The King of Kush is the name given in Egyptian sources to the king whose capital lay at Kerma. Archaeologists use Kerma as an adjective to describe the culture of the Kushites and to distinguish it from other contemporary Nubian cultures, such as C group and pan grave. Kerma is situated south of the third cataract, at the termination of the western oasis routes, and is being excavated by Charles Bonnet of the University of Geneva.
The Kerma people kept no written records, but we know that their culture, found throughout Nubia, goes back to the early Old Kingdom. The king was at his most powerful during the Classic Kerma phase, which corresponds roughly to the Second Intermediate Period. Kamose may have succeeded in retaking Buhen, but only much later in the i8th Dynasty, after at least three more long campaigns, was Kerma itself conquered. The destruction that followed was so thorough that it is difficult now to reconstruct the city as it stood during the reigns of the last independent rulers. We do know that the great tumulus tombs in which the kings were buried contained slaughtered servants and great stocks of provisions, many imported from Upper Egypt, which may have been the taxes paid by those wishing to pass south beyond Elephantine. Until at least the middle of the 13th Dynasty the king was trading with both Upper and Lower Egypt, a trade probably administered through the cataract forts.
The Kerma Nubians were cattle-breeders and warriors, particularly famous as bowmen. The bows and arrows in their graves and the massive fortifications at Buhen designed to defend against archers, confirm this reputation. At the centre of the city was an enormous round hut set within a stockade which functioned in royal ceremonies. There were also large sacred sites and administrative buildings. An Extensive building and rebuilding programme during the Classic Kerma phase testifies to the immense resources in materials and manpower at the king’s disposal.
The presence of Kerma Nubians in the armies of Kamose and Ahmose is beyond dispute, but it is unclear whether they were there voluntarily or forcibly recruited during Kamose’s campaign. It seems likely that the Kerma Nubians were a federation of tribes, not all of whom necessarily accepted the authority of the King of Kerma, and, with it, the policy of enmity towards the Theban kings. In any case, whatever the king’s policy, trade flourished between Kerma and Thebes during the late Second Intermediate Period. People travelled as well as goods: Egyptian craftsmen to Kerma, perhaps, and certainly Kerma Nubians to Egypt. The burials of a handful of individuals have been found scattered between Thebes and Abydos. One rich burial, found intact at Thebes, is of the time of Kamose and belonged to a woman and her young child. It is entirely Egyptian in style and the woman wears a royal gift, ‘the gold of honour’, a necklace of many tiny gold ring beads. Beside her coffin was a carrying pole from which hung nets containing six pottery beakers, made in a style so diagnostic of the Kerma culture that it is called ‘Kerma ware’. Gold drew the Thebans and the Kerma Nubians together, first as allies but finally and inevitably as enemies.
World History
