Non-royal Nubian Clothing Representations during the New Kingdom and the Kushites Twenty-Fifth Dynasty

Abstract

There are interconnections between Egypt and Nubia since the Predynastic Period. The non-royal Nubians-as soldiers, servants, officials-were represented in the art of the New Kingdom in various artistic media. In c.750 BC the Kushites succeeded in invading Egypt and founding the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (c.750-664 BC). The non-royal Kushites adapted traditional non-royal Egyptian clothing and added some new elements to it. The authors here introduce a comparative study between the clothing of these non-royal individuals in the New Kingdom and Kushites Twenty-Fifth Dynasty in art. The New Kingdom art introduces Nubians wearing Egyptian clothing with remarkable Nubian features, while the Twenty-fifth Dynasty art represents Kushites wearing all Egyptian clothing from the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms as a kind of revivalism and adapting some Kushites elements; that misleads scholars to identify this new trend. The authors conclude that New Kingdom Egyptian artists in all representations marked non-royal Nubians with their own clothing, some of these Nubian clothing continued to be utilized by non-royal Kushites to keep their ethnic identity.