Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia

Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia
Author: Geoffrey Khan
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 856
Release: 2024-05-06
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1805112325

This volume presents an edition of a corpus of Arabic documents datable to the 11th and 12th centuries AD that were discovered by the Egypt Exploration Society at the site of the Nubian fortress Qaṣr Ibrīm (situated in the south of modern Egypt). The edition of the documents is accompanied by English translations and a detailed analysis of their contents and historical background. The documents throw new light on relations between Egypt and Nubia in the High Middle Ages, especially in the Fatimid period. They are of particular importance since previous historical studies from the perspective of Arabic sources have been almost entirely based on historiographical sources, often written a long time after the events described and distorted by tendentious points of view.

Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia

Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia
Author: Geoffrey Khan
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-05-06
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9781805112303

This volume presents an edition of a corpus of Arabic documents datable to the 11th and 12th centuries AD that were discovered by the Egypt Exploration Society at the site of the Nubian fortress Qaṣr Ibrīm (situated in the south of modern Egypt). The edition of the documents is accompanied by English translations and a detailed analysis of their contents and historical background. The documents throw new light on relations between Egypt and Nubia in the High Middle Ages, especially in the Fatimid period. They are of particular importance since previous historical studies from the perspective of Arabic sources have been al-most entirely based on historiographical sources, often written a long time after the events described and distorted by tendentious points of view.

Medieval Nubia

Medieval Nubia
Author: Giovanni R. Ruffini
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199996202

As one of the few surviving archaeological sites from the medieval Christian kingdom of Nubia, Qasr Ibrim is critically important in a number of ways. It is the only site in Lower Nubia that remained above water after the completion of the Aswan high dam. In addition, thanks to the aridity of the climate in the area, the site is marked by extraordinary preservation of organic material, especially textual material written on papyrus, leather, and paper. Particularly rich is the textual material from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, written in Old Nubian, the region's indigenous language. As a result, Qasr Ibrim is probably the best documented ancient and medieval site in Africa outside of Egypt and the Maghreb. Medieval Nubia is the first book to make available this remarkable material, much of which is still unpublished. The evidence discovered reveals a more complicated picture of this community than originally thought. Previously, it was accepted that medieval Nubia had existed in relative isolation from the rest of the world, subsisting on a primitive economy. Legal documents, accounts, and letters, however, reveal a complex, monetized economy with exchange rates connected to those of the wider world. Furthermore, they reveal public festive practices, in which lavish feasting and food gifts reinforced the social prestige of the participants. These documents prove medieval Nubia to have been a society combining legal elements inherited from the Greco-Roman world with indigenous African social practices. In reconstructing the social and economic life of medieval Nubia based on the Old Nubian sources from the site, as well as other previously examined materials, Giovanni R. Ruffini corrects previous assumptions and provides a new picture of Nubia, one that links it to the wider Mediterranean economy and society of its time.

From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2024-10-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900471233X

This collection of essays celebrates 50 years since the founding of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library. Three generations of scholars contributed their research and memories from their time at the GRU, stretching back to 1974. Their work comprises 18 articles on medieval Jewish History, Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts, archival history, and the story of the Cairo Genizah collections at the University of Cambridge. Together, they demonstrate the achievements of GRU alumni in advancing the field of Genizah Studies for more than five decades.

The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia

The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia
Author: Derek A. Welsby
Publisher:
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN:

Nubia had a rich pagan heritage, stretching back thousands of years. During probably the 6th century AD various factors led to the adoption of Christianity. This book charts this huge cultural transition and its impact.

Handbook of Ancient Nubia

Handbook of Ancient Nubia
Author: Dietrich Raue
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 1414
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110420651

Die moderne Geschichte Ägyptens und des Sudan hat mehrfach radikal in die nubische Lebenswelt eingegriffen und tut dies bis auf den heutigen Tag: Nach den großen Staudammbauten des 20. Jahrhunderts sind neue Damm-, Bau- und Schürfprojekte auch im 21. Jahrhundert der Anlass, unter enormem Zeitdruck großflächig nubisches Terrain zu erforschen. Hierdurch bedingt wurde auf allen Gebieten der Kulturgeschichte ein gewaltiger Wissenszuwachs erreicht. Ergänzt wird dies durch Entdeckungen in ägyptischen Fundplätzen, angrenzenden Wüstengebieten und benachbarten Großräumen. Die 42 Beiträge dieses Handbuches zielen auf die diachrone, regionale und großräumliche Perspektive. Beginnend mit den Befunden der Altsteinzeit wird der Weg hin zu dem Nebeneinander pastoraler Gesellschaften und größerer Kulturäume in der Flussaue dargestellt. Über die bronzezeitlichen Kulturen wird der Bogen zu den Königreichen von Napata und Meroe bis hin zu den christlichen Königreichen und der islamischen Frühneuzeit gespannt. Dieser Sammelband beabsichtigt, den interessierten Kulturwissenschaftler auf den jüngsten Stand der Forschung zu bringen und die wechselvolle Geschichte dieses Bindeglieds zwischen dem Mittelmeerraum und Afrika zu vermitteln.

Ancient Nubia

Ancient Nubia
Author: P.L. Shinnie
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2013-10-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136164650

First published in 1996. This book is designed to provide a clear, up-to-date account of the past of Nubia (both in Egypt and the Sudan) from the earliest human activity known there in Old Stone Age times until the coming of Islam in the fourteenth– fifteenth centuries AD, based on over 45 years' experience of that country both as an archaeological civil servant and an academic. The archaeology and ancient history of Nubia has not been well known until very recently and the book is planned to fill a gap by making this story more widely known. This book is designed to provide a clear, up-to-date account of the past of Nubia (both in Egypt and the Sudan) from the earliest human activity known there in Old Stone Age times until the coming of Islam in the fourteenth– fifteenth centuries AD, based on over 45 years' experience of that country both as an archaeological civil servant and an academic. The archaeology and ancient history of Nubia has not been well known until very recently and the book is planned to fill a gap by making this story more widely known.

African Historical Archaeologies

African Historical Archaeologies
Author: Andrew M. Reid
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2014-10-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1441988637

This volume explores the range of interactions between the historical sources and archaeology that are available on the African continent. Written by a range of experts on different aspects of African archaeology, this book represents the first consideration of historical archaeology over the African continent as a whole. This seminal volume also explores Africa's place in global systems of thought and economic development and is of interest to historical archaeologists and historians.

Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya

Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya
Author: Amar S. Baadj
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004298576

In Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya, Amar Baadj gives us the first comprehensive, modern study of a fascinating but little-known episode in the history of the medieval Mediterranean. This is the story of the long struggle between the Almohad caliphs of the Maghrib, the Banū Ghāniya of Majorca, and the Ayyubids for dominance of North Africa. The author makes use of important textual sources that have been ignored as well as new archaeological evidence to challenge some of the basic assumptions about the events in question. He also successfully places these events in their wider temporal and geographical context for the first time.

Qasr Ibrim, Between Egypt and Africa

Qasr Ibrim, Between Egypt and Africa
Author: Jacques van der Vliet
Publisher: Peeters
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 9789042930308

The natural citadel of Qasr Ibrim in Northern Nubia occupied for thousands of years a strategic position between Egypt and the Middle Nile region, the present-day Sudan. The rich archaeological and textual finds from the site document its history from the rule of the 'Black Pharaohs' of Egypt's 25th dynasty onwards until the Ottoman period. Briefly occupied by the Romans under Augustus, Qasr Ibrim flourished as a stronghold of Meroitic culture in the first centuries AD. In Late Antiquity, it was the political centre of a tiny kingdom, Nobadia, bordering on the Byzantine empire. Following the Christianization of the region in the fifth and sixth centuries, it became the see of a bishop, for whom a magnificent stone-built cathedral was erected. During the Arab conquest of Egypt, Nubia secured its independence under the kings of Makouria, who had their capital further south, in Old Dongola. Qasr Ibrim became the residence of the eparch of Noubadia, an official who played a pivotal role in the contacts between Christian Nubia and Islamic Egypt. The capture of the citadel by Shams ad-Dawla, Saladin's brother, in 1173, was a dramatic event that inaugurated the decline of the Christian kingdoms of Nubia in the later Middle Ages. This volume contains thirteen papers that focus on Qasr Ibrim as a key witness to cultural interaction between Egypt and the world of the Mediterranean on the one hand, and Africa, the Sudan and beyond on the other. Drawing their inspiration from the rich material found on site, these papers combine text-based and archaeological approaches. Particular attention is paid, for instance, to pottery and textile finds, while texts written in Demotic, Meroitic, Greek, Coptic, Old Nubian and Arabic are presented and discussed. Beyond the mere presentation of material, the volume addresses more general questions concerning cultural liminality, the role of indigenous versus foreign models and centre-periphery relations. Above all, however, it chronicles a fascinating chapter in the history of North-South contacts.