1- Kush: The Jewel of Nubia

[hive-mind-d86.livejournal.com]

Kush: The Jewel of Nubia by Miriam Ma'at-Ka-Re Monges

Hello there, I'm going to attempt to read and review 50 books that are probably mostly going to be focused on Africa because I am minorly obsessed find the cultures, philosophical systems and religions interesting. I'm probably not going to finish 50 in a year because with any luck I'll have a PhD place soon and then the sponges will eat my brain I'll have very little free time.

This is a very interesting and readable nonfiction book about Ancient Egypt and Nubia the Kingdom south of Egypt. It argues (very well) that Nubian culture influenced Egyptian/Kemetic culture and gives some wonderful details about society and worship in both. It shows very definately that Egypt was an African culture and shouldn't be held apart. It shows striking similarities in Egyptian and Nubian culture. It argues very successfully for an Afrocentric approach.

I have two problems with it. The first is that I don't think it was edited very well. For example you open the book and are presented with an 'upside-down' map of Egypt and Nubia, the caption tells you the orientation is changed so that you see the map from an Afrocentric perspective. It takes several pages for this to be explained; essentially the Nile runs south to north so if you live on the Nile south is up (which absolutely explains the positions of Lower and Upper Egypt and that always confused me). A few tweaks would have made it more accessable.

I picked this up because I wanted to know more about Nubia. The first half of the book is almost entirely about Egypt and the second half constantly compares the two cultures. I came away feeling vaguely dissapointed, not because I didn't learn anything but because the title fooled me into thinking this book would be all about Nubia.

So in conclusion a very good book about Egypt and the relationship between Nubia and Egypt. The chapters on Divine Kingship and Matriarchal Systems are particularly informative, the discussion on the roles of royal women and the Kandakes/Candaces were fantastic. The evidence linking Egypt and Nubia is pretty solid and (I think) it blows the idea of Egypt somehow being a Middle Eastern or Mediterranean civilisation out of the water and through the stratosphere in a gazzillion smoking pieces. But when you pick it up expecting to dive in to Kush, to Kerma surfacing in Cairo seems a bit of a shame.

Comments

[triciasullivan.livejournal.com]

Wow...that's very informative, thank you! With LJ you just never know whose brainpower you can be tapping into when you ask a question :-)