Were The Nubians Cowards?

I say no. Proof is in the plates taken from various places, but even more conclusively is the following from William Y. Adams, author of Nubia, Corridor to Africa:

"Egyptians...invaded the region again and again, yet seldom referred to it without the epithet 'miserable' or 'abominable'. {I as the author of this blog feel this was only propaganda to give the Egyptian troops a psychological edge because they were afraid to fight the Nubians.} Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of Egypt...ascended to the Nile as far as the Fourth Cataract, but he nearly lost both his army and his life on the return march. A Roman army reached and sacked Napata...yet Nero declined to annex Nubia...and Diocletian abandoned even the northern extremity...Arab armies which elsewhere swept Christianity from the face of North Africa...concluded a treaty (with) Nubia...Salah-ed-Din...conqueror...of Egypt and Syria, gave up all thought of adding Nubia to his domainafter the briefest of forays."

Remember: Nubians helped create the First Dynasty of Egypt and were greatly skilled and honored for their fighting ability.

An Interview with Bruce B. Williams

A few blogs ago I asked if anyone anywhere could give me information on Bruce B. Williams and/or his publications. His groundbreaking work opened the eyes of myself and others about the positive impact ancient Nubia had on Egypt, it's phaoronic culture and the development of the First Dynasty.

I actually got a chance to meet with him at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. I was sitting at a back table with a few of his books in front of me when he entered the archives and came straight up to me and asked if we could step outside and talk for a few minutes.

Below are my notes from this interview:

MB: I have been an avid follower of your findings and I wonder how your theories about Nubia and the development of the First Dynasty is working out.

BBW: More and more people are coming to view the development of the First Dynasty the same way I do.

MB: Menes, according to much of my research, was a Nubian pharaoh in Egypt before the First Dynasty.

BBW: Menes is also known as Narmer. There is no real proof of his existence. Nowhere is he mentioned in the Egyptian literature.

MB: I've been writing a blog about Nubia and its impact on the phaoronic system in Egypt. I have been trying to show how Nubia influenced its development.

BBW: I never said the A-group from Nubia developed the phaoronic system independently. Individuals from Egypt and Nubia had a common purpose and worked together.

MB: Can you give me additional resources for my research?

BBW: (He gave me a list of individuals and websites.) A lot of the material you have to go through and decide on your own what is true, probably true, or not true at all. You're going to have to use a lot of your own common sense in making these decisions.

MB: What about Adam's book, NUBIA--THE CORRIDOR TO AFRICA?

BBW: Some of it is worth knowing, some of it is not. You will have to read it to make your own decisions.

In the next few blogs I hope to give evidence on the development of Nubia and its importance in ancient Egypt from what I was able to learn at the Oriental Institute--including the incense burner Bruce Williams utilizes as evidence that Nubia had a royal leadership that predated Egypt's pharaohs.

A Discussion with Dr. Larry Ross, Lincoln University, Jefferson City, MO

I brought specific plates of drawings from Ramesses ll --plates that came from a book entitled, The Beit El-Wali Temple of Ramesses ll by Herbert Ricke, et al. and publised by the University of Chicago as part of its Nubian expedition series in 1967. The book has a number of plates that were taken from the temple before the water from the dam covered it up.

Dr. Ross befgan the conversation by stating that Ramesses ll created the monuments to show off his military strength. "You can take these depictions with a grain of sand because Ramesses is the one creating the monuments."

My argument was that every depiction in his temple shows the Nubians in a positive light--even the plate when they are retreating as in Plate 8. Other plates show his opposition as weak and cowardly--the Syrians, for example, are begging for surrender and some of them are jumping from the wall committing suicide. A Libyan captive is begging for his life (Plate 24) and other individuals are in equally subservient postures. The only two groups that actually face him are the Bedouin (but they are portrayed as fleeing) and the Nubians (who are also the opnly group recovering their injured and dead).

Granted propaganda is written all over the stellas and other places in other places calling the Nubians (or Kush) cowards and other negative statements, but if you look closely at Plate 8 (and I'll try to get a copy of it on this blog so you can see it too), you will see bravery and even his own two favored sons (due to their placement next to their father) who are obviously of Nubian blood.

Furthermore, the one plate that shows Ramesses ll smiting a Nubian shows a very self assured man ready to die and not scared to die in battle (Plate 27).

"In my studies, I go deeper than what the victor has said or done as written on monuments honoring him," Dr. Ross replied. "The Nubians were very strong and courageous and they would not be afraid of death."

I conclude from the plates that the Nubians were strong, courageous and not afraid of death. Ramesses ll had a lot of respect for them. In the plates taken from the walls of the temple honoring him, he shows his respect. The Nubians were defeated, but they faced him in battle. When he executed a Nubian, he presented the individual as a man who "dies well" unlike any of the others he is depicted as slaying.

This brings me to the following conjecture: The negative propaganda written about the Nubians (or Kush) was written to give the army of Ramesses ll more confidence--a mental strategy, if you will, because he understood and admired the Nubians and knew what they could do. This was his way of empowering his army to want to fight, fist, and secondly, to help them believe they were stronger and better than their opponents--psychology to get his army to believe in itself.

In other words, the propaganda was really complimentary to the Nubians (Kush).

Dr. Ross and I will continue this dialog.