Tracing Settlers' Footsteps

A Perspective from the Meroitic Cemetery of Amir Abdallah

Abstract

The present paper aims to gain deeper insights into the history of the Meroitic kingdom, an ancient state that flourished between the third century BC and the fourth century AD and ruled over the Nile Valley south of Egypt. Particular attention is paid to the problem raised by William Adams, who, in 1976, differentiated between the northern and the southern provinces of the kingdom and, most significantly, concluded that the former left no archaeological remains before the Late Meroitic period. This would mean that the northern province was entirely uninhabited throughout the first millennium BC. However, as László Török has observed, this conclusion seems to be increasingly contradicted by archaeological discoveries. The present paper attempts to further the discussion of this question by investigating the cemetery of Amir Abdallah, one of the few Meroitic sites which are radiocarbon-dated to the first centuries BC. Despite the lack of textual evidence, a close examination of archaeological materials reveals that this cemetery was part of an important Early Meroitic local community—possibly associated also with the nearby cemetery at Missiminia—and that based on the typological features of the graves, the resettlement appears to have taken place with the arrival of the inhabitants from the south. Thus, there is clear evidence of Kushite activity in the northern province at this time.