the gold of meroe The Metropolitan Museum of Art November 23,1993-April 3,1994 EGYPT lower nubia Qasr Ibrim Abu Simbcl Second (Cataract Solch Third Cataract S U D A N 100 mil meroe, kingdom on the nile 270 B.C.-A.I). 350 climate trade ancient world relations Nubia and Egypt, neighbors along the Nile Meroe's location at the convergence of a In the ancient world, the kingdom ofMeroe in northeastern Africa, have long been closely network of caravan roads with Upper Nile existed as an independent state at the borders linked by similar living conditions, but the River trade routes made it East Africa's most of the Hellenistic world and later the Roman Nubian climate is by far the harsher. Restricted important center of trade. Goods traveling empire. There were clashes between the largely to narrow strips of arable land along north into Egypt and the Mediterranean were Meroites and both these world powers, chiefly the riverbanks and confined cast and west age-old African products: gold, ebony, and over control of Lower Nubia. But the Meroites by waterless deserts, Nubia's inhabitants (in ivory. In addition, evidence suggests, Meroites stood their ground, and the largest part of modern southern Egypt and Sudan) live under had a hand in procuring elephants for the war Lower Nubia remained under their control, a scorching sun and with relentless desert machines of the Hellenistic world. For their with Roman influence terminating south winds. Somewhat different living conditions own markets, Meroites manufactured richly of Dakka. prevail in Nubia's deep south where increased decorated cotton textiles, graceful ceramic summer rainfall and seasonal river flow create vessels, bronze and iron objects, and luxury the end a steppe environment (Butana Steppe). It is goods. The accumulated wealth enabled the In the fourth century A.D., the kingdom here, on the east bank of the Nile, roughly Meroites to import from the Mediterranean of Meroe disintegrated and vanished in the 125 miles north of present-day Khartoum, that and Egypt precious metal and glass vessels, population shifts that took place in Africa, the city ofMeroe was situated. ceramics, and wine. Asia, and Europe during Late Antiquity. A new center of power had by that time founding of the kingdom society developed south of Meroe, around Axum The kingdom ofMeroe evolved from the Meroitic society was remarkably urbanized. in Ethiopia. preceding kingdom of Napata (ca. 800-270 Scholars have suggested that, at least in the B.C.) with no fundamental cultural break later part of Meroe's history, a sizable middle between them. Meroe had been an important class participated in the country's wealth. city before, even serving as Nubia's capital However, palaces and pyramids built for the from around 500 B.C. But it was not until ca. rulers, their families, and court personnel 270 B.C., when King Arkamani-qo (Greek: attest to the presence of a strong ruling class. Ergamenes I) transferred the royal burial One of the great achievements of these rulers place to a mountain ridge near Meroe, that appears to have been the balance they the Meroitic phase of the kingdom of Kush maintained between secular and religious (the ancient name for Nubia) is said to have powers. Nevertheless, the priesthood of Amun definitely begun. at the traditional temple site of Gebel Barkal (Napata) continued to wield considerable influence on Meroitic society. queen amanishakheto ca. 41-12 B.C. ruler in her own right amanishakheto's palace Women played an important role in the A more personal-view of the queen can be the Roman prefect of Egypt took his army Meroitic kingdom. Among forty-four rulers glimpsed through knowledge of one of her into Upper Nubia and destroyed Napata. buried under pyramids at Meroe, nine were palaces, at Wad Ban Naga, 40 miles south of Eventually a treaty was negotiated on the female. Some of these queens bore the full Meroe. The palace, which is roughly 200 feet Aegean island of Samos between the emperor title of a ruler (Meroitic: qore) in addition to square, was built of mud brick; the exterior Augustus and emissaries of the queen of their title kandake ("queen mother"; modern was faced with burnt brick and stuccoed. On Meroe. It stipulated that the Romans were to name Candace). As attested by the state rings the ground floor a columned entrance hall retain their domination over only the northern among Amanishakheto's jewelry, each ruler was surrounded by rectangular vaulted store­ part of Lower Nubia while the kingdom of was believed to have been born from a union rooms. When the palace was excavated in Meroe was to remain independent. of the kandake with Meroe's supreme god, 1958-60, one storeroom still contained the Amun. This conferred divinity not only on ebony and ivory supplies stored there for the In the course of his narrative, the Greek the ruler but also on his mother. In cases of a queen. The living quarters were located on historian Strabo describes the queen of Meroe king's minority or other situations unknown the second floor. Columns with composite as "... a masculine sort of woman and blind to us, the kandake became a co-ruler with capitals adorned with triple rams' heads of in one eye." the king. In other instances kandakes ruled in Amun supported the ceilings of some of the their own right. Amanishakheto was a ruler apartments. Gilded stucco reliefs depicted the queen's pyramid in her own right. the queen performing rituals, and terracotta Amanishakheto was buried on the traditional figures of lions and falcons stood about the Meroitic stone bench in a subterranean inscriptions rooms. The remains of furniture included chamber of the chapel in front of her pyramid Amanishakheto, whose reign probably coin­ bronze inlay plaques, one bearing the image in the North cemetery at Meroe. Robbers cided with the last years of the famous Queen of a toad in relief. later plundered her burial site, leaving below Cleopatra of Egypt, is one of a small number ground only a group of broken musical of Meroitic rulers whose names appear on the clash with the romans instruments: at least nine, and perhaps twelve, monuments other than their pyramids. In Most scholars date the queen's reign to wind instruments made of ivory encased in 13 B.C. a Greek inscription honoring the 41-12 B.C. Therefore, Amanishakheto, and bronze. Were these instruments played at the queen was carved into a wall of the temple of not her predecessor Queen Amanirenas, as has funeral of the queen? Dakka, in Lower Nubia. At Kawa, Upper also been suggested, would have reigned in Nubia, she dedicated additions or renovations 24 B.C. Ancient Greek and Roman historians The ancient robbers failed to find the queen's to a temple originally built by the great have described how in this year the Meroites jewelry, which was deposited high up in the Napatan king Taharqa (690-664 B.C.). conquered Lower Nubia. In a counterattack pyramid's masonry core. the discovery of the jewelry and the manner of its disposition ferlini's report the niche Ferlini reports that the opening exposed by his Various points are not clear in this report. workmen "was formed of poorly laid stones For instance, Ferlini does not say at what and permitted ... a dim view into a cavity exact distance from the top of the pyramid and its contents [in the rubble filling of the the chamber was located. We do not know, pyramid]. the large blocks that lay above therefore, whether the small niche seen in the it [we] removed, exposing a rectangular casing near the top of the pyramid (see large chamber whose four walls consisted of large image at left) is situated at the same height blocks that were parallel to the steps of the as the chamber. The niche is not open at the outer surface of the pyramid. back and thus certainly does not frame an entrance, but it might still have symbolically "The chamber was roughly five feet high and marked the place of the hidden chamber. six or seven feet square. The first thing we saw was a large object covered with a white the shrine cloth of cotton or linen, which fell into shreds Most questions concern the nature of the at the mere touch. Beneath it there emerged a wooden structure described by Ferlini as four-sided bed or bier [in the French version a bed, bier, table, or altar. Scholars have of his report Ferlini calls it a "kind of table or concluded that according to known funerary 1834 altar"], supported by four smooth feet shaped customs of the Nile valley the structure The jewelry of Queen Amanishakheto was like round staves and with sides formed of was most probably a shrine whose roof was discovered in 1834 by the Italian physician numerous pieces of wood, alternating large supported at the corners by slender columns Giuseppe Ferlini in a hidden chamber near the and small, depicting symbolic figures. Under (the "staves"), and whose sides were formed top of the queen's pyramid. With archaeology this 'bier' I found a [bronze] vase, which by a latticework of Hathor columns and then in its infancy, Ferlini left only a verbal contained objects wrapped in cloth of the other unknown emblems (see drawing at report of the position of the objects as he same type as the above-mentioned. left). Since shrines of the type constructed found them. The drawing above illustrates for Amanishakheto's jewelry were used in Ferlini's verbal report, using for the reconr "On the floor of the chamber next to the Egypt to enclose the remains of the deceased's struction of the wooden shrine contemporary vase lay bits of glass paste and stones strung body, one might argue that Amanishakheto's models of Egyptian wooden shrines.