Lower Nubia

Lower Nubia shown as a list of monuments at risk in the 1960 UNESCO Courier

Lower Nubia (also called Wawat)[1][2] is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern population, were relocated as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia; Qasr Ibrim is the only major archaeological site which was neither relocated nor submerged.[3][4] The intensive archaeological work conducted prior to the flooding means that the history of the area is much better known than that of Upper Nubia. According to David Wengrow, the A-Group Nubian polity of the late 4th millenninum BCE is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser.[5]

Its history is also known from its long relations with Egypt, particularly neighboring Upper Egypt. The region was historically defined as between the historical First and Second Cataracts, which are now both within Lake Nasser. The region was known to Greco-Roman geographers as Triakontaschoinos.

It is downstream on the Nile from Upper Nubia.

  1. ^ Coates, Ta-Nehisi (2009-12-11). "The Gathering Of My Name". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-09-29.
  2. ^ Ferreira, Eduardo (2019-01-05). "The Lower Nubian Egyptian Fortresses in the Middle Kingdom: A Strategic Point of View" (PDF). Athens Journal of History. 5 (1): 32.
  3. ^ A.J. Clapham; P.A. Rowley-Conwy (2007). "New Discoveries at Qasr Ibrim". In R.T.J. Cappers (ed.). Fields of Change: Progress in African Archaeobotany. Groningen archaeological studies. David Brown Book Company. p. 157. ISBN 978-90-77922-30-9. Retrieved 2022-11-05. ... Qasr Ibrim is the only in situ site left in Lower Nubia since the flooding of the Nile valley
  4. ^ Ruffini, G.R. (2012). Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-999620-9. Retrieved 2022-11-05. Qasr Ibrim is critically important in a number of ways. It is the only site in Lower Nubia that remained above water after the completion of the Aswan high dam.
  5. ^ Wengrow, David (2023). "Ancient Egypt and Nubian: Kings of Flood and Kings of Rain" in Great Kingdoms of Africa, John Parker (eds). [S.l.]: THAMES & HUDSON. pp. 1–40. ISBN 978-0500252529.