Buhen

The fortress at Buhen, in Nubia (the region along the Nile from Aswan to Khartoum), is a good example of the strongholds the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom erected on their southern frontier. Excavated by W. B. Emery and others during the salvage campaign that accompanied the construction of the High Dam at Aswan, the ruins were subsequently flooded by the lake that formed behind the dam.

The Egyptians had two frontier zones over which they kept watch: the north, opening both westwards toward Libya and eastwards toward south-west Asia, and the south, beyond the First Cataract, leading up the Nile into central Africa. At various points in Egyptian history, peoples from the outside attempted to enter Egypt through these corridors. Sometimes they succeeded. The Egyptians had another reason to patrol the southern border region. Central Africa was a source for precious metals and exotic raw materials, and the Egyptians did not want this trade disrupted.

The fort at Buhen was built early in the twentieth century BC, one of several forts along the Nile north of the Second Cataract. The plan consisted of an inner citadel, an open yard, and a massive outer fortification wall of mud brick, 5m thick, originally 8m—9m in height. The inner citadel (150m X 138m), itself walled, featured buildings of mud brick, with stone and wood details neatly arranged in a grid plan, a regular layout that brings to mind Roman military camps of nearly 2,000 years later (Figure 6.2). Functions included garrison reception rooms, housing, storerooms, and

A possible temple. Two gates opened onto the river, the northernmost protecting a stone-lined channel that could supply river water in times of siege. The outer fortifications contained one gateway only, a passageway lined with parallel walls and towers that opened toward the western desert. The wall itself consisted of, in cross section from the exterior to the interior, a ditch, an outer parapet wall with arrow slits, a rampart or walkway, and the main wall, with crenellations on top (Figure 6.3). The indentations in the architecture recall the Mesopotamian-influenced design of the walls of tombs and towns in Early Dynastic Egypt, a method of decoration considered appropriate for mud brick regardless of the purpose, funerary, civil, or military.

Figure 6.3 Outer fortification wall (after excavation), Buhen