Kush: Encyclopedia II - Kush - Decline

Kush - Decline

The decline of Kush is hotly debated. A diplomatic mission in Nero's reign travelled to Meroe; (Pliny the Elder, N.H. 6.35). After the 2nd century AD the royal tombs began to shrink in size and splendour, and the building of large monuments seems to have ceased. The royal pyramid burials halted altogether in the middle 4th century AD. The archeological record shows a cultural shift to a new society known as the X-Group, or Ballana culture. Examinations of skeletal remains shows that physically the people remained the same despite these changes.

This corresponds closely to the traditional theory that the kingdom was destroyed by the invasion by Ezana of Axum from the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum around 350. However, the Ethiopian account seems to be describing the quelling of a rebellion in lands they already controlled. It also refers only to the Nuba, and makes no mention of the rulers of Meroe.

Many historians thus theorize that these Nuba are the same people the Romans called the Nobatae. Strabo reports that when the Roman empire pulled out of northern Nubia in 272, they invited the Nobatae to fill the power vacuum. The other important elements were the Blemmyes, likely ancestors of the Beja. They were desert warriors who threatened the Roman possessions and thereby contributed to the Roman withdrawal to more defensible borders. In the end of the 4th c. AD they managed to control a part of the Nile valley around Kalabsha in Lower Nubia.

By the sixth century, new states had formed in the area that had once been controlled by Meroe. It seems almost certain that the Nobatae evolved into the state of Nobatia, and were also behind the Ballana culture and the two other states that arose in the area, Makuria and Alodia were also quite similar. The Beja meanwhile were expelled, back into the desert by the Nuba kings around 450 AD. These new states of Nubia inherited much from Kush, but were also quite different. They spoke Old Nubian and wrote in a modified version of the Coptic alphabet; Meroitic and its script seemed to disappear completely.

The origin of the Nuba/Nobatae who replaced Meroe is uncertain. They may have been nomadic invaders from the west who conquered and imposed their culture and language on the settled peoples. P.L. Shinnie has speculated that the Nobatae were in fact indigenous and were natives of the Napata region who had been dominated by Meroitic leaders for centuries, and that the word Nobatae is directly related to Napata.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Decline", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki