The material entanglement in the Egyptian Cemetery in Kerma (Sudan, 1750-1500 BC) : appropriation, incorporation, tinkering, and hybridisation

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the different steps in the phenomenon of material entanglementoften invisible in the archaeological record -between the Egyptian and Nubian material cultures of the Second Intermediate Period (1750-1500 BC) in the so-called 'Egyptian Cemetery' (southern part of the Eastern Cemetery) at Kerma. Faience figurines have been selected as the case study to analyse the processes of a. material appropriation, when an Egyptian artefact is integrated into a different cultural world; b. incorporation and tinkering, when the appropriated product is reshaped/modified at Kerma; c. hybridisation, when there is the generation of a product with a new ontological meaning, reinterpreted on a local background.The archaeological site of Kerma, situated between the Third and Fourth Cataract in Sudan, was investigated by George Reisner in 1913-16 1 , and included the ancient urban centre on the eastern side of the Nile, and the cemetery occupying a vast area three kilometres north-east of it. During the Middle Bronze Age, the living community at Kerma rapidly increased and expanded until its apex during the so-called Classic Kerma Period (ca.1750-1500 BC, hereafter shortened to KC), when it hosted the ruling class whose territorial control extended over all of Upper and Lower Nubia.The so-called Eastern Cemetery, covering an area of 80-90 hectares 2 , was already in use by ca. 2500 BC and continued during the Archaic Kerma Period (ca. 2150-1950 BC) as attested by artefacts from burials in the sector Reisner called 'cemetery N' 3 ; its southernmost part (labelled 'Egyptian Cemetery' because the greatest number of artefacts from there were of Egyptian manufacture) was mainly occupied during the Classic Kerma phase (1750-1500 BC), and contained the characteristic burial structure of the time: the tumulus. Along the southern edge of the cemetery were four exceptionally large tumuli (K III, IV, X, XVI) that may be approximately 1

At the dawn of the Late Bronze Age ‘globalization’, the (re)-circulation of Egyptian artefacts in Nubia and the Northern Levant in the MB II–mid MB III (c. 1710–1550 BC)

“…Reisner 1923: 178-80;Lilyquist 1982: 184;Walsh 2020), or alternately, to be made in Nubia but closely patterned on Egyptian Middle Kingdom models (cf. Minor 2012: 134; see also Bourriau 2001 andMiniaci 2019). A number of Egyptian objects were utilized in a manner alien to Egyptian tradition (e.g., headrests placed at the feet of the deceased or ivory wands originally made for the ritual protection of women and infants reworked into dagger handles).…”

“…A number of Egyptian objects were utilized in a manner alien to Egyptian tradition (e.g., headrests placed at the feet of the deceased or ivory wands originally made for the ritual protection of women and infants reworked into dagger handles). The 'reinvention' of these items demonstrate that the Nubians had not adopted these items through direct contact with Egyptians and that the objects may not even have been contemporary with the tumuli (Minor 2012: 155;Miniaci 2019).…”

The ‘Bronze Age’ Concept and Nubia during the Second Millennium bce: Does One Size Fit All?

“…In most cases, the 'Bronze Age' concept is used as a heuristic tool to connect Nubian chronologies with other regions, for example in Miniaci's recent work on recirculation of Egyptian artefacts through the Nile Valley and the Levant (Miniaci 2019;Miniaci 2020). In other cases, the term 'Bronze Age' has been used as a means to more directly connect ancient Nubia with the wider Bronze Age world, often without justification or consideration of its appropriateness.…”