Meroitic Period and retainer sacrifice in ancient Nubia

Meroë in ancient Nubia, superseded Napata as the capital of the Kingdom of Kush under King Aspelta in about 591 BCE. Meroe's wealth was centered around a strong iron industry, as well as international trade in jewelry, pottery and textiles involving India and China. Meroitic metal workers engaged in both iron and Nubia's longstanding gold production were considered among the best in the world. The kingdom thrived until the 4th century CE and numerous kings and queens were buried in Meroë's royal cemeteries. 

The remains of Meroë were rediscovered by a French mineralogist Frédéric Cailliaud who published an illustrated folio in 1821. The first formal expedition led by Giuseppe Ferlini was launched in 1834. Ferlini primarily recovered mostly jewelry items which are now in the collections of museums in Berlin and Munich.  Then in 1844, C.R. Lepsius examined the ruins and produced plans and sketches of the site. These inspired E. A. Wallis Budge to lead an expedition to Meroë in 1902 and 1905. His finds were transferred to the British Museum. This was followed by excavations led by John Garstang of the University of Liverpool in 1910.

In 1931, British Egyptologist Walter Bryan Emery excavated the Ballana cemetery in Lower Nubia and uncovered 122 tombs dating from 350 to 600 CE.  In addition to objects of Nubian origin, there were many objects imported from Byzantine Egypt and other trading centers around the Mediterranean. His team found  royal crowns, horses, and servants buried with their masters.  

One of the most lavish burials was found in tomb 118 which consisted of a main burial chamber and two storage rooms.  Fortunately, the tomb's roof had collapsed so was apparently overlooked by looters. The body of the person buried there was found on a bier. It was most likely that of a king. Upon his head was found a crown. Under the bier, were the remains of a large wooden gaming board, weapons and an iron folding chair. There were also skeletons of a young male servant and a cow. In the two storerooms, more skeletons of servants, as well as pottery and several bronze lamps were discovered.

Human sacrifice was a longstanding tradition of Nubian civilization.  During the Classic Kerma Period (1700–1550 BCE), funerary monuments of Kerman kings could be up to one hundred meters long and included hundreds of sacrificed individuals.  One of the largest Kerma burials contained the remains of 322 individuals, most them female.  Archaeologist George Reisner speculated that the women could have been members of the royal harem.

The practice of retainer sacrifice appears to have abated while Nubia was under the rule of Egypt during the New Kingdom period and the reign of the 25th dynasty during the Third Intermediate Period.  But the sacrifice of retainers was revived when the royal cemetery was moved south to Meroë during the reign of Arkamaniqo (270-260 BCE).  At least 16 royal tombs including those of five kings, a queen, a prince, and eight of unknown status dating to as late as the 1st century BCE contained human sacrificial victims. I hope none of them were members of Gaius Petronius' retaliatory force!

Image: Nubian royal crown from the royal cemetery at Ballana Tomb 118 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor John Campana (digitally enhanced)

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Africans in Greek and Roman Art

 The Bronze Age Minoans of Crete were probably the first Greeks to come into contact with Ethiopians, a Greek name meaning those with "burnt" faces.  The tomb of Rekhmire, governor of Thebes and vizier during the reigns of the pharaohs Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II, circa 1400 BCE, includes one of the earliest depictions of both African and Aegean peoples, thought to be Nubians and Minoans.  However, the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age severed Greek connections with Egypt and even the Near East.

Trade between the Greeks and the northern periphery of Africa finally resumed in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE including the establishment of trading centers along the Nile and at Cyrene on the northern coast of Africa. Then depictions of Africans began to appear in Aegean art.

All black Africans were known as Ethiopians to the ancient Greeks, as the fifth-century BCE historian Herodotus tells us, with their black skin color being the primary identifying physical characteristic. The black glaze central to Athenian vase painting was ideally suited for representing black skin and archaeologists have also recovered black African comic masks used in the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

By the 4th century BCE, Ethiopians were regularly featured in Greek vase painting, especially on the highly decorative red-figure vases produced by the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia, although depictions of Ethiopians in scenes of everyday life were still rare.  However, after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, knowledge of Nubia became more widespread as Greeks and Africans lived together in metropolitan centers like Alexandria.

As a result, African imagery in Greek art expanded  and Ethiopians were frequently depicted as athletes and entertainers. African artisans became subjects of artwork, too,  as well as some African slaves captured during wartime or through piracy.  Images of "Ethiopians" began to appear on gold jewelry and fine bronze statuettes like the one included here from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Read more about it and view additional artifacts at:

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/afrg/hd_afrg.htm

Bronze lamp in the shape of a Nubian head Pompeii Roman 1st century CE that I photographed at "Pompeii: The Exhibition" at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oregon.

Roman portrait of a man with African attributes carved with a turned head and redirected gaze in the style of Caracalla 230-240 CE photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Bronze lamp in the shape of a Nubian head found near the Porta Nola in Pompeii Roman 1st century CE that I photographed at "Pompeii: The Exhibit" at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington.

Head of a Man with tight, curly hair, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 100 BCE Marble that I photographed at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York.

Terracotta vase in the form of a sleeping African boy Cypriot 3rd-2nd century BCE from Cyprus that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta vase combining the distinctive neck of the Shape VII oinochoe with a naturalistic head of a young black-African boy Etruscan 4th century BCE  that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Terracotta vase with janiform heads (left) and terracotta mug in the form a black African boy's head Etruscan late 4th century BCE that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Head of a Young Roman Boy probably from North Africa 150-200 CE Marble that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

Bronze statuette of an African (known as Ethiopian) youth, 3rd–2nd century BCE courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The distinctive garment is characteristic of artisans, especially those working in the heat of a foundry, forge, or brazier. If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Review: The Legion by Simon Scarrow

"The Legion" is the second book by Simon Scarrow I have read although it is the tenth in Scarrow's "Under the Eagle" series.  I admit I have not read its immediate predecessor "Gladiator" but I had no problem picking up the story line with the background information provided.

The other Scarrow book I read was Centurion and in it, Cato and Macro were both Centurions.  From reading other reviews, I gather that in previous novels, Macro has been the experienced teacher and Cato the young up-and-coming protégé.  In this book the relationship has changed significantly and Cato now holds the superior rank of prefect.

The two heroes are in pursuit of a nasty former gladiator named Ajax who led a slave revolt on Crete following an earthquake and tsunami.

Historically, there have been only three major Roman slave revolts documented by ancient historians - two on the island of Sicily and the famous revolt led on the Italian mainland by a Thracian slave turned gladiator named Spartacus.  Scarrow may have used these revolts to  inform his fictional narrative of a similar revolt on Crete.  Appian mentions a conflict on Crete at about the same time as the Spartacan revolt (a century before the reign of Claudius which is the time frame Scarrow uses for his "Under the Eagle" series) but I could not find anything definitive pointing to a slave uprising on Crete at the time or in a later period.

Scarrow may have pulled his villain from the first Sicilian revolt, though, that occurred on the island of Sicily from 136 - 132 BCE.  It was led by a Syrian slave named Eunus, whose reputation included an aptitude for magic and foretelling the future.  Diodorus Siculus tells us:

"...he not only gave oracles by means of dreams, but even made a pretence of having waking visions of the gods and of hearing the future from their own lips.

Of his many improvisations some by chance turned out true, and since those which failed to do so were left unchallenged, while those that were fulfilled attracted attention, his reputation advanced apace. Finally, through some device, while in a state of divine possession, he would produce fire and flame from his mouth, and thus rave oracularly about things to come.

For he would place fire, and fuel to maintain it, in a nut -- or something similar -- that was pierced on both sides; then, placing it in his mouth and blowing on it, he kindled now sparks, and now a flame. Prior to the revolt he used to say that the Syrian goddess appeared to him, saying that he should be king, and he repeated this, not only to others, but even to his own master." - Diodorus Siculus, Library, Books 34/35. 2. 1-48  

Apparently, Eunus, also called Antiochus, was not taken seriously at first and was used as entertainment at dinner parties.  But his ruthlessness was soon revealed when he was asked to lead 400 slaves against the city of Enna where his men "found their way into the houses shedding much blood, sparing not even suckling babes."

As Eunus' victories over the Romans grew more numerous, thousands of slaves flocked to his banner, much like Spartacus.  Eunus was eventually crowned king by the rebels and among those appointed to his royal council was an Achaean (Greek) who was known for his intelligence and military acumen.  Perhaps it was this Achaen that provided the model for Scarrow's rebel leader, Ajax.

Roman War Galleys were frequent subjects of Pompeii frescoes 1st century CE.
Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico in Naples, Italy by Mary Harrsch.

However, in Scarrow's novel, Ajax and his men, instead of meeting their end on the island as Eunus and Achaeus' men did, have hijacked a Roman ship and are sailing around the Mediterranean wreaking havoc, slaughtering most of the people they encounter and leaving only lone survivors here and there that have been so badly tortured they usually expire shortly after telling their rescuers that they were slaughtered by a Roman named Macro.  Of course this infuriates Macro and raises the stakes as it becomes apparent Ajax is heading for Egypt.

Arriving in Alexandria, Cato and Macro are hauled off to prison and must convince the governor of Ajax's ruse before the governor crucifies Macro.  Fortunately for Macro, one tortured survivor, an Egyptian priest, convinces the governor that Macro was not the man who butchered his fellow priests.  So the governor releases Cato and Macro and they set off in pursuit of Ajax once again with the recovered priest as guide.
But Ajax continues to elude them, slipping through one trap after the next, until the governor interrupts their chase and orders the pair to the Egyptian frontier to help fend off an invading Nubian army.  When Macro and Cato arrive, the governor's commander is acting strangely and our two heroes discover Ajax has joined the Nubians.  Now they must find a way to defeat the Nubians to end Ajax's reign of terror.

Scarrow has crafted a well-paced plot but like "Centurion", I found the characterizations of Cato and Macro quite thin.  I thought carefully about what was missing in the narrative that made the protagonists seem so flat and I realized Scarrow never gives us any insight into their thoughts.  He relates their actions but it's like viewing their activities through binoculars without any insight to what they are thinking.

I thought back on Harry Sidebottom's novels and his protagonist, the Anglo-Saxon born Roman officer, Ballista.  We hear Ballista praying to his "All Father, Death Bringer".  We experience the horror of one of his nightmarish visions of the Emperor Maximinus Thrax who always promises to see Ballista again at Aqualeia where Ballista originally broke his oath and assassinated the brutish emperor.  Dr. Sidebottom describes each character's body language, the complex emotions reflected on their faces and the way members of Ballista's familia banter with each other, filled with recollections of past battles, mistakes and triumphs as well as an understanding of each others fears.

The only indication of the depth of friendship between Cato and Macro in "The Legion" occurs when Macro touches the shoulder of his friend with concern when Cato has been wounded after a skirmish with Ajax.   I was actually appalled by a scene where an individual who has fought beside Cato and Macro is suspected of being an "embedded" spy and Cato and Macro coldly decide to crucify him in the morning without even listening to his side of the story.  Talk about cold and unfeeling!

I also did not feel immersed in the culture or geography of Egypt, the novel's setting, either.  Cato and Macro could have been in any desert.  I felt no sense of being there like I have when reading Sidebottom's books or those by Conn Iggulden (I just finished "Conqueror", a retelling of the ascension of Kublai Khan to the throne of the Mongol Empire).  I know both Sidebottom and Iggulden have traveled extensively to the locations described in their books and the realism they impart when describing the settings is palpable. Sidebottom also has a doctorate in ancient history from Oxford that is reflected in the depth of information he provides about each of Ballista's surroundings and opponents as he battles his way across the Near East of the third century.   What little information Scarrow gives about the Nubians, Cato and Macro's final opponents is sparse at best.

Mosaic Pavement Depicting a Nile Scene from the Maccarani vineyard 

area of the Aventine Hill Roman 2nd century CE. Photographed at the 

Palazzo Massimo by Mary Harrsch. 

Also, at one point in Scarrow's story Cato and Macro chase Ajax into the treacherous marshes of the Egyptian delta and during the pursuit, they hear something swishing past them in the water.  Macro explains it is probably a crocodile but demonstrates no real depth of fear that should have been generated by a close encounter with a ferocious creature depicted in Roman Nilotic mosaics and well known for ripping less fortunate creatures apart in Roman arenas.  It is passages like this that blunt the tension in the narrative.  If Scarrow had one of his protagonists relate a memory of seeing such a beast wreaking devastation during a numachia or something, it would have elevated the tension during the hunt and brought significantly more impact to the novel's conclusion.

I checked out Scarrow's website and he shares it with his brother Alex.  I see Alex has a time travel series with the latest installment being "TimeRiders: The Gates of Rome".  I love time travel stories so I'll have to check it out.  It will be interesting to see if the two brothers differ in their writing styles.

Related articles

• A Review of Tribune of Rome (Vespasian #1) by Robert Fabbri

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