likely central to the foundation of the forts, the daily lives and cultural interactions of those who occupied this land over the many generations of Egyptian control were surely also caught up in more quotidian questions of how to live in this often forbidding landscape. The bureaucratic Middle Kingdom state planned the original fortresses, but that was the beginning, not the end, of the story. Returning to Uronarti allows us to explore this longer and more nuanced picture.

Previous Research

Both texts and archaeology have been central to our understand- ing of Egyptian colonialism in Lower Nubia in the Middle Kingdom. Texts range from bombastic royal statements erected on stelae that contrast the might of the king with the perfidy of the Nubians (Eyre Figure 2. Aerial photograph of Uronarti prior to the construction of the Aswan High Dam. 1990), to letters sent about desert surveillance between the forts and Courtesy of David Edwards. back to Egypt (Kraemer and Liszka 2016), to thousands of seal impres- sions—discarded trash that document for us administrative activities that took place at the storehouses and other institutions within the for- The “barbican” gate that led into the complex covers an tresses (Smith 1995: 000). astonishing 30 m × 47 m. The inner fortification, which Archaeologically, the fortresses themselves have played the star- has walls averaging 5 meter-thick regularly supported by ring role (see esp. Vogel 2004, with references). Truly massive monu- fortified bastions, was a precise rectangle measuring 138 ments, their proportions and structures bring to mind crusader castles m × 150 m. Access to the river—important as a source of or Roman forts despite their construction in mud brick. Buhen, of- water and as the artery vital both for shipping and for mili- ten regarded as the type site for the whole system, illustrates this well. tary transport—was protected. The layout of buildings in With two rings of defensive walls, each abutted on the outside by a dry the inner fortress was exceptionally regular. ditch and protected by a plethora of arrow loops, it covered an area While Buhen may serve as a type site for the more of approximately 450 m × 150 m (Emery, Smith, and Millard 1979). northern of the fortresses, which were built earlier in

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) 155 Figure 3. Kite photo of the northern part of Uronarti island looking north. the Twelfth Dynasty and which commanded an area where the rocky spur on an island in the Nile is the reason it is available for ground was flat enough to permit such expansive construc- study today. tions as well as some agriculture, the more southerly forts have a The original archaeological excavation of the forts took place somewhat different character. Situated in areas of rocky rapids, in two great waves during the twentieth century. The first -oc they cover less area and have single defensive walls that are not curred in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Uronarti itself was in- defined by right angles (Vogel 2004). However, they still have vestigated in this wave; it was dug in three short seasons from massively thick defenses and—despite their irregular outlines— 1928–1930 under the personal supervision of Noel Wheeler, rigidly orthogonal interior buildings. Uronarti is one of these who worked under the larger direction of George Reisner’s Bos- southern fortresses of irregular type, built in the later Twelfth ton Museum of Fine Arts/Harvard University project in Nubia Dynasty by the king Senwosret III, and its location high atop a (Dunham 1967). Wheeler concentrated largely on the fortress

156 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) itself, which he almost entirely cleared down to bedrock. Con- is defined by a raised ridge of granite running approximately ditions were rough—it is still an isolated and difficult place to north–south, visible as four hills of varying heights. The lower- excavate—and Wheeler himself withdrew before the publication lying regions that are seasonally dry are now covered with silt, of his excavations, leaving that task to others. which in some years is farmed (fig. 3). A subsequent second wave of survey and excavation in Lower Archaeological remains are known from several parts of the Nubia was undertaken by a range of international missions in island. The northern and highest of the hills houses the for- the 1960s ahead of the waters that rose behind the Aswan High tress, basically triangular in plan, with a long spur wall reaching Dam to form the lake known in Egypt as Lake Nasser. This enor- north (fig. 4). The walls of the fortress are over 3 meters thick mous man-made body of water stretches across the Egyptian– and have regularly spaced massive bastions. Inside the fortress Sudanese border and is more or less precisely contiguous with are barracks, granaries, and administrative buildings. A stone- the 350 km stretch of the Nile fortified by the Egyptian Middle paved street runs down the middle of the fortress (fig. 5); other Kingdom kings; the lake retreats into a river again in the area of streets run inside the fortification walls and across the fort south Semna, now a quiet landscape but once a rushing cataract that of the administrative complex at the northern tip. The main gate squeezed the Nile and was the southern point of direct Middle to the fortress is on the south, adjacent to a partly protected set Kingdom control. Interpretive studies of the Middle Kingdom of outer buildings. Water stairs, now gone, once led down from occupation continued after the rising of the waters (see for in- the northern end of the fortress. The topography, which is ex- stance Smith 1995; Vogel 2004), but it was not expected that new tremely steep, made this a superbly defensible spot. Much of the data from the fortresses themselves would become available. original dumping from the fortress took place on the southern We can claim now to be in a growing third wave of investiga- slope. Some of this dump is still visible today, some has been lost tion of Egyptian control of Lower Nubia. Uronarti and Shalfak to inundation, and some is overlain by the dumps of the early were rediscovered in 2004 by Derek Welsby (Welsby 2004), and twentieth-century excavations. the Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project first took the field Additional scant remains were found by the first excavators of in 2012. Additional research has very recently resumed at Shalfak Uronarti on the remaining hilltops: no more than dry-stone ob- (Claudia Naeser, personal communication), and investigation of servation posts on the middle hills, but rather more substantial desert fortifications and mining sites as well as new analyses of (though sadly unrecorded) brick remains on the southernmost texts are providing additional context for understanding the re- hill. This hill was also the location of a monumental inscription lations between Middle Kingdom Egypt and Nubia (Harrell and of Senwosret III, now below the waterline. In between the two Mittelstaedt 2015; Kraemer and Liszka 2016). While the pres- southernmost hills, on a saddle of land that is now underwater at ence of the lake has had profound effect on the archaeology of all but the lowest of times, was a substantial mud-brick building, Lower Nubia, and the annual rise and fall of the waters continues regular in plan, that Wheeler excavated in just ten days. It has to reshape the landscape and the human uses of it, we need no traditionally been called the “campaign palace” in reference to longer consider this important area an archaeological dead zone. its presumed role as a temporary residence for the king while on military expeditions, but this interpretation is suspect. The Site of Uronarti Returning to Uronarti Uronarti was anciently an island, and is still so today at high water, though at low water one can walk to the west bank of the The goals of the Uronarti Regional Archaeological Proj- Nile. It originally measured some 1.1 km × .8 km (fig. 2); to- ect center on raising new questions that can be asked about day much of the land is permanently under water. The island Egyptian colonialism and interactions in light of advances in

administration building

barrack Houses

1

5 2 6 18 3 4 17 16

22 23 7 27 10 12 14 15 21 28 20 8 24 25 11 26 29 97 99 9 13 19 100 121

36 30 35 125 33 43 47 32 34 39 41 42 44 122 101

31 37 123 146 147 148 126 149 150 104 40 45 46 102 103 124 151

177 135 118 127 82 105 109 114 83 92 51 56 77 137 143 178 48 54 68 71 136 189 79 164 192 179 63 128 157 132 138 146 155 134 88 180 84 110 57 60 95 106 115 193 49 50 52 55 119 194 181 129 72 162 165 182 85 167 80 73 130 133 187 61 64 78 90 96 120 140 53 58 69 169 chapel 116 195 65 107 111 141 197 86 158 159 160 198 154 156 206 74 161 166 168 199 66 91 95 143 205 59 62 81 204 67 112 142 201 75 76 117 202 70 87 96 108 131 113 203 200

173

treasury ? barrack Houses

Figure 4. Plan of Uronarti. Drawing by AEGARON, http://dai.aegaron.ucla.edu/index.php/welcome/drawing/21198_zz002ch0q7/. The plan is based on the work of Wheeler. Recent excavations have shown that parts of it are inaccurate, but an updated plan of the whole fortress will take several seasons to complete.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) 157

Unfired brick Sandstone Granite Rubble Wood Hidden Edges Figure 5. Christian Knoblauch, co-founder of URAP, walking down the paved main street of Uronarti. archaeological technique and theory since the previous explora- Of more immediate benefit was the pedestrian survey, which tions of the fortresses. We are less concerned with the original has led to one of the main research initiatives of the subse- intent of the kings in building Uronarti than in how people lived quent two seasons, held for four weeks each in the winters of in this remote place where people of different backgrounds inter- 2013–2014 and 2015–2016. In addition to documenting use of acted. Three short seasons have so far demonstrated the poten- the known areas of the island, a previously unknown site was tial of this approach. found approximately 230 meters south of the gate to the fortress, A one-week season in the spring of 2012 was dedicated to across a gully. Ceramic surface finds suggested domestic Twelfth survey, including topographic mapping, pedestrian survey, and Dynasty Egyptian occupation, with suspiciously regular circles magnetometric survey of selected areas. The latter in particular of toppled rough stones indicating possible dry-stone hut archi- was found not to be useful at this site, which is characterized by tecture. This site was termed FC. Site FC was the initial focus of erosion rather than deposition at the fortress high on its rocky URAP excavation, with one unit opened in 2013–2014. A further outcrop, and deposit of thick alluvial soil in lower-lying areas three units were dug in FC in the 2015–2016 season, at which that are periodically flooded by the lake. There is some slight time two units within the fortress itself were also excavated. The possibility that magnetometry will be useful for finding struc- purpose of these excavations is primarily to allow us to contrast tures buried under this alluvium, as possibly shown in the re- contemporary lifestyles inside and outside the fortress walls, as gion of the so-called campaign palace (Knoblauch, Bestock, and well as to see changes over time in patterns of domestic life. We Makovics 2013: 105–7, 130); this has not yet been demonstrated are particularly interested in the fortresses as a place of cultural adequately and the logistics of ground-truthing potential survey interaction. What follows is a brief survey of what we have found positives of this sort are currently prohibitive, but the possibility and our initial interpretations of these finds. that this enigmatic structure, or the dumps from Wheeler’s ex- cavation of it, might still exist despite the risen waters make this Site FC location and technique worthy of further exploration. Site FC occupies the tops of two adjacent hillocks oriented north–south. The currently accessible areas of this site are just

158 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) Figure 6. The western part of Site FC prior to any excavations. The nature of the stone clusters is clearer from the air; the kite string is held from the most complex of the huts. above the high-water line, and excavations in 2015–2016 re- to construction. Insufficient quantities of stone remain for the vealed that some of the architecture had certainly been covered recovered walls to have been much over 50 centimeters high in by water and thin layers of recent alluvium. This, in addition to most cases; we tentatively suggest that these were not in fact full- pre-dam aerial photographs that show remains that can current- height walls but foundations for construction in lighter materi- ly be identified on the ground at Site FC but also further similar als, though so far no post holes have been found to confirm this remains over a wider area, suggest that the original extent of this suggestion. The rooms excavated so far are roughly circular and site may once have been much larger.2 Survey in FC has docu- measure between 2.5 and 4 meters in diameter. In one case a mented at least twenty-five clusters of stones tentatively identi- small hearth was excavated in the inner corner of a freestand- fied as the remains of rooms or huts (fig. 6). Some of these are ing hut (fig. 8); two small trash dumps with ash, faunal bone, freestanding and some contiguous. They are not arranged in any and broken ceramics were found outside this hut, but no other clear pattern; there are, for instance, no streets or squares visible evidence has yet suggested a use for the open areas of the site. in the layout of the site. Nowhere in Site FC is there considerable deposition, nor have Excavation has demonstrated that the stones are indeed re- we found recoverable stratigraphic sequences either in depos- mains of architecture, and that both freestanding structures its or in the relation of architectural phases. Building in rough and more complex configurations of rooms with doorways stone rather than mud brick, apparently short occupation, and between them were built in this area (fig. 7). Some intentional the windswept nature of the site are all likely contributors to the terracing of the natural, friable, bedrock was undertaken prior absence of stratigraphy. More recently, the intrusion of tree roots

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) 159 Figure 7. Three excavation units in a multiroom hut in eastern Site FC, 2015.

after the rise of the water and deposition of silt has disturbed the site. All of the ceramics recovered suggest Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian domestic assemblages. Both the fabrics and the wares found in surface sur- vey and excavation at Site FC are typical in this regard, with a particular preponderance of coarse silt vessels such as beer jars. The percent- age of both fine wares and diagnostics is low, the latter so much so as to perhaps suggest that storage vessels were used rimless in this loca- tion, having first served a purpose elsewhere. A number of sherds reworked as tools was exca- vated; other tools are absent from FC. Perhaps the most notable aspects of the ceramic assem- blage from Site FC are absences: in addition to a Figure 8. Plan of a general sense that the pots are worn, we notably single room hut at lack both Nubian sherds and bread molds from Site FC. Gray area the area associated with the dry-stone huts. BA indicates the hearth.

160 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) Excavations at the Fortress To date two units have been dug at the fortress—one a small unit in a dump left by the earlier excavators on top of the western outer wall, the second a larger unit designed to document the most badly denuded but ob- viously remodeled of the domestic areas within the fort (figs. 9 and 10). The results of the dump excavation dem- onstrated the degree to which Wheeler worked quickly and threw out objects we would prefer to collect; here we found a seal impression from a previously unattested seal, a fragment of a sandstone stela, and so much pot- tery that analysis was overwhelmed and we learned that statistical sampling will be necessary in any future ap- proaches to dump, whether ancient or from the twenti- eth century excavations. The unit in the domestic space of the fortress was of a very different nature (fig. 11). Almost, but not entirely, cleared to the ground by Wheeler (the remains of whose tea set we may have excavated), this area was of interest to us primarily for any changes it might show in archi- tectural plan over time. Initially laid out as a three-room unit of a type typical for the “barracks” at Uronarti and related to simple houses at other Middle Kingdom sites (Moeller 2016: 343–47), it had been modified in ways that reconfigured its rooms and expanded the structure to incorporate an area that had previously been an east– west street. Subphases to these two major configurations indicate that the process of remodeling was a more or less constant one, punctuated by the more thorough reimagining of space. While the walls in this particular Figure 9. Plan showing 2015 excavation units. unit are substantially less well preserved than the other

Figure 10. Excavating Unit CE in the old dump at the fortress. Dumping strategies are a particular challenge at such a steep site where the entire hilltop is covered with archaeological remains.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) 161 Figure 11. The area of Unit CC, reconfigured domestic space in the northern part of the fortress. Image exported from a 3D model.

162 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) Figure 12. Nubian ceramics from the fortress, including cooking pots with incised decoration, a sherd from a Kerma beaker, and a sherd of “golden ware,” a hybrid local ceramic type.

Interpreting Settlement Areas at Uronarti presumed barracks units within the fortress, it is also evident that the degree of remodeling seen here was unusual at Uronarti. Excavations at the fortress seem to show adaptations of the Subdivision of rooms and probably reassignment of purpose state planned initial settlement that led to more idiosyncratic, were not uncommon at the fort, but no other area shows such though still rectilinear, plans over time. Interpreting the ini- a degree of change. The blocking of the street by the construc- tial phase of use as residential is itself somewhat problematic tion of new walls is particularly notable as it would have changed (Moeller 2016: 345), but that its use changed over time does patterns of movement in the site as a whole. This blocking took seem clear even if none of its precise uses can be nailed down. place after considerable deposits had accumulated in the street. Two possible, and not contradictory, impetuses for such changes The stratified deposits under these walls are the only places we might be suggested. First, some units that are traditionally in- have yet seen that were not cleared to the ground by Wheeler. terpreted as residential “barracks” at Uronarti in the original

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) 163 configuration of the fortress certainly also served storage and of the garrison. No local population center is needed in such a administrative purposes in the later phases of use of the fort, reconstruction, as the Nile was certainly a conduit for Nubians as demonstrated by dense concentrations of seal impressions moving to the north and Uronarti a stop on that path and per- (Penacho 2015: 132–33). Whether or not this was always a func- haps sometimes a terminus in its own right. tion of the domestic spaces is not known, but the reconfigura- Interpreting Site FC and its possible relation to interactions tion of space in unit CC may relate to a shift from primarily do- is less straightforward. Who lived in these dry-stone huts, and mestic to primarily administrative function, particularly as that what were their relations to the fortress? Were they overflow sol- building is directly adjacent to the thick-walled administrative diers, not provided with housing by the state and so using local buildings and granaries in the north of the fort. Second, the for- materials to construct homes? Were they a support population— tress system as a whole seems likely to have undergone a shift for example, the women—for the garrison? Was FC a seasonal in the later Middle Kingdom from having rotating garrisons to fishing camp at high water? Were the inhabitants labor for build- supporting longer-term soldiers with their families (Vercoutter ing the fortress? What seems clear is that the occupants of FC 1970: 16; Vogel 2004: 116), and changes in architectural plan and were dependent upon the fortress and thus the larger Egyptian usage may reflect changing social structures. bureaucratic system; that they had easier access to the water than Nearly everything about the habitation at Site FC stands in those in the fortress; and that they lived a relatively poor lifestyle. contrast to that seen in the fortress itself. While the unit exca- Neither the presence of stone-hut architecture, more typical of vated at the fortress interests us particularly because it exhibits indigenous Nubian traditions than of Egyptian buildings, nor of changes made over time as needs shifted, there is no such indi- Egyptian ceramics is sufficient to be certain of the origins or eth- cation of major phases present in the dry stone huts at FC. The nic identity of FC’s inhabitants. Apparently C-Group cemeter- building material and overall organization are greatly different ies with entirely Egyptian ceramics are known from the region at these two locations. There is no indication of any site wall, (Mills 1973: 202–3), and Egyptian sites with dry-stone architec- either defensive or to define the boundaries of the settlement at ture are not infrequent, particularly ephemeral sites with special FC. No structures yet seen appear to be of markedly different purposes related to resource extraction or construction (Moeller nature than any others, with the only apparent distinction being 2016: 24–25). Returning to Uronarti offers glimpses of how com- between one-room huts and those that are clusters. This archi- plex the relationship between peoples, traditions of material cul- tectural style is more closely associated with indigenous Nubian ture, daily life, and this forbidding landscape could be. traditions than Egyptian construction techniques. The ceramics are a subset of those found at the fortress, possibly indicating de- Notes pendence on the fortress for provisions and certainly suggesting a different lifestyle. And yet, the ceramics are entirely Egyptian, 1. The Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project (URAP) was founded and they date not to the end point of occupation of the fortress in 2011 by the author and Christian Knoblauch (Austrian Academy of but rather to the high Twlfth Dynasty and the earliest phases of Science). Credit for all of the work and ideas described here is joint, use of Uronarti. though any mistakes are mine alone. The URAP operates under permit That the fortresses of Lower Nubia were locations of interac- from the Sudan National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, tion between indigenous (C-Group) populations and Egyptians and we are particularly grateful to Dr. Abdelrahman Ali Mohamed, El- . has never been in doubt. That this was an intent of the whole sys- Hassan Ahmed Mohamed, and our inspectors tem is clear even in royal documents; on a more mundane level, 2. It is unfortunately not possible to be certain that all structures seen it is born out by numerous C-Group settlements and cemeteries in the aerial photographs are contemporary with the remains excavated in the area of the fortresses, by Nubian ceramics at the fortresses, at FC. There was a modern village on Uronarti prior to the erection of by the development of hybrid forms of material culture, and by the dam, and historical memory regards this location on the island as a mixtures of architectural styles at such sites as Areika on the Nile place where animals were penned. While we have found no remaining (Wegner 1995) and in the eastern desert fortifications (Harrell traces of such modern use in the places accessible to us, it is possible and Mittelstaedt 2015). that additional structures visible in photographs such as figure 2 but The initial finds of the URAP fit into a still growing under- now lost were modern. standing of what interaction may have looked like and how we can recover it archaeologically. There is no known evidence of References a C-Group population either before or during the time of the Dunham, Dows. 1967. Second Cataract Forts. Vol. 2: Uronarti, Shalfak, fortresses on the island. Nonetheless, the material culture of Mirgissa: Excavated by G. A. Reisner and N. F. Wheeler. Bos- Uronarti is not straight-up Egyptian, as is also true at the other ton: Museum of Fine Arts. fortresses. At Uronarti fortress itself we find low-level but per- Emery, Walter B., H. S. Smith, and A. Millard. 1979. The Fortress at sistent presence of Nubian pottery, particularly cooking vessels Buhen: The Archaeological Report. Egypt Exploration Society, and the hybrid local “golden” ware, wheel-made with a sparkling Excavation Memoir 49. London: Egypt Exploration Society. micaceous slip, that appears only in connection with the Lower Eyre, Christopher J. 1990. The Semna Stelae: Quotation, Genre, and Nubian fortresses (fig. 12; Knoblauch 2011: 167–83). It is not Functions of Literature. Pp. 134–65 in Studies in Egyptology difficult to imagine the acquisition of vessels and presumably the adoption of some foodways from closer at hand on the part

164 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 80.3 (2017) Presented to Miriam Lichtheim. Edited by Sarah Israelit-Groll. Moeller, Nadine. 2016. The Archaeology of Urbanism in Ancient Egypt: 2 vols. Jerusalem: Magnes. From the Predynastic Period to the End of the Middle Kingdom. Harrell, James A., and Robert E. Mittelstaedt. 2015. Newly Discovered New York: Cambridge University Press. Middle Kingdom Forts in Lower Nubia. Sudan & Nubia 19: Penacho, Susan. 2015. Deciphering Sealing Practices at Uronarti and 30–39. : A Spatial Analysis of the Built Environment and Indi- Knoblauch, Christian. 2011. Not All That Glitters: A Case Study of vidual Sealers. PhD diss., University of Chicago. Regional Aspects of Egyptian Middle Kingdom Pottery Pro- Smith, Stuart Tyson. 1995. Askut in Nubia: The Economics and Ide- duction in Lower Nubia and the Second Cataract. Cahier de la ology of Egyptian Imperialism in the Second Millennium B.C. céramique égyptienne 9: 167–83. Studies in Egyptology. London: Kegan Paul. Knoblauch, Christian, L.aurel Bestock, and Alexander Makovics. Vercoutter, Jean. 1970. Mirgissa I. Paris: Direction générale des rela- 2013. The Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project: Final tions culturelles, scientifiques et techniques. Report of the 2012 Survey. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archä- Vogel, Carola. 2004. Ägyptische Festungen und Garnisonen bis zum eologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 69: 103–42. Ende des Mittleren Reiches. Hildesheimer ägyptologische Bei- Kraemer, Bryan, and Kate Liszka. 2016. Evidence for Administration träge 46. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg. of the Nubian Fortresses in the Late Middle Kingdom: The Wegner, Josef W. 1995. Regional Control in Middle Kingdom Lower Semna Dispatches. Journal of Egyptian History 9: 1–65. Nubia: The Function and History of the Site of Areika. Journal Mills, Anthony. 1973. The Archaeological Survey from Gemai to Dal: of the American Research Center in Egypt 32: 127–60. Report on the 1965–66 Season. Kush 15: 200–210. Welsby, Derek. 2004. Hidden Treasures of Lake Nubia. Sudan & Nubia 8: 103–4.

Laurel Bestock is an associate professor of Egyptology and Archaeology at Brown University. In addition to co-directing excavations at Uronarti, Sudan, she has worked extensively at the site of Abydos in Egypt. Her interests include early Egyptian kingship as well as colonial encounters, and she has recently completed a book titled Violence and Power in Ancient Egypt: Images and Ideology before the New Kingdom.

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