The controversial Merowe Dam was inaugurated by the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, in March 2009. The reservoir of the dam had then already flooded a large stretch of the fertile Nile valley, which required the forced resettlement of up to 78,000 people. During the construction period of the dam, foreign archaeologists were surveying and excavating in order to save the cultural heritage of the land to be flooded. This article addresses the ethical implications of conducting salvage archaeology when the local people are in opposition to the development project that necessitates both their resettlement and the archaeological salvage.

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This article reviews the research on the C-Group people—inhabitants of Lower Nubia between 2500 and 1500 bce. The C-Group people were cattle pastoralists of multiple origins that formed their ethnic identity after contact with Egyptians. Interethnic relations between the Egyptians and the C-Group people are examined in a diachronic perspective that sorts out periods of both peaceful exchange and violent conflict. The article also emphasizes the impact that C-Group men working as mercenaries in Egypt had on political development in Lower Nubia when they returned. The C-Group people’s neighbors in the south was the Kerma people. They established a kingdom called Kush around 2000 bce, and their relations with the Egyptians affected the C-Group people. In the last phase of their history, the C-Group people were trapped between Egypt and Kush—two states rivalling for supremacy on the Nile. The C-Group people’s solution was an alliance with Egypt and acculturation to become Egyptians.

The author revisits the celebrated cemetery of the Bronze Age Kerma culture by the third cataract of the Nile and re-examines its monumental tumuli. The presence of daggers and drinking vessels in secondary burials are associated with skeletal remains that can be attributed to fighting men, encouraging their interpretation as members of a warrior elite. Here, on the southern periphery of the Bronze Age world, is an echo of the aggressive aristocracy of Bronze Age Europe.

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