Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-5vcl9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-09-04T19:32:31.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Symbolic equids and Kushite state formation: a horse burial at Tombos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2018

Sarah A. Schrader ,
Stuart Tyson Smith ,
Sandra Olsen  and
Michele Buzon
Sarah A. Schrader*
Affiliation:
Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology, P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands
Stuart Tyson Smith
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Anthropology, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
Sandra Olsen
Affiliation:
The University of Kansas, Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA
Michele Buzon
Affiliation:
Purdue University, Department of Anthropology, 700 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: s.a.schrader@arch.leidenuniv.nl)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The recent discovery of a well-preserved horse burial at the Third Cataract site of Tombos illuminates the social significance of equids in the Nile Valley. The accompanying funerary assemblage includes one of the earliest securely dated pieces of iron in Africa. The Third Intermediate Period (1050–728 BC) saw the development of the Nubian Kushite state beyond the southern border of Egypt. Analysis of the mortuary and osteological evidence suggests that horses represented symbols of a larger social, political and economic movement, and that the horse gained symbolic meaning in the Nile Valley prior to its adoption by the Kushite elite. This new discovery has important implications for the study of the early Kushite state and the formation of Kushite social identity.

Keywords

SudanEgyptNile ValleyNapataKushitehorseiron

Information

Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 92 , Issue 362 , April 2018 , pp. 383 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arbuckle, B.S. & McCarty, S.A. (ed.). 2014. Animals and inequality in the ancient world. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.5876/9781607322863CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argent, G. 2010. Do the clothes make the horse? Relationality, roles, and statuses in Iron Age Inner Asia. World Archaeology 42: 157–74. https://doi.org/10.1086/506288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badawy, A. 1968. A history of Egyptian architecture. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ben-Tor, D. 1989. The scarab: a reflection of ancient Egypt. Jerusalem: Israel Museum.Google Scholar
Bietak, M. n.d. The palatial precinct at the Nile branch (area H). Available at: http://www.auaris.at/html/ez_helmi_en.html (accessed 2 November 2017).Google Scholar
Boessneck, J. 1970. Ein altägyptisches pferdeskelett. Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 26: 43–47.Google Scholar
Boessneck, J. 1976. Tell el-Dab'a III. Die tierknochenfunde 1966–1969. Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 5: 21–49.Google Scholar
Boessneck, J. & von den Driesch, A.. 1992. Tell el-Dabaa VII. Veinna: ÖAW.Google Scholar
Bökönyi, S. 1993. Two horse skeletons from the cemetery of Kurru, northern Sudan. Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 45: 301–16.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 337–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200033865CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buzon, M. 2006. Biological and ethnic identity in New Kingdom Nubia. Current Anthropology 47: 683–95. https://doi.org/10.1086/506288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buzon, M., Smith, S.T. & Simonetti, A.. 2016. Entanglement and the formation of ancient Nubian Napatan state. American Anthropologist 118: 284–300. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12524CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaix, L. 2006. The animal remains, in Vincentelli, I. (ed.) Hillat El-Arab: 187–230. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Chard, T. 1937. An early horse skeleton. Journal of Heredity 28: 317–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a104395CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, J. 1974. The Buhen horse. Journal of Archaeological Science 1: 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-4403(74)90019-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, J. 1992. Horse power. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Connerton, P. 1989. How societies remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628061CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalley, S.M. 1985. Foreign chariotry and cavalry in the armies of Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II. Iraq 47: 31–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
deFrance, S.D. 2009. Zooarchaeology in complex societies: political economy, status, and ideology. Journal of Archaeological Research 17: 105–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-008-9027-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunham, D. 1947. Four Kushite colossi in the Sudan. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 33: 63–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/3855440CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunham, D. 1950. The royal cemeteries of Kush. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, D.N. 2004. Nubian past: an archaeology of the Sudan. London & New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidorn, L.A. 1997. The horses of Kush. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56: 105–14. https://doi.org/10.1086/468525CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, E. 2013. Archaeology and animal persons: toward a prehistory of human-animal relations. Environment and Society 4: 117–36. https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2013.040108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphris, J. & Rehren, T.. 2014. Iron production and the kingdom of Kush: an introduction to UCL Qatar's research in Sudan, in Lohwasser, A. & Wolf, P. (ed.) Ein forscherleben zwischen den welten. Zum 80. Geburtstag von Steffen Wenig. Berlin: Sonderheft Mitteilungen der Sudanarchäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin.Google Scholar
Lenoble, P. 1994. Une monture pour mon royaume: sacrifices triomphaux de chevaux et de méhara d'El Kurru à Ballana. Archéologie du Nil Moyen 6: 107–30.Google Scholar
Littauer, M.A. & Crouwel, J.H.. 1985. Chariots and related equipment form the tomb of Tut'ankhamun. Oxford: Griffith Institute.Google Scholar
Macadam, M.F.L. 1955. The temples of Kawa. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mallory-Greenough, L. 2005. The horse burials of Nubia. Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 32: 105–10.Google Scholar
Martin, G. 1991. The hidden tombs of Memphis. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Morkot, R.G. 2000. The black pharaohs. London: Rubicon.Google Scholar
Morkot, R.G. 2013. From conquered to conqueror: the organization of Nubia in the New Kingdom and the Kushite administration of Egypt, in García, J.C.M. (ed.) Ancient Egyptian administration: 911–64. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Day, S.J., Van Neer, W. & Ervynck, A. (ed.). 2004. Behaviour behind bones: the zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Olsen, S.L. 2006. Introduction, in Olsen, S.L., Grant, S., Choyke, A.M. & Bartosiewicz, L. (ed.) Horses and humans: the evolution of human-equine relationships (British Archaeological Reports International series 1560): 1–10. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, S.L. & Culbertson, C.. 2010. A gift from the desert: the art, history and culture of the Arabian horse. Lexington (KY): International Museum of the Horse.Google Scholar
Quibell, J.E. & Olver, A.. 1926. An ancient Egyptian horse. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Egypte 26: 172–76.Google Scholar
Raulwing, P. & Clutton-Brock, J.. 2009. The Buhen horse: fifty years after its discovery (1958–2008). Journal of Egyptian History 2 (1–2): 1–106. https://doi.org/10.1163/187416509X12492786609122Google Scholar
Rehren, T. 2001. Meroe, iron and Africa. Mitteilungen der Sudanarchaeologischen gesellschaft 12: 102–109.Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G., Bronk Ramsey, C., Buck, C.E., Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P.M., Guilderson, T.P., Haflidason, H., Hajdas, I., Hatté, C., Heaton, T.J., Hoffmann, D.L., Hogg, A.G., Hughen, K.A., Kaiser, K.F., Kromer, B., Manning, S.W., Niu, M., Reimer, R.W., Richards, D.A., Scott, E.M., Southon, J.R., Staff, R.A., Turney, C.S.M. & van der Plicht, J.. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55: 1869–87. https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_js_rc.55.16947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rilly, C. 2001. Une nouvelle interprétation du nom royal Piankhy. Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale 101: 351–68.Google Scholar
Russell, N. 2012. Social zooarchaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Säve-Söderbergh, T. 1951. The Hyksos rule in Egypt. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 37: 53–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/3855157CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schrader, S. 2013. Bioarchaeology of the everyday: analysis of activity patterns and diet in the Nile Valley. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Purdue University.Google Scholar
Schrader, S. & Buzon, M.. 2017. Everyday life after collapse: a bioarchaeological examination of entheseal changes and accidental injury in post-colonial Nubia. Bioarchaeology International 1: 19–34. https://doi.org/10.5744/bi.2017.1000CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinnie, P.L. & Kense, F.J.. 1982. Meroitic iron working. Meroitica 6: 17–28.Google Scholar
Silliman, S.W. 2009. Change and continuity, practice and memory: Native American persistence in colonial New England. American Antiquity 74: 211–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0002731600048575CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S.T. 2003. Wretched Kush: ethnic identities and boundaries in Egypt's Nubian empire. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, S.T. 2008. Tombos and the transition from the New Kingdom to the Napatan Period in Upper Nubia, in Godlewski, W. & Latjar, A. (ed.) Between the cataracts: 95–115. Warsaw: WUW.Google Scholar
Smith, S.T. 2013. Revenge of the Kushites: assimilation and resistance in Egypt's New Kingdom empire and Nubian ascendancy over Egypt, in Areshian, G. (ed.) Empires and complexity: 84–107. Los Angeles (CA): Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.Google Scholar
Smith, S.T. & Buzon, M.R.. 2014. Identity, commemoration, and remembrance in colonial encounters: burials at Tombos during the Egyptian New Kingdom Nubian empire and its aftermath, in Porter, B.W. & Boutin, A.T. (ed.) Remembering the dead in the ancient Near East: 185–216. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
Spalinger, A. 1981. Notes on the military in Egypt during the XXVth Dynasty. Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 11: 37–58.Google Scholar
Spalinger, A. 2005. War in ancient Egypt. Malden (MA): Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, N. 2014. Creating and re-shaping Egypt in Kush: responses at Amara West. Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 6: 42–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Török, L. 1997. The kingdom of Kush. Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic civilization. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Török, L. 2002. The image of the ordered world in ancient Nubian art. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Török, L. 2009. Between two worlds: the frontier region between ancient Nubia and Egypt, 3700 BC–AD 500 (Probleme der Ägyptologie 29). Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigger, B. 1976. Nubia under the pharaohs. Boulder (CO): Westview.Google Scholar
Tylecote, R.F. 1982. Metal working at Meroe, Sudan. Meroitica 6: 29–49.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Schrader et al. supplementary material

Schrader et al. supplementary material 1

Download Schrader et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 219.5 KB