The history of Sudan refers to the territory that today makes up
Arabic: بلاد السودانbilād as-sūdān, or "land of the black people",[1][2] and has sometimes been used more widely referring to the Sahel belt of West and Central Africa
.
The modern Republic of the Sudan was formed in 1956 and inherited its boundaries from
, and a wider and changing territory between Egypt in the North and regions in the South adjacent to modern Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.
The early history of the
Coptic alphabet
).
While
Sultanate of Sennar in the early 16th century, which controlled large parts of the Nile Valley and the Eastern Desert, while the kingdoms of Darfur controlled the western part of Sudan. Two small kingdoms arose in the southern regions, the Shilluk Kingdom of 1490, and Taqali of 1750, near modern-day South Sudan, but both northern and southern regions were seized by Muhammad Ali of Egypt during the 1820s. The oppressive rule of Muhammad Ali and his immediate successors is credited for stirring up resentment against the Turco-Egyptian and British rulers and led to the establishment of the Mahdist State, founded by Muhammad Ahmad
in 1881.
Since independence in 1956, the history of Sudan has been tarnished by internal conflict, including the
Affad 23 is an archaeological site located in the Affad region of southern Dongola Reach in northern Sudan,[3] which hosts "the well-preserved remains of prehistoric camps (relics of the oldest open-airhut in the world) and diverse hunting and gathering loci some 50,000 years old".[4][5][6]
By the eighth millennium BC, people of a
mud-brick villages, where they supplemented hunting and fishing on the Nile with grain gathering and cattle herding.[7] During the fifth millennium BC, migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed a social hierarchy over the next centuries and became the Kingdom of Kush (with the capital at Kerma) around 1070 BC. Anthropological and archaeological research indicates that during the pre-dynastic period Lower Nubia and Magadan Upper Egypt were ethnically, and culturally nearly identical, and thus, simultaneously evolved systems of Pharaonic kingship by 3300 BC.[8] Together with other countries on Red Sea, Sudan is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt (or "Ta Netjeru", meaning "God's Plan"), whose first mention dates to the 10th century BC.[9]
Eastern Sudan
In eastern Sudan, the Butana Group appears around 4000 BC. These people produced simple decorated pottery, lived in round huts and were most likely herdsmen, hunters, but also consumed land snails and there is evidence for some agriculture.[10]
The
Mahal Teglinos was an important place about 10 hectare large. In the center were excavated mud brick built houses. Seals and seal impressions attest a higher level of administration. Burials in an elite cemetery were marked with rough tomb stones.[11] In the second millennium followed the Jebel Mokram Group. They produced pottery with simple incised decoration and lived in simple round huts. Cattle breeding was most likely the economical base.[12]
Northern Sudan's earliest historical record comes from ancient Egyptian sources, which described the land upstream as Kush. For more than two thousand years after the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–2180 BC), Egypt had a dominating and significant influence over its southern neighbor, and even afterward, the legacy of Egyptian cultural and religious introductions remained important.[7]
Over the centuries, trade developed. Egyptian caravans carried grain to Kush and returned to Aswan with
jewelry and for arrowheads) for shipment downriver. Egyptian governors particularly valued gold in Nubia and soldiers in the pharaoh's army. Egyptian military expeditions penetrated Kush periodically during the Old Kingdom. Yet there was no attempt to establish a permanent presence in the area until the Middle Kingdom (c. 2100–1720 BC), when Egypt constructed a network of forts along the Nile as far south as Samnah in Lower Egypt to guard the flow of gold from mines in Wawat, the area between the First and Second Cataracts.[7]
Around 1720 BC, Canaanite nomads called the Hyksos took over Egypt, ended the Middle Kingdom, severed links with Kush, and destroyed the forts along the Nile River. To fill the vacuum left by the Egyptian withdrawal, a culturally distinct indigenous Kushite kingdom emerged at Kerma, near present-day Dongola. After Egyptian power revived during the New Kingdom (c. 1570–1100 BC), the pharaoh Ahmose I incorporated Kush as an Egyptian ruled province governed by a viceroy. Although Egypt's administrative control of Kush extended only down to the Fourth Cataract, Egyptian sources list tributary districts reaching to the Red Sea and upstream to the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers. Egyptian authorities ensured the loyalty of local chiefs by drafting their children to serve as pages at the pharaoh's court. Egypt also expected tribute in gold and workers from local Kushite chiefs.[7]
Once Egypt had established political and military mastery over Kush, officials, priests, merchants, and artisans settled in the region. The Egyptian language became widely used in everyday activities. Many rich Kushites took to worshipping Egyptian gods and built temples for them. The temples remained centres of official religious worship until the coming of Christianity to the region during the sixth century. When Egyptian influence declined or succumbed to foreign domination, the Kushite elite regarded themselves as central powers and believed themselves as idols of Egyptian culture and religion.[7]
By the 11th century BC, the authority of the New Kingdom dynasties had diminished, allowing divided rule in Egypt, and ending Egyptian control of Kush. With the withdrawal of the Egyptians, there ceased to be any written record or information from Kush about the region's activities over the next three hundred years. In the early eighth century BC, however, Kush emerged as an independent kingdom ruled from Napata by an aggressive line of monarchs who slowly extended their influence into Egypt. Around 750 BC, a Kushite king called Kashta conquered Upper Egypt and became ruler of Thebes until approximately 740 BC. His successor, Piye, subdued the Nile Delta and conquered Egypt, thus initiating the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. Piye founded a line of kings who ruled Kush and Thebes for about a hundred years. The dynasty's interference with Assyria's sphere of influence in the Near East caused a confrontation between Egypt and the powerful Assyrian state, which controlled a vast empire comprising much of the Middle East, Anatolia, Caucasus[citation needed] and the Eastern Mediterranean Basin from their homeland in Upper Mesopotamia.
Taharqa (688–663 BC), the last Kushite pharaoh, was defeated and driven out of the Near East by Sennacherib of Assyria. Sennacherib's successor Esarhaddon went further, launching a full-scale invasion of Egypt in 674 BC, defeating Taharqa and quickly conquering the land. Taharqa fled back to Nubia, and native Egyptian princes were installed by the Assyrians as vassals of Esarhaddon. However, Taharqa was able to return some years later and wrest back control of a part of Egypt as far as Thebes from the Egyptian vassal princes of Assyria. Esarhaddon died in his capital Nineveh while preparing to return to Egypt and once more eject the Kushites.[13]
Esarhaddon's successor Ashurbanipal sent a general with a small army which again defeated and ejected Taharqa from Egypt. Taharqa died in Nubia two years later. His successor, Tantamani, attempted to regain Egypt. He successfully defeated Necho I, the puppet ruler installed by Ashurbanipal, taking Thebes in the process. The Assyrians then sent a powerful army southwards. Tantamani was heavily routed, and the Assyrian army sacked Thebes to such an extent it never truly recovered. A native ruler, Psamtik I was placed on the throne, as a vassal of Ashurbanipal, thus ending the Kushite/Nubian Empire.
Meroë's succession system was not necessarily hereditary; the matrilineal royal family member deemed most worthy often became king. The kandake or queen mother's role in the selection process was crucial to a smooth succession. The crown appears to have passed from brother to brother (or sister) and only when no siblings remained from father to son.
Although Napata remained Meroë's religious centre, northern Kush eventually fell into disorder as it came under pressure from the Blemmyes, nomads from east of the Nile. However, the Nile continued to give the region access to the Mediterranean world. Additionally, Meroë maintained contact with Arab and Indian traders along the Red Sea coast and incorporated Hellenistic and Indian cultural influences into its daily life. Inconclusive evidence suggests that metallurgical technology may have been transmitted westward across the savanna belt to West Africa from Meroë's iron smelteries.
Relations between Meroë and Egypt were not always peaceful. As a response to Meroë's incursions into Upper Egypt, a Roman army moved south and razed Napata in 23 BC. The Roman commander quickly abandoned the area, deeming it too poor to warrant colonization.
In the second century AD, the Nobatia occupied the Nile's west bank in northern Kush. They are believed to have been one of several well-armed bands of horse- and camel-borne warriors who sold their skills to Meroë for protection; eventually they intermarried and established themselves among the Meroitic people as a military aristocracy. Until nearly the fifth century, Rome subsidized the Nobatia and used Meroë as a buffer between Egypt and the Blemmyes.
Meanwhile, the old Meroitic kingdom contracted because of the expansion of the powerful Kingdom of Aksum to the east. By 350, King Ezana of Axum had captured and destroyed the capital of Meroë, ending the kingdom's independent existence and conquering its territory.
Kalabsha), but before 450 they were already driven out of the Nile Valley by the Nobatians. The latter eventually founded a kingdom on their own, Nobatia.[15] By the 6th century there were in total three Nubian kingdoms: Nobatia in the north, which had its capital at Pachoras (Faras); the central kingdom, Makuria centred at Tungul (Old Dongola), about 13 kilometres (8 miles) south of modern Dongola; and Alodia, in the heartland of the old Kushitic kingdom, which had its capital at Soba (now a suburb of modern-day Khartoum).[16] Still in the sixth century they converted to Christianity.[17] In the seventh century, probably at some point between 628 and 642, Nobatia was incorporated into Makuria.[18]
Between 639 and 641 the
Islamic expansion. Afterwards the Makurian king and the Arabs agreed on the Baqt, a unique non-aggression pact that also included an annual exchange of gifts, thus acknowledging Makuria's independence.[19] While the Arabs failed to conquer Nubia they began to settle east of the Nile, where they eventually founded several port towns[20] and intermarried with the local Beja.[21]
From the mid 8th-mid 11th century Christian Nubia went through its
matrilineal, with the son of the king's sister being the rightful heir.[35]
Since the late 11th/12th century, Makuria's capital Dongola was in decline, and Alodia's capital declined in the 12th century as well.
Gezira, Kordofan and Darfur.[39] In 1365 a civil war forced the Makurian court to flee to Gebel Adda in Lower Nubia, while Dongola was destroyed and left to the Arabs. Afterwards Makuria continued to exist as a rump state.[40]
The last known Makurian king was Joel, who is attested for the years 1463 and 1484 and under whom Makuria probably witnessed a brief renaissance.[41] After his death the kingdom probably collapsed.[42]
To the south, the kingdom of Alodia fell to either the Arabs, commanded by tribal leader Abdallah Jamma, or the
Funj, an African people originating from the south.[43] Datings range from the 9th century after the Hijra (c. 1396–1494),[44] the late 15th century,[45] 1504[46] to 1509.[47] An Alodian rump state might have survived in the form of the Kingdom of Fazughli, lasting until 1685.[48]
In 1504 the Funj are recorded to have founded the kingdom of Sennar, in which Abdallah Jamma's realm was incorporated.[50] By 1523, when Jewish traveller David Reubeni visited Sudan, the Funj state already extended as far north as Dongola.[51] Meanwhile, Islam began to be preached on the Nile by Sufi holymen who settled there in the 15th and 16th centuries[52] and by David Reubeni's visit king Amara Dunqas, previously a Pagan or nominal Christian, was recorded to be Muslim.[53] However, the Funj would retain un-Islamic customs like the divine kingship and the consummation of alcohol until the 18th century.[54] Sudanese folk Islam preserved many rituals stemming from Christian traditions until the recent past.[55]
Soon the Funj came in conflict with the
Abdallab, were granted the authority to govern everything north of the confluence of Blue and White Niles with considerable autonomy.[59]
During the 17th century the Funj state reached its widest extend,[60] but in the following century it began to decline.[61] A coup in 1718 brought a dynastic change,[62] while another one in 1761/1762[63] resulted in the Hamaj regency, where the Hamaj (a people from the Ethiopian borderlands) effectively ruled while the Funj sultans were their puppets.[64] Shortly afterwards the sultanate began to fragment;[65] by the early 19th century it was essentially restricted to the Gezira.[66]
The coup of 1718 kicked off a policy of pursuing a more orthodox Islam, which in turn promoted the
Al Dabbah, the Nubians would adopt the tribal identity of the Arab Jaalin.[69] Until the 19th century Arabic had succeeded in becoming the dominant language of central riverine Sudan[70][71][72] and most of Kordofan.[73]
West of the Nile, in
Jebel Marra,[78] but expanded west- and northwards in the early 18th century[79] and eastwards under the rule of Muhammad Tayrab (r. 1751–1786),[80] peaking in the conquest of Kordofan in 1785.[81] The apogee of this empire, now roughly the size of present-day Nigeria,[81] would last until 1821.[80]