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This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

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In From Slave to Pharaoh, noted Egyptologist Donald B. Redford examines over two millennia of complex social and cultural interactions between Egypt and the Nubian and Sudanese civilizations that lay to the south of Egypt. These interactions resulted in the expulsion of the black Kushite pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty in 671 B.C. by an invading Assyrian army.

Redford traces the development of Egyptian perceptions of race as their dominance over the darker-skinned peoples of Nubia and the Sudan grew, exploring the cultural construction of spatial and spiritual boundaries between Egypt and other African peoples. Redford focuses on the role of racial identity in the formulation of imperial power in Egypt and the legitimization of its sphere of influence, and he highlights the dichotomy between the Egyptians' treatment of the black Africans it deemed enemies and of those living within Egyptian society. He also describes the range of responses -- from resistance to assimilation -- of subjugated Nubians and Sudanese to their loss of self-determination. Indeed, by the time of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, the culture of the Kushite kings who conquered Egypt in the late eighth century B.C. was thoroughly Egyptian itself.

Moving beyond recent debates between Afrocentrists and their critics over the racial characteristics of Egyptian civilization, From Slave to Pharaoh reveals the true complexity of race, identity, and power in Egypt as documented through surviving texts and artifacts, while at the same time providing a compelling account of war, conquest, and culture in the ancient world.

Customer Reviews (2)

best overview to date
This is the definitive, most solid and balanced book to date on the subject of the Black experience of ancient Egypt, covering even one instance of Egyptian royal slave-raiding on Nubia on a scale that partly depopulated Nubia. The depth and breadth of research shown in Redford's fifty-four pages of endnotes & bibliography indicates a life-time of research.

This reviewer's only criticisms are that maps 2 & 3 (pp.25,73) are full of place names ending in -opolis. Such Greek names cannot have been in use by the 8th century BCE, still less by the 17th century BCE. The author should have inserted the real names ancient Egyptians used for them, with their later Hellenic names in brackets.

In Figure 25, (p.118) some of the words need to be in bold font or larger size to help legibility. Similarly, map 4 (p.141) should indicate in its key what the dashed underwater lines represent.

Keith Gottschalk
Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence 2009-2010
Oakland University, Michigan.

Political Studies Dept,
University of the Western Cape,
Cape Town, South Africa.

Some good info but flawed...
Redford's book presents some excellent documentation on Egyptian-Nubian relations, but both its development and title appear flawed. The sub-title `the black experience in Egypt' seems unfortunate and a bit presumptuous. Imagine an alternative book that rounds up negative Egyptian statements on people like lighter-skinned Libyans, Syriacs, Phoenicians, Greeks, Mesopotamians etc and calls it `the White experience in Egypt." Such a title and the development of it, would seem questionable at the very least. The same thing applies to this book.

Part of the reason for the book seems to be striking a blow at radical Afrocentrists and indeed they are mentioned in the preface where Redford says he wants the ancient Egyptian texts to speak for themselves, politically incorrect as it may be. This a laudable goal but unjustly slights scholarship on the rich diversity of human populations in Egypt.

Any claim of `the black experience' calls out for definition of exactly what or who is `black.' Redford avoids defining this, leaving the reader with the impression that `black' equals `foreign.' It fact it is not. Mainstream Egyptology (see Yurco 1989- `Where the Ancient Egyptians Black?') has long recognized that the ancient Egyptians had a range of physical features and skin colors as part of the native mix. Dark skin is no more `foreign' to Egypt than light-brown skin. Focusing on one limited type of dark-skinned foreigner and calling that limited slice `the black experience in Egypt' seems a travesty of scholarship.

The notion of a `black experience' also implies that the Nubians and this by extension `blacks' were mere walk-on actors in Egyptian history, framing them in the context slavery and conquered peoples. These, like the American TV show `The Jeffersons' would eventually, millennia later, `move on up' to become pharaohs for a brief flicker of time before departing far south from whence they came. This limited view of `the black experience' may strike a blow in ongoing battles with Afrocentrists, but it unnecessarily mars what is otherwise a fair history of Nubian-Egyptian relations in the context of conquest and colonialism.

The history of Egypt shows that `black' or dark-skinned populations were in place as part of the native landscape from the very beginnings, from the Pre-Dynastic period through the Dynastic era. These darker-skinned peoples were more prevalent in the south, and it is from the south, that the Egyptian state was consolidated and the pharaonic dynasties began. This is basic Egyptology 101. Any claim to speak of `a black experience' must begin with these peoples. As 'Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt' (1999) puts it:`There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa.'

Redford's implication that the Nubians were all very dark skinned or `black; is also undermined by mainstream scholarship. Visual images produced by the Nubians themselves show that they self-depicted as a range of physical types- from light-brown skin to jet-black skin, from thin to broad noses, etc. This range of types is documented in authoritative publications such as (Africa in Antiquity: The Arts of Ancient Nubia, 1978). Redford by contrast uses a series of stereotypically very black images including that used on the book's cover, downplaying Nubian population diversity and variability of the area to maintain his particular `spin' on the subject.

The book's strengths are its excellent documentation of inscriptions, and the wide range of diverse functions filled by Nubians and Sudanics within Egypt. Analysis of the so-called `black' dynasties who actually conquered Egypt is also fair. These are commendable points but they are somewhat marred by the lens Redford uses. Numerous negative statements on foreign peoples like Nubians are rounded up, but as scholar Frank Yurco points out the Nubians were the people ethnically closest to the Egyptians, not the more Caucasoid peoples of say southern Europe. To cast these interactions in simplistic racial terms does not do justice to what is historical. Furthermore as Yurco 1989 and Barry Kemp (Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, 2005) points out, Egyptian negativity on foreigners was primarily in the political context, not a racial one.This undermines Redford's slant on the information he presents. In Kemp's book for example (pg 23), lighter-skinned Asiatics are compared to reptiles but few serious scholars are rounding up such negative Egyptian statements, or Egyptian military triumphs over such peoples and presenting it as `the white experience in Egypt.'

In his preface Redford says the information presented from the Egyptian text, would have had more of the 'salutary effect in marginalizing some prejudices.' But ironically, his framing of the issues re a `black experience' seems that it would achieve quite the opposite effect- reinforcing rather than marginalizing prejudices. This is a sad result from what could have been a fresh take on the interactions between the peoples of the Nile Valley.
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Taking a wide variety of textual and iconographical evidence as his points of departure, the author sheds light on the formation of, and interaction between basic Kushite concepts such as inhabited space, sacred space, sacred landscape, historical memory and political legitimacy. ... Read more

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Publication of the Museum Expedition excavations at the Nubian site of Gebel Barkal, near the Fourth Cataract (modern Sudan). Discussion of the major temples, other structures, and large quantities of royal and private statuary discovered. ... Read more

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The excavations at these cemeteries provide a full range of X-Group objects, dated to the fourth through sixth centuries a.d. Of special interest is the military equipment, including many decorated quivers, parts of several unusual light composite bows, and a saddle date to the late fourth century. The most important discoveries were the complexes of chapels and animal sacrifice pits found beside royal tombs at Qustul. The arrangement of these Noubadian royal funerary complexes can be related to others in Sudan indicating the existence of a widespread and long-lasting funerary tradition. ... Read more

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Located 200 km north of Khartoum, ancient Meroe was Nubia's capital and the residence of the Kushite kings from at least the 5th century BC. With its many palaces, temples and shrines it is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in Africa. Meroe is a key site for understanding the contacts and influences between the Mediterranean civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome and the cultures of east and central Africa. The present report discusses the results of the first excavation season of the joint University of Khartoum - Royal Ontario Museum expedition to Meroe. New discoveries were made at the Temple of Amun challenging many of the earlier assumptions regarding the architecture and chronology of the structure.A domestic complex known as mound M 712 was also excavated and a limited surface survey in parts of the Royal City was also carried out. ... Read more

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This is the first complete translation and commentary on the important tableau and inscription of Queen Katimala/Karimala at Semna. Proper understanding of the paleography, grammar, and content reveals Katimala to have been a Nubian ruler at the time of the Twenty-First to Twenty-Second Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. She emerges as a political and military leader who took control of at least Lower Nubia in the wake of failed military activities on the part of a male predecessor. Katimala's inscription is not illegible, as has often been stated, but is a well-composed Lower Nubian example of a politico-religious manifesto applying many of the conventions of early Egyptian literary and historical compositions. ... Read more

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The book contextualises and makes a synthesis of the major cultural changes that took place in the southern Levant and northeast Africa during the 5th and 4th millennia BC. The basis is the major changes that took place with reference to animal husbandry, agriculture, exchange and interaction. Focus of the book is the introduction of metal to the southern Levant, Egypt and Lower Nubia and the role of pastoral nomadism in a context of cultural change and contact. The implications of these developments are discussed in a context of increased exchange and the development of more complex societies. With reference to the introduction of metal the implications are particularly discussed on a social level concerning the exchange system, social transformation and the role of metal in these societies. ... Read more

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NUBIAN PHARAOHS AND MEROITIC KINGS: THE KINGDOM OF KUSH Necia Desiree Harkless has completed her odyssey of 24 years initiated by a poem that emerged in the odd moments of early morning and her studies as a Donovan Scholar at the University of Kentucky with Dr. William Y. Adams, the leading Nubiologist of the world. The awesome result is her attempt to map the cultural, social, political history of Nubia "as a single people as actors on the world stage as they act out their destinies in the cradle of civilization". The underlying purpose of her book "is to reconstruct the collective efforts of the past and present Nubian campaigns and their collaborative scholarship so that the African American as well as all Americans can begin to understand the contributions of the civilization of Africa and Asia as a continuous historical entity". The history of the Kingdom of Kush begins with its earliest kingdom of Kerma in 2500 BC. It continues with the conquest of Egypt by the Nubian Pharaohs in 750 BC, reluctantly recognized as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs. They ruled as black pharaohs from their Kingdom at Napatan until they were forced one hundred years later to retreat to Napata by the Assyrians who assumed control of the Egyptians. It was at Meroe, the last empire of the Kush, that forty generations of Meroitic kings and queens continued the Kingdom of Kush reaching monumental and dynastic heights. Their symbiotic relationship with Egypt was over, allowing them to develop their own indigenous culture with a language and script of their own. Their architecture, arts , politics , material and spiritual culture in the minds of many scholars surpassed that of Egypt. Over two hundred pyramids have been investigated. It is an epic that will be long remembered. The dawn of Christianity in the Kingdom of Kush has been found in the treasure cove of the Frescoes of Faras. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

How the mighty have fallen!
My major problems with this book are twofold:1.) I could write a book about the typos alone and 2.)out of 190+ pages, maybe 10 actually talk about the title subject. The title is totally misleading! I have no problem with the afrocentric bias of the author (actually I tend to agree with her),but I expected a history and listing of the kings and queens, not a geography lesson.I learned more about the Egyptian pharaohs than I did about the main subject.As far as the typos are concerned,you would think that an author of her quality would have someone do a better proofreading job on this.I spent more time trying to figure out what words or dates were meant than what the actual point was.That's the problem with buying books discount;you never know what was meant. ... Read more

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The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.
Rich in titles on English life and social history, this collection spans the world as it was known to eighteenth-century historians and explorers. Titles include a wealth of travel accounts and diaries, histories of nations from throughout the world, and maps and charts of a world that was still being discovered. Students of the War of American Independence will find fascinating accounts from the British side of conflict.
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The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
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British Library

T006299

The imprint to vol.2 reads: 'printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers'.

London : printed for Lockyer Davis and Charles Reymers, 1757. 2v.,plates : map ; 8° ... Read more

Product Description
The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.
Rich in titles on English life and social history, this collection spans the world as it was known to eighteenth-century historians and explorers. Titles include a wealth of travel accounts and diaries, histories of nations from throughout the world, and maps and charts of a world that was still being discovered. Students of the War of American Independence will find fascinating accounts from the British side of conflict.
++++
The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
++++
British Library

T006299

The imprint to vol.2 reads: 'printed for L. Davis and C. Reymers'.

London : printed for Lockyer Davis and Charles Reymers, 1757. 2v.,plates : map ; 8° ... Read more

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The volume provides a detailed catalogue of 127 stelae (many funerary) deriving from the Nile Valley, now part of the Egyptian collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The stelae are written in various scripts - Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic, Carian, Greek, Coptic and early Arabic - and cover a date-range of over 4000 years. Few museums have published their complete holdings of such material, and the carefully described and translated information from these stelae throws a flood of light on the history, religion, funerary customs, art and iconography, daily life and administrative systems of ancient Egypt and Nubia. Each entry has a photograph of the stela as well as a meticulous line-drawing which enables the texts and iconography to be understood and interpreted. Full museological details such as material, precise measurements, provenance (where known), mode of acquisition and dating are provided. The volume will interest specialists as well as a wider public concerned with Egyptology. ... Read more