1- list of monarchs of kush 2- Meroe as a city of violent contest and capital of the Napatan-era kings
3- the emergence of the meroitic dynasty
4-the emergence of the meroitic script and the circumstances that brought Kush's first female sovereign to power
5- the origin of the Kushite title Candace 6- burials of elite women in the neolithic era of nubia 7- the meroitic language of the people of ancient kush from the kerma-era to the meroitic era
8- names of the rulers of Kerma
9-on the kerman queen consort in 17th dynasty Egypt (and the photo of the coffin i used) 10- Queen katimala's inscription, description of scene
11- see paper i linked above ☝️🏾 12- the position of royal women of Kush during the napatan era
13-the politics behind the queen mothers' prominence in ancient egypt 14- kush using Egyptian symbols to integrate the latter into its realm
15- piye's inscription is the longest document in ancient Egypt 16- on kush's succession system being bilateral not matrilineal
17- Nastasen tracing his lineage from Alara, 400 years earlier than him 18- the photos of queen Amanimalolo (napatan era)
19-on Ergamenes identity as Arkamaniqo and the emergence of the meroitic dynasty, see 3 above 20- the kushite election iconography at Musawwarat 21- the gods of Musawwarat 22- oscillation of lower nubia between kush and Ptolemaic egypt
23
-Ptolemies take lower nubia in 274BC
-Kushites retake it in 207BC, temple construction, ptolemies retake it in 186BC
-Kushites retake it in 100BC until the roman invasion of 30BC
24- on the kushite temples in lower nubia, see the 3rd screenshot above 25- war between rome and kush plus peace treaty 26- Queen Amanirenas' inscription of war with rome 27- Queen Amanishakheto inscription depicting a bound roman prisoner with a grecian helmet (#triviaxt)
28- paintings of the roman captives of Queen Amanirenas of Kush from the "Augustus temple" (M 292) at Meroe (1st cent. BC-1st cent AD)
these paintings haven't received much attention from classists & nubiologists
one of the oldest depictions europeans in African art
the book i took them from is free online (for reading)
Studies in ancient Egypt, the Aegean, and the Sudan : essays in honor of Dows Dunham on the occasion of his 90th birthday, June 1, 1980
by Charles C. Van Siclen archive.org/details/studie…
29- on whether it was Queen Amanirenas or Queen Amanitore that buried Augustus' head
30-prosperity after the war with rome 31- see 28 above 32- see 27 above
33- prince Akinidad depictions with queen Amanishakheto 34- Kush's princes "electing" the Queens of meroe
prince akinidad as "queen maker" of the Queens Amanirenas and Amanishakheto and prince Etaretey for Queen Nawidemak
35- on prince Etretey legitimizing Queen Nawidemak's reign 36- "male attributes" of the first four Queens of Kush 37- feminine depictions of the Queens of Kush 38- james bruce on the funj royal wives
39- on egyptian female sovereignty and depictions of egyptian queens as androgynous 40- Queen Shanakdakheto and the invention of the meroitic script 41- why the meroitic script was invented 42- Amanirenas compares with piye's military accomplishments and piety
43- dynastic struggles that favored the enthronement of three queens in close succession
44, 45- comparing Queen katimala and king piye leading their armies from the front with Queen Amanirenas doing the same in her war with rome
46- why later Queens of kush didn't require a legitmizing male figure
47- on Queen Njinga's challenges to her legitimacy based on her gender and the dynasty she established in which 50% were women
"Rare to nonexistent are discrete villages, much less ruins of state capitals or elite dwellings,
but everywhere one sinks an excavation unit and carefully sifts for evidence, one finds a low "background noise"
Phantom capitals and small scale societies ...
on the ever elusive capitals of the ghana and mali empires, and the small scale societies of the tellem in bandiagara
The city of Meroe has the most enigmatic history of all ancient societies
it was a scene of violent conflict b'tn the armies of Kush and unnamed groups, the home of a "heretic" King who destroyed the priesthood and the capital of a Queen who defeated Rome isaacsamuel.substack.com/p/the-meroitic…
During Meroe's golden age, 7 of its 13 monarchs were women; two of whom immediately succeeded Queen Amanirenas
The peculiar circumstances in which 3 female sovereigns came to rule Kush in close succession was largely a consequence of Amanirenas's actions isaacsamuel.substack.com/p/the-meroitic…
"The 16th century was the zenith of imperial expansion in west Africa
One third of west Africa's current geographical size and more than Half its population was under the control of just Two empires
it was the apogee of state power in west African history" isaacsamuel.substack.com/p/negotiating-…
the golden age of imperial expansion in west Africa brought developments in trade and scholarship
but seen from the perspective of the states peripheral to these empires, it came at a cost of reduced political power
this is a combined map of Michael Gomez's Songhai empire (under Askiya Muhammad) and Dierk Lange's Kanem-Bornu under Mai Idris Alooma
(plus my bad photoshop skills 😂)
the size and population estimates are also based their calculations (1.4 m sqkm for songhai, 2/3 m for kanem)
for this peripheral perspective of imperial power, i was (partly) inspired by the comparisons made by Walter Scheidel on proportions of the population of east asia, middle east, south asia, and europe that were under the rule of one empire
"Dahomey cloth woven of both cotton and raffia constituted the finest weaving, both from the point of
view of technical excellence and of design"
Weavers were mostly male while dyers and spinners were women, they included both Fon weavers and Yoruba immigrants, they used vertical and ground looms, embroidering was dominated by yoruba weavers who served both the domestic market and exported large amounts of cloth to brazil
Dyeing was done using indigo and potash, other colors such as red and black were achieved using sorghum stalks, imported silks were also woven into cloths
dahomey weavers incorporated styles from the Muslim north, the Akan to its west, the Yorubalands to its east
the case of the Swahili's self identification as washirazi (which itself was mostly in opposition to Omani era arabisation) is subject to all kinds of controversy, but it wasn't meant to be taken literary, its more about (Islamic) genealogy than "ethnic reality"
so when Skip Gates sarcastically quipped about the Swahili "washirazis" that he found in Zanzibar looking "about as Persian as Mike Tyson"
he was speaking from the western understanding of race & genealogy, but African understanding of genealogy is as heterodox as its complex
written in 1986 👇🏾 (before Horton's groundbreaking discoveries at shanga) but its conclusions have stood the test of time
taken from pgs 32-35
Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800-1900
Randall L. Pouwels books.google.co.ug/books/about/Ho…