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 northcentral Sudan. The fort at Kerma was enlarged and the settlement increased, and the result has been shewn by Reisner's recent excavations. These prove that a "special local civilization, a curious modification 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.