Nubia in Biblical History

Egypt is in the Lower Nile Valley. Nubia is in the Upper Nile Valley.
The terms "upper" and "lower" refer to elevations.

Ancient Nubia plays an important role in biblical history. Before Egypt emerged as a political state, Nubia was the home of cattle herders and chiefdoms. It played a foundational role in the political and religious development of the entire Nile Valley, pioneering early trade, statecraft, and agricultural traditions.

Nubia appears to be the point of origin of practices that came to be associated with the early Nilotic Hebrew. These include circumcision, animal sacrifice, and cousin marriage among royalty.

Nubia is described as a region rich in gold, bdellium and onyx in Genesis 2:11. Bdellium is a semi-transparent oleo-gum resin extracted from Commiphora wightii and from Commiphora africana. These trees grow in Ethiopia, Eritrea and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Genesis 2 also describes Eden as a vast, well-watered region which extended from the sources of the Nile in the highlands of Ethiopia and Uganda to the fertile flood plains of the Tigris and Euphrates. The word Eden comes from the ancient Akkadian word edinu which refers to a fertile valley or a flood plain. Akkadian is the oldest known Semitic language.

Genesis 2 states that the Pishon "flows through the whole land of Havilah" which was rich in gold. The Beja, called the "Medjayu" by the Egyptians, brought gold to Egypt from mines deep in the heartland of Nubia and Kush. Havilah is also the name of one of Kush's sons (Gen. 10:7) and some Kushite kings ruled in Egypt.

Ha'vilah refers to the place where the Blue Nile and the White Nile separate at the Nile's source. This is the area where the two merge into the Nile below the 5th Cataract (see map above). The current of the Nile River flows north toward the Mediterranean.

The Shrine Cities of Nubia

Ancient Nubia had 3 principal shrine cities. These served as the administrative centers at different periods of history.  Kerma, just below the 3rd Cataract, was the main shrine city from about 2600 to 1520 BC. Abraham would have known about Kerma.

Temple precinct of Kerma

Napata, between the 3rd and 4th Cataracts, was the main shrine city from about 1000 to 300 B.C. King David and his son Solomon would have known about Napata. Meroë became the administrative center from about 300 B.C. to 300 A.D.  For the Egyptians, the Orontes River in Turkey marked the northern boundary of Amurru. In ancient times, the Orontes River was the chief river of the Levant and had sufficient depth for boats to sail up the river from the Mediterranean. The current of the Orontes, like the Nile, flows northward.

The Egyptian settlement of Meroe in Turkey was built on the precipice of Mt. Silpius. Meroe was named IO, which means “pillared place of the Sun.” The O was a solar symbol and the emblem of the Creator. On ancient maps the city on the opposite shore from Meroe was called Ant-IO and is known today as Antioch. Meroe/IO and Ant-IOch appear to have been twin cities.

When the fortress at Meroe was build, about 4000 years ago, the north pole star was seen near Alpha Draconis in the constellation of Draco. A relatively inconspicuous star in the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere, it is significant as having been the north pole star from the 4th to 2nd millennium B.C.

Meroe on the Orontes was about 2185 miles from Meroe on the Nile.

Nubian Warriors

With the help of skilled archers, the rulers of Nubia were able to bring all the peoples of the Nile Valley under Nubian rule. Nubia kings ruled Egypt for about a century.

Nubians served as warriors in the armies of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome. Nubian archers also served as warriors in the imperial army of Persia in the first millennium BC. According to 2 Samuel 18 and 2 Chronicles 14, they also fought on behalf of Israel.

The Nubians were famous for boxing, wrestling, stick fighting and archery. The Greeks learned these skills from the ancient Egyptian and Nubian warriors. They refined these skills through martial sports called Pankrashan.

Ainu warriors of Northern Japan were called Yaunguru. They are related to the Anu of the Upper Nile. The Sanskrit word guru is a variant of the ancient Egyptian word geru, which means self-mastered or silent while enduring pain. Plato wrote about the self-mastery of these warriors in his book the Republic. He called this balanced judgement "thymos."

Who were the original Nubians?

The French Egyptologist Abbe Émile Amélineau (1850-1916) believed that the Anu were the aboriginal inhabitants of the Lower Nile (Egypt) who founded the cities of Esneh, Erment, Qouch and Heliopolis. An early name for Heliopolis was “Anu" (biblical On). Amélineau noted that "All those cities have the characteristic symbol which serves to denote the name Anu."

Amélineau has this to say about the Anu: 

 "These Anu were agricultural people, raising cattle on a large scale along the Nile, shutting themselves up in walled cities for defensive purposes. To this people we can attribute, without fear of error, the most ancient Egyptian books, The Book of the Dead and the Texts of the Pyramids, consequently, all the myths or religious teachings. I would add almost all the philosophical systems then known and still called Egyptian. They evidently knew the crafts necessary for any civilization and were familiar with the tools those trades required. They knew how to use metals, at least elementary metals. They made the earliest attempts at writing, for the whole Egyptian tradition attributes this art to Thoth, the great Hermes an Anu like Osiris, who is called Onian in Chapter XV of The Book of the Dead and in the Texts of the Pyramids. Certainly the people already knew the principal arts; it left proof of this in the architecture of the tombs at Abydos, especially the tomb of Osiris and in those sepulchers objects have been found bearing unmistakable stamp of their origin, such as carved ivory, or a little head of a Nubian girl found in a tomb near that of Osiris, or the small wooden or ivory receptacles in the form of a feline head--all documents published in the first volume of my Fouilles d'Abydos."(Read the French original here.)

Nubian Diversity

Flinders Petrie's 1930's study of ancient images suggested to him that Egypt was the product of the mixing of different peoples (racial types). He found images of black, red and brown Nubians. 

This confirmed what had been discovered by the 1828 Franco-Italian expedition to Egypt led by Jean-Francois Champollion and Ippolito Rosellini. Below is a detail from one of Rosellini's drawings showing both black and red Nubian warriors who were taken captive by the Egyptians under Rameses II (1279-1213 BC).

Red and black Nubians
Detail from a Ippolito Rosellini painting
from the Franco-Italian Expedition to Egypt, 1828

DNA studies of Nubian mummies indicate that the population of ancient Nubia was mixed. Analysis of the mtDNA in ancient Nubians indicates gene flow between sub-Sahara and North Africa through the Nile Valley.

Related reading: Twin Cities of the Ancient World; The History of Ancient Nubia; The Pyramids of Nubia (video); The Nubian Context of YHWH; The Nubian Empire (video)