i8 THE NUBIANS, THE NUBA 1.2.X11.

Nubians, perhaps descended in part from the harried population of the Old Empire, but increased by immigrants from the more exposed districts south of Semna. Culturally they were still in an uncivilized state, nearly

neolithic. They were sowers and herdsmen, hunters and fishermen. The

only crafts were pot-making, cloth and mat-weaving, and basket-making, —all carried out by hand with the simplest of tools.

South of Semna, of course, conditions were far less settled and

periodical punitive expeditions were necessary.

The expedition of Sesostris I appears, however, to have resulted

in the "thorough subjugation of the country, certainly as far as the upstream end of Dongola Province, and perhaps well into Berber

Province." The year 1962 marks the first real conquest of the north-

central Sudan. The fort at Kerma was enlarged and the settlement

increased, and the result has been shewn by Reisner's recent excava-

tions. These prove that a "special local civilization, a curious modi-

fication of the culture of Egypt, deeply affected by local forms,

materials and customs," was developed and throve. About 1879, however, Amenemhat's fort was sacked as the result of a rising or

invasion from the south. Sesostris HI at once led an army into the Sudan and crushed the rebels and set up the famous stela at Semna,

37 miles south of Haifa, inscribed with the order forbidding the "negroes" to pass downstream beyond it for ever^. From his time

until the New Empire no mention of Nubia is found in the Egyptian

inscriptions, but its occupation certainly continued and one infers

that local conditions were more or less settled.

Kerma had been restored and made the administrative centre of

a province, but it seems that about 1600 B.C. it was burnt out and

never rebuilt.

Nubia in the Time of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Its Egyptianization

XIII The Egyptianization of the northern Sudan was proceeding

steadily in the time of Ahmose (Ahmes) I, the founder of the

eighteenth dynasty (c. 1580-1350 b.c.^) and under his successors. Ahmose I placed Lower Nubia ("Wawat") under an Egyptian

Governor, and his successor, Amenhotep (Amenophis) I, appointed

in 1548 the first of a long line of Egyptian viceroys, who ruled

Ethiopia during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.

In the following reign, that of Thothmes I, occurred the serious

revolt and its suppression to which reference has already been made.

^ See Breasted, A. R. i, 652.

^ For the following, to the close of the quotation ending "...kings of Ethiopia,"

see Reisner in Sudan Notes and Records, Oct. 1918.