Nubia: The Land Upriver

The Rise of Kush Power Vacuum in Nubia. The Egyptian New Kingdom came to an end in ca. 1070 BC. The succeeding royal government of the Twenty-first Dynasty (ruling from Tanis) abandoned all claim to Nubia, apparently creating a power vacuum there that lasted over 400 years. Since no textual records or cemeteries have been detected in Nubia for this period, most archaeologists believe that Lower Nubia was fairly deserted at this time, perhaps due to low Nile levels and increased desiccation of the region. The Nubian inhabitants, they suggest, migrated southward, where they collected around Napata. Ultimately, a strong independent state did grow up centered around that city, i.e., the resurgent Kingdom of Kush. On the other hand, some archaeologists argue that certain sites in Lower Nubia actually do show continuous Nubian occupation through this period and later--down to the succeeding Kushite kingdom, e.g., Qasr Ibrim. They suggest that Lower Nubia was not deserted at this time, but contained various indigenous polities that were absorbed even earlier than previously suspected by the growing Kushite state at Napata.