Gebel Adda

Coordinates: 22°17′50″N 31°38′13″E / 22.29709°N 31.636884°E / 22.29709; 31.636884
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Gebel Adda
View of Gebel Adda in 1910
Highest point
Coordinates22°17′50″N 31°38′13″E / 22.29709°N 31.636884°E / 22.29709; 31.636884
Geography
Gebel Adda is located in Egypt
Gebel Adda
Gebel Adda

Gebel Adda (also Jebel Adda) was a mountain and archaeological site on the right bank of the Nubian Nile in what is now southern Egypt. The settlement on its crest was continuously inhabited from the late Meroitic period (2nd century AD–4th century) to the Ottoman period, when it was abandoned by the late 18th century. It reached its greatest prominence in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it seemed to have been the capital of late kingdom of Makuria. The site was superficially excavated by the American Research Center in Egypt just before being flooded by Lake Nasser in the 1960s, with much of the remaining excavated material, now stored in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, remaining unpublished. Unearthed were Meroitic inscriptions, Old Nubian documents, a large amount of leatherwork, two palatial structures and several churches, some of them with their paintings still intact. The nearby ancient Egyptian rock temple of Horemheb, also known as temple of Abu Oda, was rescued and relocated.[1]

Location

Rising from its flat surroundings as a

table mountain with steep slopes on all sides, Gebel Adda lay in Lower Nubia, on the east bank of the Nile, between the first and second cataracts, five kilometers south-east of Abu Simbel. The current border with Sudan lies 20 kilometers to the south. In the vicinity there were once several smaller settlements from Christian times: the Church of Kaw lay about 20 kilometers downstream on the same side of the river bank, while Abdallah Nirqi and Tamit were directly opposite, and the burial grounds of Qustul
lay about ten kilometres to the south. All these sites were flooded in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Egyptian temple on the slopes of the mountain is often named after the modern-day village Abu Oda that was located at the foot of the mountain. The mountain fortress was the site referred to as Daw (

Arabic: دو) in medieval Arabic sources, which has been thought to be the capital of Makuria from 1365 to around 1500. The town's Old Nubian name was Atwa.[2]

History

A box from Gebel Adda with decorated ivory inlay (4th century CE), Royal Ontario Museum
Late Christian pottery (12th–14th centuries), Royal Ontario Museum

At the beginning of the

Haremheb
(c. 1319–1292), the rock temple was built at nearby Abu Oda.

While most of the excavated material remains unpublished it seems that the hilltop of Gebel Adda was settled at least since the late

Roman province, Gebel Adda was ruled by an Egyptian governor as part of Triakontaschoinos. From the middle of the third century CE the area came under attack from the south by the Blemmyes who controlled Lower Nubia in the following century. Between the second and fourth centuries, Gebel Adda was an important provincial center together with Faras. On the plain, a large cemetery has been preserved, belong the X-Group culture
(about 350 to 550).

The spread of Christianity in

Saï. By this time, by conventional reckoning, the kingdom of Dotawo had already disappeared.[9] Gebel Adda remained inhabited throughout the Turkish period until the later 18th century, when its population likely migrated to Ballana on the other bank of the Nile.[10]

History of research

View from Gebel Adda towards the south, 1964

Nineteenth-century European travelers described the prominent rocky hill and the ruins of the former city next to the village of Abahuda.

Fatimid period (tenth–twelfth centuries CE).[12]

In 1932–33, Ugo Monneret de Villard carried out excavations in Lower Nubia on behalf of the Egyptian antiquities authority and with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wrote the first detailed report about the fortress and the tombs. Monneret, who was mainly interested in the remains of the Christian Middle Ages, uncovered three church buildings to the south of the fortress hill.

In 1959, Mustafa el-Amir began the first systematic excavations as leader of an expedition from the

University of Alexandria. In a three-month campaign they uncovered a large part of the Christian cemetery (Cemetery 2), as well as six large burial mounds from the X-Group period (Cemetery 1), some late Christian-period dwellings on the hill, and the church already examined by Monneret (Church 1). The excavations led by Nicholas B. Millet on behalf of the American Research Center built on this. Their most extensive work was carried out in four campaigns from 1962 to 1965 between December and April.[13]

Layout

The ancient and medieval city lay on the crest of the steep hill, from which a slightly flatter spur pushes north to bank of the Nile. The only access was a steep and narrow path, partly involving stairs, which ascended to the spur and from there led first into the northern suburbs, and then on into the city proper through a massive gate that was reinforced in the fourteenth century. This route was protected by a adobe tower; in the Meroitic period, the city wall ran to the north of this, later to be found by archaeologists under Christian- and Islamic-period ruins. On the north-east side there was a rectangular platform made of stone, which probably formed the base (stylobate) of a temple. From here the enclosing wall ran across the north-eastern tip of the hill and some distance from the settlement along its east side.[14] In at least some places the adobe wall was reinforced on the outside by an additional rubble wall.[15]

As at Qasr Ibrim or

Nubian vaults
.

One of the approximately seven churches in the area was preserved between the densely packed ruined houses, lying to the left of the stairway as the stairway reached the plateau. The hill reached its highest point in the southwest, where scattered fragments of granite columns identified around 1900 indicated the site of a larger church. Fragments of reddish sandstone capitals were found in the rubble, one decorated with large smooth leaves, along with a corbel decorated with volutes.[12] Directly above the Meroitic northern defense tower stood another church, which in the Middle Ages collapsed along with the northern outer wall of the tower.

The Temple of Horemhab

The small rock temple (

ad-Dakka) and Abu Simbel (Egyptian Meha).[16]

The early Christians converted the temple into a church, covering the walls with a layer of plaster to hide the reliefs of the Egyptian gods, and painting them with

Temple of Abu Simbel
.

  • Gallery
  • Ground plan of the temple after Ippolito Rosellini, 1832
    Ground plan of the temple after Ippolito Rosellini, 1832
  • Interior of the temple in 1908. Note the medieval painting of Christ on the ceiling
    Interior of the temple in 1908. Note the medieval painting of
    Christ
    on the ceiling

Further reading

External links

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Adam Lajtar & Efthymios Rizos (2020). "A Fragment of a Liturgical Calendar from Gebel Adda (Egyptian Nubia)" in "Analecta Bollandiana". p. 86
  3. ^ André Veldmeijer (2016). "Excavations of Gebel Adda (Lower Nubia): Ancient Nubian Leatherwork: Sandals and Shoes". p. 11
  4. , p. 145.
  5. ^ Derek A. Welsby: The Mediaval Kingdoms of Nubia. London 2002, p. 122f.
  6. ^ Derek A. Welsby: The Mediaval Kingdoms of Nubia. London 2002, pp. 250f.
  7. ^ Giovanni Vantini: Christianity in the Sudan. EMI, Bologna 1981, p. 174.
  8. ^ Islam in Nubia. Nubia Museum.
  9. ^ Derek A. Welsby: The Mediaval Kingdoms of Nubia. London 2002, p. 254.
  10. ^ Nicholas Millet (1964). "Gebel Adda Expedition Preliminary Report, 1963-1964" in "Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt". p. 12
  11. ^ A. Prokesch Ritter von Osten, Das Land zwischen den Katarakten des Nil (Vienna: Gerold, 1831), pp. 23f., 153–55 (=&id=OqhYMrTtvuIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA15&dq=abahuda&ots=3WTSembs4_&sig=VIAGK5kdAasCIygXzav8WGF9EDY#v=onepage&q=abahuda&f=false Online at Google Books).
  12. ^ a b Arthur E. P. Weigall: A Report of the Antiquities of Lower Nubia … (Oxford, 1907), p. 141.
  13. ^ Nicholas B. Millet: Gebel Adda. Preliminary Report for 1963. 1963, p. 147.
  14. ^ Geoffrey S. Mileham and D. Randall-Maciver, Churches in Lower Nubia (= Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expedition to Nubia. Volume 2) (Philadelphia: University Museum Philadelphia, 1910), p. 5.
  15. ^ Nicholas B. Millet: Gebel Adda. Preliminary Report for 1963. 1963, p. 53.
  16. ^ Joachim Willeitner: Nubia. Ancient monuments between Aswan and Khartoum. Hirmer, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-7774-7500-9, p. 46.
  17. ^ A. Prokesch Ritter von Osten: Das Land zwischen den Katarakten des Nil (Vienna, 1831), p. 153.