In the centuries immediately preceding the Ptolemies Egypt’s southern border was normally located at the First Cataract of the Nile, but the frontier could move further south creating a kind of buffer zone which provided both natural resources and military recruits. The idea of a multifunctional buffer zone was taken over by Ptolemy II who turned part of Lower Nubia into the Dodekaschoinos or ‘‘Twelve-mile District’’ (Dietze 1994, Locher 1999). The area was donated to Isis at the expense of Khnum, and on Philai a comprehensive building project was started (Vassilika 1989), turning the island into the main religious center in the area instead of Elephantine. Ptolemy II to IV organized hunting expeditions for war-elephants even further south. Ptolemaic involvement and foundations on the Red Sea coast were equally part of an exploration programme for elephant hunting and ivory and, more generally, harmonized with the spirit of the age to explore the edges of the known world (Burstein 1996; Mueller 2006: 151-7).
In northern Lower Nubia Meroitic and Egyptian ranges of influence met peacefully. Ptolemy IV initiated in Philai the building of the temple of the Meroitic god Arensnuphis, but during the Great Revolt the Nubian king Ergamenes II (Arqamani) occupied Lower Nubia and Philai, where he continued the Arensnuphis building project. After the revolt the border was temporarily brought back to the First Cataract, but a new expansion under Ptolemy VI reestablished control over the buffer zone (Pfeiffer 2010). A votive inscription even testifies to two city foundations in the area (Heinen 2000; Mueller 2006). These cities Philometris and Kleopatra were apparently part of a territory called the Triakontaschoinos, ‘‘Thirty-mile District,’’ probably conquered by the high official Boethos and subsuming the Dodekaschoinos. Building projects in Lower Nubia continued, but the Ptolemies had lost control there by the first century BC.
World History
