PREFACE

the country which produces slaves and gold. In spite of this,

however, the history of Egypt shows that the peoples of the Sudan

influenced in no small degree the ancient Egyptian religion and

civilization, and, no doubt, it is this fact which caused historians

like Diodorus to assert that the civilization of Egypt had its origin

in "Ethiopia," by which, of course, he meant the country of the

black sun-burnt peoples, i.e., the Southern Sudan. The Eastern

and Northern conquerors of Egypt in the Dynastic Period im-

posed the veneer of their civilization upon the Egyptians with

considerable success, but in fundamentals of belief and custom, the

Egyptians, even in the Ptolemaic Period, had more in common

with the black- skinned, but non-negro, tribes of the Southern Sudan than is usually admitted.

For the history of the Sudan from'about B.C. 4000 to the period

of the rise of the Nubian kingdom under Piankhi about B.C. 750, our authorities are the Egyptian monuments, and much light is

thrown upon the state of the country, and the conquests made by

its kings from about 700 to 600 B.C. by the Stelae of Tanuath- Amen, Aspelta, and Nastasen. On the history of the next 1150

years, native monuments are silent, but it is clear that during

this interval the great kingdom of the Sudan was split into two

parts, the Northern having its capital at Napata, or Merawi, near

Gebel Barkal, and the Southern having its capital at Meroe, some

forty miles south of the mouth of the Atbara. The Greek and Roman writers, especially Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and

Pliny, supply descriptions of the peoples of the Sudan, excellent on

the whole, even if in places somewhat fanciful, but of the history

of the country they tell us nothing.

In the early centuries of our era Christianity penetrated the Sudan vi(X Egypt, and it had permeated the minds of the Nubians

so thoroughly that, in the second quarter of the sixth century, a

native king called Silko succeeded in establishing a Christian kingdom in the Northern Sudan, and made Dongola his capital.

This kingdom flourished for some seven hundred years, and proved

an effective barrier to the advance of Islam. Facts for the history

of the Sudan, from the time of its conquest by the Arabs about

A.D. 650 to the end of the fifteenth century, are scanty, but Muhammadan writers supply us with a number of statements

ix