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The Image of Christian Nubian Rulers in Internal and External Sources

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The Image of Christian Nubian Rulers in Internal and External Sources Adam Łajtar, Grzegorz Ochała AChristian King in Africa: The Imageof Christian Nubian RulersinInternal and External Sources 1Introduction: Christian Nubia and her Inhabitants The term “Nubia” designates the middle part of the Nile Valley to the south of the First Cataract.Ithas an ethno-linguistic character,asitoriginates from the name of an ethnicgroup which inhabited the land in question since the beginning of the Christian era. Members of this group, who still inhabit some parts of the Middle Nile Valley,call themselves Nubians and speak Nubian languages from the Nilo-Sa- haran languagefamily.¹ The Nubians seem to have arrivedinthe Nile Valley around the beginning of Romanrule in Egypt,but we hear about them in the written sources onlyinlate antiquity,when, taking advantage of the fall of the Meroitic kingdom in the mid-fourthcentury,they formed their own kingdoms: Nobadiainthe north,be- tween the First and the Third Nile Cataracts, with FarasorQasr Ibrim as the capital; Alwa (sometimes referred to as Alodia) in the south, beyond the Fifth Cataract,with the capital in Soba; and Makuria in between, with Dongola as the capital.² At acer- tain moment,probablyinthe first half of the seventh century,the northern kingdom, Nobadia, was incorporatedinto its southern neighbour,Makuria, and ceased to exist as an independent entity.Before this happened, all three kingdoms accepted Chris- We would like to thankthe organisers of the conference Images of the Good Christian Ruler forin- vitingustoparticipateinthisvolume, even though neitherofustookpartinthe event. Our thanks go also to Giovanni Ruffini who kindly agreedtoimprovethe English of thispaper.Throughoutour text, we use the following abbreviations: DBMNT =Database of Medieval Nubian Texts (http://www. dbmnt.uw.edu.pl); I. Khartoum Copt. =J.van der Vliet, Catalogue of the Coptic Inscriptions in the Sudan NationalMuseum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Copt.) [= Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 121], Leuven – Paris – Dudley,MA2003; I. Khartoum Greek =A.Łajtar, Catalogue of the Greek Inscriptions in the Sudan National Museum at Khartoum (I. Khartoum Greek) [= Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 122], Leuven – Paris – Dudley,MA2003; P. QasrIbrim III =G.M.Browne, Old Nubian TextsfromQasr Ibrim III [= Egypt Exploration Society.TextsfromExcavations 12], London 1991. ForNubians and Nubia, with focus on their medievalhistory,see W. Y. Adams, Nubia, Corridor to Africa,Princeton – London 1977, passim,especially433– 546,and D.A. Welsby, TheMedieval King- doms of Nubia. Pagans,Christiansand Muslims along the Middle Nile,London 2002. In fact,the written sources refer onlytothe formation of Nobadia (for which see, most recently, A. Obłuski, The Rise of Nobadia. Social Changes in Northern Nubia in Late Antiquity [= JJP Supplement 3], Warsaw2014). Archaeological evidenceforms the main bodyofevidencefor the formation of the other twokingdoms. OpenAccess. ©2021 Adam Łajtar,Grzegorz Ochała, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725612-017 362 Adam Łajtar,Grzegorz Ochała tianity as the new state religion.³ The process of Christianisation of Nubia is poorly known to us. John of Ephesus, who is our main sourceofinformation, speaksofthree evangelisation missions, which werecarried out mainlywith Egyptian forces and means, though at least partlywith the emperor’sawareness and consent.The first and second missions, which took place in the years 542–545and 569 –575respective- ly,reachedNobadia, while the third one, launched in the 580s, was headed for Alwa. Makuria was most probablyChristianised in aseparate missionary undertaking ap- proximatelyatthe same time as the second mission to Nobadia. The Christianisation of the Nubian kingdoms stronglyimpacted the Middle Nile Valley as the whole re- gion incorporated Eastern Christianity’sculture, includingits patterns of literary and visual culture, organisation of the state, ideologyofpower,and social behaviour. The Nubian Christian kingdoms survivedinthe Middle Nile Valley for almost amil- lennium. Makuria was divided in the fourteenth century into several petty kingdoms, which could have retainedtheirChristian character for acertain period. One of them, situated in the Second Cataract region,survivedasaChristian state until at least the end of the fifteenth century,orevenaslong as the Ottoman conquest of northern Nubia in the 1570s. Alwa ceased to exist in the first half of the sixteenth century under pressurefrom the Muslim Funj people, who weremoving down the Blue Nile. Itscapital, Soba, was captured by the Funj warriorsin1504. 2The Sources We learn about the history and culture of the Christian Nubian kingdoms from two kinds of sources: internal and external. The internal sources, the amount of which is constantlyincreasing thanks to archaeologicalresearch, includematerial remains of human settlements and graves, sacred buildings with their decoration, objects of everydayuse, as well as several thousand texts,both literaryand documentary,in Greek, Sahidic Coptic, Old Nubian, and Arabic.⁴ External sources are almostexclu- sively texts,mainlyliterary, composed for the most part in Arabic, and to alesser de- gree in Coptic, Greek, Syriac, and Gәʿәz.⁵ While the latter group are all of Christian provenience, the formeroriginatefrom both Muslim and Christian milieus. The inter- Forthe Christianisation of Nubian kingdoms,see S. G. Richter, Studien zurChristianisierung Nu- biens [= Sprachen und Kulturen des christlichen Orients 11], Wiesbaden 2002;J.H.F.Dijkstra, Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion. ARegional Study of Religious Transformation (298–642 ce) [= Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 173], Leuven – Paris – Dudley,MA2008, 271–304. Forthe written heritage of Christian Nubia with respect to the form and contents of texts, see G. Ochała, “Multilingualism in Christian Nubia: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches”, Dotawo 1 (2016), 1–50. Those sourceswere collectedand translatedinto English by G. Vantini, Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia,Heidelberg – Warsaw1975; the collection has recentlybeen digitised and published online at <http://www.medievalnubia.info/dev/index.php/Giovanni_Vantini%27s_Oriental_Sources_Con cerning_Nubia>. AChristian King in Africa 363 nal sources are of considerablygreater importance than the external ones. They are not onlymorenumerous and more variable, but also more credible as genuine prod- ucts of Christian Nubian culture. The external sources have in turn serious weakness- es in that they onlytransmit the perception of adistant land in the Middle Nile Valley by members of other cultures and hence they are not infrequentlytendentious. The sources at our disposal are, unfortunately, not very eloquent as far as Nubian kingship is concerned. Amongthe internal sources thereisnot even asingle example of ahistoriographic work about the Nubians’ own history and the role of kingsinit; the Nubians most probablydid not know this literarygenre. Likewise, we find no texts in which the ruler’sduties,prerogatives, modi operandi,etc. are clearlydefined and described. What we have are official documents, scarcethough they are, which wereproduced by the royal chancery and reveal kingsinaction in particularmatters. Definitelymore numerous are pieces of information about individual rulers, namely their namesand titles preserved in dating formulae of different types of texts ranging from legal deeds to buildingand commemorative inscriptions. Moreover,weknow a dozen or so full-scale royal portraits painted on walls of cult places.⁶ In several cases, the portraits are supplied with legends identifying the depicted persons. Some examples of informal depictions of rulersalso exist,such as graffiti on walls of buildings and decoration of pottery vessels. In Dongola, the capital of Ma- kuria, the Polish archaeological mission has discovered amassive storied building of residential character,probablyaroyal palace.⁷ Another construction in the samesite, whose essential part is ahypostyle hall located on the first floor,istraditionallyin- terpreted as athrone hall of the Makurian kings.⁸ The external sources provide much more detailed information about the Nubian rulers, the character of their authority, modi operandi,their actions, individual personality features,etc. However,serious limitations of these sources (see below)must be always kept in mind when ap- proachingChristian Nubian history through them. It should be emphasised here that the majority of accessiblesources is relatively late. Dated between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, they are formallyoutside of the scope of this volume.We nev- ertheless have decided to use them extensively,because in manyacase these late narrations are clearlybased on much earlier sources;⁹ also, it maybeassumed that the phenomena described in the late period most probablyoriginated in the On depictionsofChristian Nubian rulers,see M. Woźniak, Iconographie des souverains et des dig- nitairesdelaNubie chrétienne: les vêtements d’apparat,unpublished PhD dissertation, Université Paris-IV,Paris 2013. W. Godlewski, Dongola – Ancient Tungul. ArchaeologicalGuide [= PCMA Archaeological Guide 1], Warsaw2013,24–29. Godlewski (cf. fn. 7) 42– 47. Thus,for example, Al-Maqrizi, apolymath fromCairo (1364–1442), copied in extenso the descrip- tion of Nubia composed in the tenth century by amerchant and diplomat IbnSelim al-Aswani. ForAl- Aswani and his description of Nubia, see G. Troupeau,
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