The Royal Cemeteries of Kush: Vol. V, The West and South Cemeteries at Meroe by George A.Reisner; Dows DunhamReview by: Alan R. SchulmanJournal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 3 (1964), pp. 127-130Published by: American Research Center in EgyptStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000993 .

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THE ROYAL CEMETERIES OF KUSH: VOL. V, THE WEST AND SOUTH CEMETERIES AT MEROE, excavated by the late George A. Reisner, edited and compiled by Dows Dunham. Pp. viii + 466, figs. 243, 1 map, 1 chart, pls. 3. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1963 $50.00

BOOK REVIEWS

Although the civilization of Meroe considered itself to be the direct and legitimate heir to the culture and authority of Pharaonic Egypt after that land had passed under the successive domination of the Assyrians, Persians, Saites, Macedonians, and Romans, the traditional view of scholarship has regarded it as a peripheral backwater of Egyptology whose culture was debased and degenerate when compared with that of Egypt proper, and hence not really worthy of intensive or serious study. This view is true only if we attempt to equate Meroe with Egypt and consider Meroitic civilization as a form of Egyptian civilization. But this is not the case, for if we judge the culture of Meroe on its own merits, remembering always that it is based upon, but not identical with the older Egyptian culture, then we find it to be highly dynamic with a living tradition of its own. And although it was isolated from active participa- tion in the mainstream of Egyptian life after the expulsion of its Napatan rulers from Egypt by the Assyrians and then Saites, it was, nevertheless, thanks to its geographic location at the southern end of the Nile Valley, a major point of contact and transfer between the North, Egypt and the Mediterranean world, and the rest of Africa. Moreover, Meroitic studies never have remained a backwater on

the periphery of Egyptological studies. The current program of salvage archaeology in Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia has resulted in the excavation of a large number of sites, either purely Meroitic, or else showing an extensive level of Meroitic occupation, but even before this almost-forced stimulation brought about by the threat of the permanent innunda- tion of Nubia after the completion of the High Dam at Aswan, a surprisingly large number of scholars and scientific institutions had turned their attention toward the civilization of the indigenous African heirs of Pharaonic culture. Paramount among these were the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania with its work at Karanog, Shablul, and Areika; Oxford University which excavated at Kawa, Firka, Faras, Sanam, and Napata; the Univer- sity of Liverpool which worked at Meroe; and the Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Expedition, with its excavations at Nuri, El Kurru, Gebel Barkal, and Meroe. The results of this last series of excavations, which lasted for eight seasons from 1916-1923, have been published in five extensive volumes, of which the first four are devoted to the royal cemeteries of Meroe and Napata, and the fifth, the volume under review, to the contemporaneous private cemeteries. Although the publication of the archaeological data is now complete, there is still promised another volume dealing with the philological material.

As in the earlier books of the series, Dows Dunham has continued the extremely difficult task of editing and working from Reisner's notes and, as before, it is to his resounding credit that he has produced such an admirable and meticulously detailed work.

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Dunham has long been convinced that each of the two private cemeteries at Meroe repre- sented the final burial place of a different group of people, one cemetery being that of the indigenous population of the city itself, and the other being that of the officials and adminis- trators who had been stationed there, but who came from elsewhere. Also, in the earlier period of each of the two cemeteries there were burials of two very different types : in one the unmum- mified body was laid in a natural position upon a bed, and in the other, the body, often mum- mified, was extended in a coffin. Dunham interprets the first as the type of burial practiced by the native Meroites, and the second as that of the Egyptian officials and artisans who resided in the city.

Each of the two cemeteries is treated in the same manner. First there is a description, in chronological sequence, of certain selected tombs, each accompanied by a brief architectural note and a detailed listing of its contents. Then, in a separate section, a summary catalogue of all of the tombs of the cemetery and their contents is given. This is followed by a list of the surface finds. The West Cemetery was the larger of the two, with approximately 825 tombs, 81 of which were chosen for the detailed study. The smaller South Cemetery contained about 220 graves, of which eight, nos. Si-6, and S9-10, were royal burials and had already been dealt with in RCK IV, and of the remainder, eleven tombs are described in extenso. The dis- crepancy in the sizes of the two cemeteries, which are contemporary in even their earliest burials, these dating back to the generation of Piankhy, is easily understood if we accept Dunham's reasoning that the South Cemetery was that used by the Napatan administrators stationed at Meroe when it was an important provincial capital, while the larger West Cemetery was that of the city's local aristocracy. After the sack of Napata by the expedition of Psammetik II in 591 B.C. the capital was moved by Aspelta to Meroe, and the South

Cemetery, formerly reserved for the resident officials, now became the site of the royal

burials as well, until the lack of suitable space compelled the Meroitic kings to seek still another site, the North Cemetery at Meroe (see RCK IV). This same lack of space probably also made it impossible for the high court officials to utilize the South Cemetery, so after ca. 275 B.C. when the royal tombs were trans- ferred to the North Cemetery, these officials were then buried in the West Cemetery along with the local aristocracy.

RCK V is the most comprehensive publi- cation of private Meroitic-Napatan burials to date. Too many of the graves discussed in it had been plundered, but enough material has survived from both the plundered and the intact tombs to provide us, not only with an illuminating and impressive picture of Meroitic funerary customs, but with a wealth of material shedding light on daily life, customs, art, culture, and even foreign contacts of the Meroites. Inscriptional material is provided by a number of offering tables and stelae. The corpus of Meroitic jewelry, amulets, pottery, and scarabs is greatly enlarged. Among objects of foreign origin may be noted a gold signet ring from tomb W 20 with an intaglio representation of the goddess Athena in the bezel (fig. 65i), a bronze cup from tomb W 179 with Greek youths affixed to its rim (fig. 129 f); a jug- handle from tomb W i58d, decorated in relief with the face of a bearded man, possibly a Greek ; a fragment of a faience bowl from tomb W 269 (fig. 165) showing a man running in a Greek-type chiton and armed with a circular Greek-type shield, and a magnificent rhyton from tomb S 24, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (no. 23.345) showing an amazon with a crested Greek helmet, mounted on a horse, forming the base which supports a single- handled red figured vase (figs. 212-216).

Of particular interest to the reviewer is subject matter of the incised decoration of a small bronze bell found in tomb W 144 and illustrated in fig. 161, no. 1. 1 offer the following remarks as a token of tribute to the editor of RCK V, and as an illustration of how much may be gleaned from the study of a single

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artistic motif out of the plethora occurring in the work.

The scene shows a row of eight captives, kneeling with their arms pinioned behind them just above the elbow. Although the heads and faces of four are destroyed and that of a fifth damaged, the remaining three figures show that three distinct national or tribal types are present. This same motif of prisoners occurs in the following examples known to me :

1. On a bronze bell from tomb N 16 of the North Cemetery at Meroe, published in RCK IV, fig. 90, no. 21-3-701. Here there are seven captives, each representing a distinct national or racial type, each kneel- ing with his arms pinioned behind his back, just above the elbows, and each pierced through the breast by a weapon, in six cases an arrow, and in the seventh a short, double-edged dagger.

2. On an octogonal-shaped bronze bell from tomb N 18 of the same cemetery, published ibid. fig. 97, no. 21-3-658. On each of the eight sides, facing in a different direction, the prisoner stands, bound in the manner already described. As in no. 1, each of the prisoners is pierced by an arrow, this time at the base of the neck, except for one who is transfixed vertically through the crown of his head, and one who is stabbed by a long sword.

3. On two fragments of bronze bells from tomb N 29 of the same cemetery, published ibid. fig. no, nos. 2i-3~329a and b. On the first of these a single captive lies on his stomach, legs and arms drawn up behind his back, and on the second four corpses lie on their backs, each with a vulture perched on his chest as it pecks away at his face.

4. On a relief from the pylon of the temple of Amun at Meroe, published in Garstang- Sayce-Griffith, Meroe (1911) pl. 13, no. 1, showing two kneeling bound prisoners.

5. On a relief from the Sun Temple at Meroe, published ibid. pl. 33, no. 3, showing eight fettered prisoners beneath the foot of the conquering king. One of these wears a metal

helmet identified by Sayce, he. cit. p. 26, n. 7 as a Greek, although a somewhat dif- ferent interpretation will be given below.

6. On a similar fragment of relief from Gebel Barkal, published by Arkell, A History of the Sudan, 2nd. ed. (1961) pl. 18a. Here the four kneeling prisoners preserved on the fragment are not only bound in the usual fashion, but are further linked together by a rope around their necks, the end of which is held by a symbolic vulture.

7. On the bottom register of a relief from the northwest wall of the Lion Temple at Musawwarat es Sufra, published by Hintze, Kush 10 (1962) pl. 52a and fig. 6. with the only change that, instead of a vulture, it is the foremost of a pair of elephants which holds the rope.

8. In a similar scene on the interior wall of the south pylon of the same temple, published by Hintze, Kush n (1963) pl. 46. Here the prisoners are standing, rather than kneeling.

9. On the victory monument of king Shera- karer at Gebel Qeili, published by Hintze, Kush 7 (1959) fig. 2 facing p. 190. The king is pictured standing on a platform support- ed on the backs of four prisoners who lie on their stomachs, bound in a position identical with that noted in no. 3a above. Before the king stand seven more enemies, their elbows pinioned behind them by seven cords which are connected at the other end to a rope held jointly by the king and his god, while below, to the right, are the sprawled bodies of still seven more enemies.

10. In the lower register of the scene on the victory stela of king Tanyidamani from Gebel Barkal, published by Hintze, Kush 8 (i960) pl. 31. The prisoners are as described in no. 3a above, except that their ankles and elbows are actually tied together.

n. From the decorated chapel of the pyramid of Queen Nahirqa (no. Nn) from the North Cemetery at Meroe, published RCK III pls. 8D and 30E. Here the prisoners again form the lower register of the scene. They kneel with their arms tied behind their backs.

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12. From the decorated chapel of the pyramid of Queen Naldamak (no. N6) at Meroe, published ibid. pl. 17. In this scene the standing prisoners are held by a tether in the hand of the queen, like those held in no. 9 above.

The following conclusions may be drawn from the preceding summary listing of these genre scenes :

a) In the individual scenes each of the prisoners usually represents a distinct national, tribal, or ethnic group.

b) the same national, tribal, or ethnic groups appear in a number of different scenes, but always in the same context.

c) this motif of prisoners is used as a symbolic and decorative element, chiefly on temple or tomb chapel walls, occasionally on historical stelae, and in four cases as the decoration of a bronze bell. When used as a component in a wall-scene or stela, the prisoners are always either in the lowest register, frequently beneath and supporting the feet of the king, or else they are being offered by him to a god.

d) We may then assume that the prisoners represented in the relief are the Meroitic counter- parts of the Nine Bows, the traditional enemies of Egypt, the portayal of which follows exactly the same usage, but that these traditional enemies of Meroe were not necessarily the same as those of Egypt, nor should we expect them to be so. Some but not all of the national, tribal, or racial groups may be identified. These include a Mediterranean people who wear a featherlike crested headdress quite similar to that worn by the Sea Peoples in the Medinet Habu reliefs of Ramesses III, and were the Greeks, see nos. 1, 2, 3b, 9, and RCK V, fig. 161, no. 1. Arkell, p. 161, follows Sayce's identi- fication of a prisoner in no. 5 as a Greek wearing a metal helmet, and further identifies a prisoner in no. 6 as the same. I would suggest here, from the lack of a feather or horsehair crest on the helmet, that the men in question were rather Carians (see Petrie, Memphis II, pl. 28, no. 71, and p. 17). Prisoners wearing this type of helmet also appear in nos. 1, 2, 9, and 11.

To judge from the hairdress of a prisoner illus- trated in no. 2, and perhaps also in no. 12, the Egyptians themselves were also numbered among the traditional enemies of Meroe. The remainder of these enemies, however, appear to have been the various indigenous African tribes with which the Meroites had contact. Hintze sees a Beja-type in nos. 7-8, see Kush 11, p. 219 and the literature cited there, and suggests that no. 9 included at least some Axumites (see Kush 7, p. 190). And finally, it should be noted that a prisoner in no. 11 wears a horned headdress very reminiscent of the "ceremonial cap of the land of Nubia" discussed in Arkell, p. 154.

With the publication of RCK V Dows Dunham and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts have again placed the Egyptological world in their debt. It is perhaps a pious wish that other scholarly institutions would also publish their backlogs of excavations.

Alan R. Schulman Columbia University, New York

THEBES IN THE TIME OF AMUNHOTEP III (The Centers of Civilization Series, XI) by Elizabeth Riefstahl. Pp. xi + 212, 3 maps. The University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964. $2.75.

Even those of us who believe that Mrs. Riefstahl does everything she attempts better than anyone else will be agreeably surprised by the present volume, in which a vivid and highly readable style is combined with an almost incredible amount of up-to-date information. Thebes in the reign of Amunhotep III - the "beautiful, bustling city which once rose on the banks of the Nile to become for all time a symbol of wealth and grandeur and power'' - is the focal point of the book. In successive chapters the author describes "The City" from its small beginnings until it was the "capital of the ancient world;" Amunhotep himself and his Court; the position of women, royal and

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