Greco-Roman tombs uncovered near Aswan, Egypt.

A group of Egyptian and Italian archaeologists have uncovered a series of tombs dating to the Greco-Roman period near Aswan in southern Egypt, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The archaeologists, from the Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan uncovered the tombs on a series of terraces on a rocky hillside close to the Aga Khan Mausoleum, during a series of excavations in the area following reports of illegal excavation in the area. To date 33 of the tombs have been excavated, with an estimated total of about 300, scattered over an area of about 20 000 m².

A team of Egyptian and Italian archaeologists surveyed the area around the Mausoleum of Aga Khan to map out 300 ancient tombs. Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan/Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Significantly, the tombs did not belong to pharaahs or other high ranking individuals, but to ordinary Egyptian families, and were in use between about 900 BC and 300 AD, a period which covers the occupation of Egypt by first the Persian Empire, then the Ptolemaic Greeks, and finally the Romans. Piacentini Patrizia, of the University of Milan, who has been leading the investigations, suggests that during this interval Aswan would have been a prosperous trading centre, connecting Egypt and the Mediterranean world to Nubia and the kingdoms of the African interior.

The interior of one of the newly discovered tombs near Aswan. Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan/Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The tombs reveal much about the lives, and particularly the health, of ordinary Egyptians during the period. Between 30% and 40% of the Human remains uncovered so far belong to children and infants, suggesting a fairly high infant-mortality rate. Many of the bodies have pathologies indicative of diseases, including malnutrition, anaemia, tuberculosis and osteoarthritis. Several adult women had undergone limb amputations.

Remains of mummies from the late Greek and Roman period discovered in tombs near Aswan, Egypt. Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan/Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Some of the dead from the tombs were buried within coffins or sarcophagi, but many more were preserved as mummies wrapped in linen and covered by painted cartonnages (a kind of papier-mâché made of linen or papyrus and plaster). The tombs have also yielded a wide range of other artefacts, including offering tables, painted statuettes, figurines, and terracotta lamps.

A cartonnage mask, which would have once covered a mummy, from the Aswan Necropolis. Egyptian-Italian Mission At West Aswan/Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

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Looking for the origins of garnets from Lower Nubia.

From about the third century BC, garnets became highly valued gemstones to the peoples of the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and China, along with other hard gemstones, such as emerald, aquamarine, and sapphire. Transparent red garnet was used to make engraved rings or seal stones; inlays in diadems; earrings or necklaces or even small sculptures; thin, doubly polished plates in cloisonné jewellery, as well as simple beads, merely drilled to be assembled into necklaces, bracelets, or applied to garments. Studies of garnets dating from the Hellenistic Period to Early Medieval times have identified seven distinctive garnet types (A-G), with unique compositions, some of which have been linked to sources in Europe, India, or Sri Lanka, while the source of others remains unknown.

Garnets were also used as gemstones prior to the Hellenistic Period in several places, although the origin and typology of these is less well understood. Green grossular, a calcic garnet, often intergrown with green vesuvianite was used to make seals, beads, and amulets by the Indus Valley Civilization, and to much lesser extent in ancient Mesopotamia. This material was worked in Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and Loal-Mari on the Indus River, and was probably sourced in Balochistan and northern Pakistan. Both grossular and vesuvanite have hardnesses of between 6.5 and 7.0 on the Moh scale (i.e. are slightly softer than quartz) making it possible to work these materials with the tools available to the Indus Valley Civilization.

Red aluminous garnet, however, is harder than quartz, making it much more difficult to work without specialist tools, and is rare in Asia before the advent of the Iron Age. Surprisingly, this material was worked early in Northeast Africa, with red garnet beads known from Predynastic Egypt and the contemporaneous A-group Cultures of Lower Nubia. The use of red garnet continued in Egypt till around the end of the New Kingdom, after which the mineral is seldom found. Thus, the red garnets of Egypt and Nubia are the oldest known examples of the working of this mineral.

In a paper published in the journal Archaeometry on 7 March 2024, Albert Gilg of Engineering Geology at the Technical University of Munich, Joanna Then-Obłuska of the Antiquity of Southeastern Europe Research Centre at the University of Warsaw, and Laure Dussubieux of the Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum, present the results of an analysis of 34 garnet beads from burials in Lower Nubia, dated from the late A-Group to the Post-Meroitic, an age range of about 3200 BC to about 600 AD, as well as two garnets from separate alluvial deposits near the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in the Bayuda Desert of Upper Nubia.

Ancient Nubia is divided into Lower Nubia, which lay between the First and the Second Cataracts of the Nile, and Upper Nubia, to the south of the Second Cataract. Gilg et al. selected beads excavated  from graves in Qustul, Adindan, and Serra East, in the collection of the Museum of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago, associated with the Early Nubian A-group Culture, the Middle Nubian C-group and Pan Grave cultures, and the New Kingdom, Napatan, Meroitic, and Post-Meroitic/Nobadian periods.

The A-group Culture (roughly 3700 to 2800 BC) and C-group Culture (roughly 2300 to 1550 BC) are known to have been wealthy societies, due to their location at a junction of trade routes between Egypt and the Mediterranean to the north and the African interior to the south. The Pan Grave people (2200 to1550 BC) lived in small, dispersed groups in the Eastern Desert. All of these peoples traded to differing extents with the Pre-Kerma and Kerma cultures of Upper Nubia. Between about 1570 and about 1069 BC Nubia was controlled by the Egyptian New Kingdon, then between 747 and 656 BC, Egypt was ruled by the Kushite 25th Dynasty, which ruled an area from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles to the Mediterranean. This interval forms part of the Napatan Period in Nubia, which lasted from about 750 BC to about 350 BC, and was another period of wealth in Lower Nubia. This was followed by the Meroitic Period, from about 350 BC to about 350 AD, when Lower Nubia became an intermediary in trade between the Kingdom of Meroë in Upper Nubia and the Hellenic and Roman rulers of Egypt. Between about 350 and 600 AD Lower Nubia was Kingdom of Nobadia, which often had less peaceful relations with both Egypt and the Blemmye peoples who controlled the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea Coast.

Map of Nubia. Gilg et al. (2024).

Gilg et al. analysed garnet beads from tombs 11, 17, 22, 24 of Royal Cemetery L at Qustul, which have been dated to Late A-Group/Naqada III (Naqada III is the final phase of Predynastic Egypt), as well as the late A-Group tombs W19 and V59; garnets from these tombs were commonly accompanied by similarly shaped carnelian beads. Another bead was from the  C-Group Phase III tomb T12B at Adindan, which is of equivalent age to the Egyptian 18th Dynasty (the first dynasty of the New Kingdom). Five more beads come from tombs K74 and K93 at Adindan, which were associated with the Pan Grave Culture; notably, garnet beads are more common in Pan Grave Culture burials than C-Group Culture burials, despite the two being roughly contemporary. Six more beads came from New Kingdom tombs VC45 and R19 at Qustul, three from the Amenhotep III to Amarna Period and three from the post-Amarna Period. A single short barrel bead came from the 25th Dynasty/Napatan tomb W43 at  Qustul. Also from Qustul came an oblate bead from the Meroitic tomb Q465, and a truncated hexagonal bicone bead from the Post-Meroitic tomb Q143.

Beads associated with the A-Group culture are all less than 5 mm in diameter and 2.5 mm wide. They were shaped into short cylinders, barrels, or oblates with a relatively poor polish, and perforated from each end by irregular pecking. Similar beads are known from Predynastic Upper Egypt, which were presumably made in the same way, possibly from the same people. A single bead of similar appearance has also been found at Mehrgarh in Pakistan, which is exotic to that site, but of unknown origin. C-Group and Pan Grave Culture beads are also typically poorly polished and of imperfect shape, though the shape varied slightly, with both rounded and short-barrel beads found. These beads were perforated from each end by drilling, forming either cylindrical or conical holes; the smooth nature of the hole suggests the drill made from a hard stone, such as flint, or possibly copper. Similar perforations have been observed in Middle Kingdom garnet beads from Egypt. Workshops producing carnelian beads are known from A-Group and C-Group sites in Lower Nubia, and while no trace of garnet-working has been found at these sites, the similarity between the carnelian and garnet beads suggests that the garnet beads are also likely to have been manufactured locally.

Microphotographs of garnet beads from lower Nubia. (a) A-group bead with irregular pecked hole (ISAC 13); (b) Pan Grave bead with a smooth drilled hole (ISAC 21); (c) C-group bead with silver beads (ISAC 20);  (d) New Kingdom long barrel-shaped beads with poor polish (ISAC 29-31); (e) Meroitic irregular oblate bead (ISAC33); (f) Post-Meroitic facetted bead (ISAC 34); (g) drill hole (about 1 mm in diameter) with concentric deep grooves from a diamond tipped drill (ISAC 34); (h) tiny short- and long-prismatic colourless inclusions (ISAC 34). Scale bar is 500μm. Gilg et al. (2024). 

The New Kingdom beads showed much improved shaping. The majority of these beads were globular in shape, but also present were unusually long barrel to tubular shapes with a length of up to 7.9 mm and a diameter of 4 mm. These beads all have a low polish, and again are drilled from both ends. The Napatan and Meroitic beads were similar in form to the Pan Grave and C-Group beads.

None of these beads had a high polish, something seen in Egyptian beads from the Great Aten temple at Amarna (18th Dynasty), which were made by polishing with corundum powder as an abrasive, a technique apparently unknown in Upper Nubia. How the Upper Nubian beads were polished is unclear at this time.

The youngest, Post-Merotic bead differs from all others in the study, having a faceted shape (a hexagonal truncated bicone), a well-polished surface, and deep, regularly spaced, concentric grooves in the drill hole, probably indicative of the use of a diamond drill bit. Similar garnet beads are known from Arikamedu in southern India, and sites in southern Sri Lanka. Microscopic examination of this bead revealed the presence of many tiny, short- and long-prismatic, colourless inclusions, something seen in Sri Lankan garnets but not garnets from southern India. Though this is not sufficient evidence to confirm the origin of this bead, Gilg et al. consider it highly likely that this bead comes from South Asia, and probably Sri Lanka.

Chemically, all of the garnets, including the alluvial samples from Upper Nubia were found to be of similar composition, with the exception of the single Post-Merotic bead. These beads have an almandine-rich composition, with a low calcium content (the Post-Merotic bead has a pyrope-rich composition with a low calcium content). Compositionally, these beads do not fit into any of the types used to classify Hellenistic to Early Medieval garnets, with magnesium oxide-calcium oxide ratios intermediate between type A and type B contents, combined with a high manganese and yttrium, low chromium composition not seen in either of these types. This suggests that the beads were made from alluvial garnets sourced from deposits in Upper Nubia, and that garnets from this source were not used in the Hellenistic to Early Medieval periods.

Almandine-rich garnet was the first mineral harder than quartz to be worked in northeast Africa, apparently being sourced at a site in the Bayunda Desert of Upper Nubia at least 670 km south of the most southerly known occurrence of worked garnet beads in Lower Nubia. These Upper Nubian deposits appear to have been the only source of garnets used in manufacturing for at least 3500 years. 

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Archaeologists discover body with Christian tattoo in medieval Nubian cemetery.

Archaeologists from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology have discovered Christian tattoo on a body recovered from a medieval Nubian cemetery during one of a series of expeditions to the area between 2012 and 2018, according to a press release issued on 18 October 2023. The Christian theme of the is not in itself surprising, as Christianity was the predominant religion in region at the time and the body was found in a cemetery associated with the Ghazali Monastery, which is about 20 km from the modern town of Karima in Northern State, Sudan. However, this is only the second tattoo known from medieval Nubia, making it a significant discovery. The body is of unknown sex at the current time, although thought likely to have been male, due to its proximity to the monastery, and is thought to have been between 35 and 50 years old when they died, sometime between 667 and 774 AD. 

Images of tattoo on the dorsal (top) side of the right foot. Picture was taken with a full spectrum camera and digital enhanced using ImageJ software with a DStretch plugin. Kari Guilbault/Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology.

The tattoo comprises a Christogram, which was a symbol combining the Greek letters 'chi' and 'rho' used to indicate Christ, plus the Greek letters alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, a combination often used to imply God as the beginning and ending of all things. The location of the tattoo, on the upper part of the foot, may also be significant, as it images of Christ often have a nail driven through this location.

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Using strontium isotope ratios to determine the origin of textiles from archaeological sites in Nubia.

The manufacture of textiles by pre-industrial societies was typically a demanding, multi-stage process, which involved obtaining fibres from an Animal or Plant, spinning it into a thread, and weaving it into a cloth, with dyes potentially being added at different stages to achieve colours or patterns. As such, textiles from archaeological sites can be important sources of information about the societies that produced them, giving evidence about trade routes and manufacturing techniques, as well as the social status, gender and age of the wearer. 

Textiles from archaeological sites in Sudan have been studied since the early twentieth century, with material recovered from many sites in the mid Nile Valley. Wool and cotton are the most common fibres in these archaeological assemblages. Linen is also present, but in much lower quantities. Silk has never been produced in Sudan, so any silk discovered there can automatically be assumed to have been imported. Spinning of threads in Sudan was almost exclusively done in the S-direction (anticlockwise), while woven cloths were usually plain tabbies (a plain weave, with warp and weft threads crossing at right angles to form a criss-cross pattern) or weft-facing tabbies (cloths in which the warp is covered up by multiple, complimentary weft layers, enabling the building up of a pattern, which is typically angular in nature), often having bands or stripes in different shades.

However, determining the origin of fabrics from archaeological sites is complex, as plain and weft-facing tabbies are widely manufactured, and the textiles recovered from archaeological sites are typically very fragmentary. Even spinning direction is of limited use, as even in areas where the majority of spinning is done in one direction, the presence of local communities or even individual spinners doing the opposite cannot be excluded.

In a paper published in the Journal of African Archaeology on 11 August 2022, Magdalena Wozniak of the Department of African Studies at the University of Warsaw, and Zdzislaw Belka of the Isotope Research Unit at Adam Mickiewicz University, present the results of a study which used strontium isotope ratios to determine the origin of cotton and wool fragments from Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period recovered from archaeological sites in the Middle Nile Valley.

Strontium isotope ratios in water are strongly linked to local geology, and can be preserved in the tissues of Animals and Plants, making them a powerful tool in archaeology. Strontium isotopes have been used to track the movements of ancient Human and Animal groups, as well as tracing ancient trade routes by determining the origin of stone tools, glass, and textiles. This technique requires an understanding of the ratio of the isotopes strontium⁸⁷ and strontium⁸⁶ in the geology of the area, both locally and regionally. Armed with this it is possible to determine whether or not a material (in this case fabric) was manufactured locally, and in some cases where a non-local item originated from. Both Animals and Plants (the producers of wool and cotton) take up strontium from the environment in the ratios at which they are present, without any fractionation, with the strontium isotope ratios found in their tissues reflecting a mixture of that found in the bedrock and overlying soil as well as that from ground and surface water. However, the different ecologies of Animals and Plants mean that even when they live in the same area, they will have slightly different isotopic ratios.

Although obtaining an accurate strontium isotope ratio only requires about 100-150 mg of material, the desiccated and friable nature of most archaeological fabrics means that the process typically leads to the destruction of one or two square centimetres of fabric, so the choice of materials sacrificed must be made very carefully.

Wozniak and Belka used four textile samples from recent excavations near the fourth cataract, made available for the study by the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as three samples provided by the Sudan National Museum and the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums in Khartoum. All bar one of these was from a burial site, and all are of either wool or cotton. The sample was chosen to include samples which were presumed to be of both local manufacture and imported. None of the samples showed signs of decomposition or degradation, making it unlikely that they had had their isotope signatures overwritten by strontium from groundwater after being buried, something which can be a severe problem in wetter climates, but is less so in arid Nubia.

The first sample chosen, NT1, was a section of decorated warp-faced woollen fabric (woollen fabric in which the threads are packed together closely, hiding the weft) with roughly 14-16 warp threads and 8 weft threads per cm². This fragment was recovered from the bottom of a funerary chamber beneath Tumulus 24 in the El-Ar 1 cemetery, near the El-Ar village in Shamkhiya District. The El-Ar 1 cemetery has been dated to the 2-3rd centuries AD, with decorated fabrics being very rare there.

Fragment of warp-faced wool tabby, sample NT1. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

The second fragment used, NT2, is a piece of dark brown plain tabby woollen fabric, woven from S-spun threads, recovered from the El-Ar 4 Christian cemetery, and which could indicate a date anywhere between the sixth and fifteenth centuries AD. The fragment has 8-9 warp and 7 weft threads per cm², and comes from a section of shroud, which is in turn likely to have been a cloak or blanket used by the buried person and re-used as a shroud upon their death.

Fragment of the wool shroud, sample NT2. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT6 is a course wool plain tabby, woven with 8 warp and 8 weft threads per cm², taken from the shroud of a naturally mummified body (i.e. preserved by burial in a dry environment, rather than Human intervention). The fragment is brown in colour, and very desiccated. The mummy was buried in a supine position, with hands resting on hips, which is indicative of a Christian burial, again implying the 6th-15th centuries AD.

Close-up of mummy’s shroud, sample NT6. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT7 is a section of woollen kilim (woven tapestry rug). This has a dense weave with 7 warp threads and 32 weft threads per cm², and is woven in the slit-tapestry style, which creates the same pattern on both sides. The warp is a 2-ply z-spun (clockwise) cream wool, while the weft is single-ply z-spun wool in a variety of colours, including red, green, blue, orange, yellow and pink, giving a pattern of geometric and floral designs against a red background. The kilim was discovered in the town of Meinarti near the 2nd cataract in 1963, and has been dated to the 14th century AD.

Fragment of wool kilim from Meinarti, sample NT7, before conservation. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT3 is a piece of weft-faced tabby cotton cloth from the El-Ar 4 Christian cemetery. The threads are S-spun and of a golden colour, with the weft threads thicker than the warp threads, and a thread-density of 11 warp threads and 19 weft threads per cm². This is a common, medium-quality cloth type at archaeological sites on the Middle Nile.

Fragment of cotton tabby, sample NT3. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT4 is a fragment of cotton plain tabby from a Late Antique (2nd to 5th century AD) burial site at El-Ar. It is comprised of Z-spun white threads with traces of blue, green, and red pigments, probably a sign of resist dying (dying a finished fabric, while using wax or a similar substance to control which parts of the fabric the dye reaches), and a thread density of 22-24 threads per cm² for both warp and weft.

Bi-coloured threads from the cotton tabby, sample NT4. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Sample NT5 comes from the shroud of a naturally mummified body of unknown providence in the collection of the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums. The textile is desiccated, low density, cotton tabby with a thread count of 8 warps and 8-9 wefts per cm². The threads are Z-spun, and have a golden colour. This mummy was also preserved in a supine position, with hands on hips, indicating a Christian burial, between the 6th and 15th centuries AD.

Fragment of cotton tabby woven from Z-spun threads, sample NT5. Magdalena Wozniak in Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Precambrian rocks of the Arabian-Nubian shield are widely exposed between the 2nd and 5th cataracts of the Nile. These exposures show a large variety of magmatic and metamorphic rocks, separated by suture zones with small occurrences of ophiolites and deep-water sedimentary rocks. To the west of the Nile Valley these are bordered by younger sedimentary rocks, predominantly Silurian sandstones. These rocks are overlain unconformably by the rocks of the Nubian Sandstone, which spreads across much of northern Africa, and includes a range of continental, esturine and marine sediments (predominantly sandstones), which in Sudan are predominantly of Cretaceous age. These Nubian Sandstone deposits have been mostly eroded away in the northeast of the country, exposing the underlying Precambrian basement, but extensive exposures are still present in the Bayuda Desert in the south, and the area to the west of the Nile. Tertiary Basalt rocks, which have intruded into these overlying strata, are exposed in the south of the country, around Abu Hamad. The floodplains of Nile Valley is also home to an extensive succession of Tertiary Sediments. 

Simplified geological map of northern Sudan. Red asterisks  indicate places where the investigated wool and cotton textiles were found. Numbers refer to the samples numbers. Inset shows the location of the study area. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

The volcanic rocks of the Precambrian basement of northern Sudan have strontium⁸⁷/strontium⁸⁶ ratios in the range 0.7024 to 0.7071, while the plutonic and metamorphic rocks of the basement have ratios in the range 0.7158 to 1.0039. The Cretaceous sediments of the Nubian Sandstone have strontium isotope ratios reflective of those of the basement rocks, with two clusters of values, around 0.7070 and 0.7160.

The alluvial sediments of the Desert Nile Valley are dominated by material derived from the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers, which drain from the Ethiopian Highlands, an area dominated by Cainozoic Volcanic rocks. These sediments have isotopic ratios in the range 0.7047 to 0.7076, a range which includes that of modern Nile water, at 0.7062. Nile muds dating from the end of the African Humid Period, about 45 000 years ago, show a strontium isotope ratio of 0.7052–0.7057, while those dating from between 1000 BC and 500 AD (i.e. between 3000 and 1500 years ago) show an isotope range of 0.7058–0.7076.

Samples NT1, NT2, and NT6 are all low-density woollen tabbies made from S-spun threads, technologically consistent with local manufacture. Sample NT1 contains cream and dark wool, used to make a pattern, while NT1 and NT6 are made entirely of undyed, dark wool. Lighter, cream-coloured wools are rare in the El-Ar assemblage, which may reflect the genetic structure of the local flocks (i.e. many brown Sheep and few cream Sheep). Alternatively, the local Sheep of the period may have been entirely brown, with cream wool being an imported commodity.

Sample NT7 is quite different from these, made up of coloured, Z-spun threads woven together using the split-tapestry technique to produce a decorative pattern, which is likely to indicate that this was an imported item. Furthermore, furthermore, the red dye used on some of the wool appears to have been treated with a lac dye, derived from the Scale Insect, Laccifer lacca, which is found in South and Southeast Asia and South China, but quite alien to the Nubia, where red dyes were traditionally derived from the Madder Plant. This apparently non-local item dates from the 14th century, a time when Meinarti was occupied by the Beni Ikrima, a nomadic group from the Maghreb region.

All four wool samples yielded strontium isotopic ratios within the range 0.7075 to 0.7084. In order to better compare these to the local environment, Wozniak and Belka also obtained strontium isotope ratios from Sheep and/or Goat remains (the two are hard to tell apart) from several archaeological sites between the 2nd and 4th cataracts. All of these remains are known to be older than the wool samples, dating to between 2500 and 500 BC, and gave isotopic ratios in the range 0.7068 to 0.7082 (one set of remains gave a much higher reading, of 0.7109, though this is likely to indicate that the Animal was of non-local origin).

Diagram showing the strontium isotope signatures of the  investigated wool textiles (yellow spots; numbers refer to sample numbers) in comparison to Strontium isotope  composition of Ovis/Capra remains found in the region  between the 2nd and 4th cataracts. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

Three of the investigated wool samples, NT1, NT6, and NT7, had isotopic ratios entirely consistent with archaeologically derived Sheep/Goat remains from the region, and the fourth, NT2, fell only slightly outside this range, and still within the range of Cattle and Human remains from the Desert Nile Valley.

Of the three cotton samples, only one, NT3, was made of a yarn spun in an anticlockwise, S-direction, typical of local manufacture in Nubia or Egypt. The other two, NT4 and NT5, were spun in a clockwise, Z-direction, which may indicate non-local manufacture. One of these, NT4, also shows signs of a resist-dying technique, not known in Nubia in the 2nd-5th centuries AD, but common in textiles from India during this period.

These three samples show a narrow isotope ratio range, from 0.7084 to 0.7086, which makes it likely that they were derived from crops grown within a limited geographical area. As a crop, cotton requires a rather specific set of conditions, with a hot dry climate, and large amounts of available water for several months of the year. This can be provided in the Nile Valley between the confluence of the White and Blue Niles and the 2nd cataract, although water and plants derived from this region show isotope ratios below 0.7075, ruling this region out as an origin point for the cotton in the study. Cotton is also grown around the Nile Delta, and ancient cotton fibres and seeds have been recovered from other sites along the Lower Nile, suggesting that cotton may have once been grown more widely. Strontium isotopic signatures are not available for sediments from all of these areas, but the isotopic signature of the Nile water, at about 0.7069, makes it unlikely that any of these floodplains have an isotopic ratio above about 0.7075. Similarly, the sediments of the Atabara and Blue Nile valleys have average isotope ratios between 0.7041 and 0.7060. All of these locations therefore seem unlikely as a point of origin for the cotton used to make the textiles included in the study. 

However, cotton grown in the Western Desert of lower Nubia typically has an isotopic value of about 0.7085, and limestones from the Western Desert of Egypt can have strontium isotope signatures in the range 0.7077 to 0.7078. Cotton is known to have been grown in this region in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, using irrigation systems which drew upon shallow groundwater reservoirs, supplied by rainwater that had filtered through Eocene carbonates, which could conceivably produce a cotton with a strontium isotopic signature of about 0.7085.

Cotton is also known to have been produced in Meroe, on the lower White Nile to the south of Khartoum, during the Roman period, although both the water and plants from this region tend to have a higher isotopic ratio than the cotton from the study, excluding this region as a point of origin. 

Diagram showing the strontium isotope composition of the investigated cotton textiles (green spots; numbers refer to samples) in comparison to Sr isotope composition of selected elements of the natural environment in the Nile and White valleys. Wozniak & Belka (2022).

There is strong evidence for the production of cotton in Egypt and Sudan in Roman and later times, but the possibility of material also being imported from further afield should not be ruled out. Cotton was widely cultivated in India and on the Arabian Peninsula during antiquity, and both raw cotton and finished textiles could easily have been imported to Nubia via the Red Sea. Cotton seeds and textiles excavated at Mleiha in the modern United Arab Emirates have been shown to have originated from western India by their strontium isotope ratios. Unfortunately, strontium isotope information is only available for a few locations on the Arabian Peninsula or from India or Pakistan. However, several regions would be compatible with the isotope signatures obtained from the cotton samples, including the lower Indus River Basin, in India and Pakistan, the Kathijawar Peninsula on the west coast of India, the area covered by modern Kuwait, and the Oman Peninsula.

The isotope signatures obtained from the wool samples from archaeological sites in the Nubian Nile Valley all support a local origin. This is also supported by the technological features of three of the samples, NT1, NT2, and NT6, but not the fourth, NT7. This sample, a kilim rug from 14th century Meinarti, appears to have been made with a technology entirely alien to this part of the Nile Valley. However, it also dates from a time when the city of Meinarti was occupied by an alien group, the Beni Ikrima, who originated from the Maghreb region. Since the Maghreb has a geology with similar strontium isotopic ratios to that of northern Sudan, it is possible that the kilim was brought to the area by the Beni Ikrima from their homeland. However, it is also possible that the kilim was made locally by Beni Ikrima craftspeople from wool obtained from local, Nubian, flocks. Wozniak and Belka conclude that, given the available isotopic evidence, the more likely scenario is that the kilim was made locally, contrary to previous expectations.

In contrast, the isotopic signature of the cotton samples examined fits poorly with an origin in the Nile Valley. The samples all have very similar isotopic signatures, which seems to imply a common origin, although this is at odds with the different spinning techniques used. One of the samples, NT3, has an isotopic signature that fits well with the Dakhla/Kharga oasis in the Egyptian Western Desert, which has previously been identified as a possible site of ancient cotton cultivation. This piece also shows a technology consistent with production in the Nile Valley, notably an S-spun yarn. Importing cotton textiles from an oasis in the Western Desert would only make sense if local, Nubian, production was failing to meet demand. The frequency of cotton fabrics from archaeological sites in Nubia has been observed to have dropped during the Late Antique and Early Medieval periods, so this is not implausible, although an alternative explanation could be that the deceased person for whom this item was used as a shroud had travelled during their lifetime, either moving from the Western Desert to Nubia and bringing the cloth with them, or at some point visiting the Western Desert and obtaining the item there.

Sample NT4, on the other hand, appears much more likely to be of Indian origin, where a block printing technique using resist dying was common at this time. The isotopic signature of this sample matches that of the Kathijawar Peninsula on the west coast of India, leading Wozniak and Belka to conclude that this item was most likely imported from India. This adds evidence to the inclusion of the area around the 4th cataract into long distance trade networks, something previously indicated by the discovery of glass beads of foreign manufacture in the region.

Sample NT5 also appears to be non-local in origin, with a Z-spinning technique having been used, and a non-local isotopic signature. However, there is insufficient evidence to give a precise origin for this fragment at this time, with possible points of origin including  Indus River basin in Pakistan, the west coast of India, Kuwait, and the Oman Peninsula.

Although Wozniak and Belka were not able to determine the point of origin of all the fabrics in the study, their study shows the potential for determining the origin of ancient fabrics using strontium isotope ratios. The development of a wider data set of strontium isotope values for textiles could add to the information obtained by examining the technological aspects of textile-making, to provide a better understanding of the manufacture of and trade in cloth in the ancient world.

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Understanding the Roman-style forts of Upper Nubia.

The term Upper Nubia is used to identify the area along the banks of the River Nile between the Third Cataract and the confluence of the White and Blue Niles, and the areas of desert and semi-desert that surrounds it. This area is covered by a huge array of defensive structures, mostly dating to the medieval and post-medieval periods; the exact number of these structures is unclear, although it is probably over 300. Some of these structures have been extensively explored by archaeologists, but most have been only briefly surveyed, if at all. As a result of this, the origin of most of these forts is unclear, with estimates based upon surface materials recovered from the sites or just the general shape of the fortifications. 

The largest of these structures, such as Old Dongola and Bakhit, are still the largest structures ever built in this region, but many are much smaller, representing little more than military towers or fortified houses. Among these varied structures, one group stands out for their similarity, a group of small forts with quadrilateral structures resembling Late Roman fortlets. 

In a paper published in the journal Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa on 2 February 2022, Mariusz Drzewiecki of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw, and Aneta Cedro of the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences, examine the origins of these forts and try to understand who built them and why.

Map of the Upper Nubia region of Sudan showing the locations of places mentioned in the text. Black squares mark quadrilateral forts, red squares potential forts. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Drzewieki and Cedro were able to identify nine Roman-style forts in Upper Nubia, spanning about 550 km of the Nile Valley. These are presumed to have been built during Late Antiquity (the second to seventh centuries AD), a time of significant political change in the region. By the second century AD the Kushite Kingdom of Meroe was beginning to break apart into smaller states. In the fourth century, when the Axumite King Ezana sent an army to conquer the region. By the fifth-to-sixth centuries the region was divided into three kingdoms, Makuria, with its capital at Dongala, Nobadia, with its capital at Faras, and Alwa, with its capital at Soba, which, by the late sixth century, were at war with one-another, having converted to different branches of Christianity; the Makurians having adopted Melkitism, and the other two kingdoms having converted to Monophysitism.

The quadrilateral fort at the top of Jebel Umm Marrahi. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Drzewieki and Cedro consider that three possible explanations for the forts are plausible. 

Firstly, the forts could have been built by the Kingdom of Meroe towards the end of its existence; this is supported by the locations of the forts, which span the final area which the Kingdom was able to hold onto before its eventual collapse. 

Secondly, the forts could have been built by one of the successor kingdoms which emerged in the fifth-to-sixth centuries. A number of forts between the Third and Fourth Cataracts (further downstream) are considered to have been built by the Kingdom of Makuria, though these are less regular in form than the Upper Nubian forts, being moulded to the local topography. All of the Roman-style forts lie within the boundaries of the historic Kingdom of Alwa, with the most southerly fort, Jebel Umm Marrahi, being only 50 km to the north of the city of Soba, which has led to the suggestion that the forts might have been built by the Alwans.

Finally, Drzewieki and Cedro hypothesise that the first of the forts could have been built by Meroe, but then integrated into the defence system of one of the later states and used as a template for the construction of more forts along the same lines.

The nine forts are remarkably similar in construction. The largest, Hosh el-Kab, is only four times the size of the smallest, Wad Mukhtar. The corners of the forts are reinforced by bastions, and most were built using a vertical masonry technique absent from other sites in the area, including the Makurian forts. 

The Middle Nile forts. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

In order to establish who built the forts, Drzewieki and Cedro reason, it would first be necessary to establish precise dates for their construction. Such dates can be obtained from a range archaeological material, but, for the dating of the construction times, only material from the lowest layers within the forts, and the layers immediately beneath their foundations, should be used. Material obtained from the cores of curtain walls or from higher layers within the forts may also prove useful, but their context must be evaluated very carefully.

Vertical masonry in the fort at Mikeisir. Urszula Stępień in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Examination of material from the lowest layers within the forts can also shed light on the lives of the original occupants of the forts, which in turn may help to understand why the forts were built. Items such as ceramics or organic material can reveal a lot about the daily lives of the people who deposited them, as can presence or absence of luxury items, combined with analysis of any food remains. Were the fortified structures intended to house garrisons, act as storehouses, or as fortified dwellings for whole communities? Were they used over a long period of time, or did their construction relate to some specific threat, after which they were abandoned?

Although the forts are very regular in construction, their distribution is very uneven. As mentioned previously, the southernmost fort, Umm Marrahi, lies only 50 km to the north of the Alwan capital Soba. Three kilometres to the north of this lies the fort of Hosh el-Kab, while 500 m to the east of Hosh el-Kab is the fort of Abu Nafisa. This clustering seems to make it unlikely that all three of these forts were in use at the same time, which prompted  a team from the Polish Academy of Sciences to investigate these sites directly.

The location of Abu Nafisa, Hosh el-Kab and Umm Marrahi. Włodzimierz Rączkowski & Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

The fort at Umm Marrahi was surveyed by the British archaeologist Osbert Crawford in the 1950s, and some test excavations were carried out there by a team from Khartoum University in the 1970s. The Khartoum team recovered pottery fragments from the fort and from a nearby cemetery, which were of similar manufacture. Based upon this, it was calculated that the fort was in use at some time between the Late Meroitic and Early Christian periods, between about 325 and 650 AD. A radiocarbon date was established for a piece of pottery, which placed it at between 675 and 975 AD, with a confidence level of 94%, but this cannot realistically be extrapolated to a construction time for the fort. Further investigations in the area in the 1980s shed no further light upon the age of the fort. Neither of the other forts has been formally investigated, though some speculation about their origin has appeared in research publications about the area, with suggestions including Meroitic, Makurian, and Early Medieval.

The Polish Academy of Sciences team carried out fieldwork at Hosh el-Kab and Abu Nafisa in 2018, and at Umm Marrahi in 2019. Initial surveys of the sites, combined with interviews with local residents established that many of the structures visible within the forts were of much later origin than their construction, often dating to the Islamic Period. Umm Marrahi contains a mosque, and several associated buildings, which was constructed by a local Sufi brotherhood, while Abu Nafisa contains the tomb of an Muslim Holy Man, Sheikh Abu Nafisa.

The only structures that could be confidently associated with the construction of the forts are their walls. With this in mind the Polish team dug two excavation trenches along the insides of walls at each fort, where possible doing so at the sites of gates or the corners of the forts. Before doing this a careful surface survey was carried out, and previous excavations left by looters, or where paths or irrigation channels had been cut, were inspected.

The fort at Umm Marrahi showing the location of archaeological trenches. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Before any excavation work was undertaken, a geophysical survey was carried out at each fort, in order to better understand the organisation and state of preservation of the buildings within them. At Abu Nasifa, an area of 7400 m² was surveyed, with the southeastern corner being excluded from the survey in order to avoid disturbing the tomb of the Holy Man. At Hosh el-Kab an area of 13 300 m² was surveyed, excluding only an area where the site had clearly been damaged beyond the usefulness of such surveys by modern irrigation work. At Umm Marrahi an area of only 1600 m² was surveyed, as the bedrock was exposed in many places at this fort.

The fort of Abu Nasifa is the closest of the three sites to the Nile, and has clearly been flooded on several occasions since it was in use. Both the excavations and the geophysical survey carried out here uncovered massive alluvial deposits, with little archaeological evidence from the time of the fort's use remaining. However, the remains of a settlement pre-dating the fort were uncovered, and a number of potentially datable fragments of charcoal collected, potentially providing a maximum age for the fort.

The fort at Abu Nafisa fort showing the location of the archaeological trenches. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

The walls of Abu Nafisa were worn down to their foundation, although it was possible to confirm that these walls were made using a vertical masonry technique. Most of the material collected here came from the surface or upper layers within the trenches, and could be dated to the Funj period (1504-1821 AD). However, a few fragments of older pottery and some beads were recovered from the lowest layers of the fort settlement, these being referable to the post-Merotic/Christian transition period (fifth-to-sixth centuries).

Samples of pottery associated with the beginning of the forts at Abu Nafisa (a)–(c) and Hosh el-Kab (d)–(f). Aneta Cedro in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

The largest of the forts surveyed was Hosh el-Kab, which is also distinctive in having thirteen bastions strengthening its corners and curtain walls. It is close to Abu Nafisa, but further from the river, towards the edge of the desert. The site was badly damaged in 2013-4, when a 10 m wide irrigation trench was cut through it. The walls remain to a height of about 70 cm, and are made of irregular stones, bound with mortar, with no signs of vertical masonry ever having been present. 

The fort at Hosh el-Kab with the remains of a church shown by an arrow. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Geophysical surveys within Hosh el-Kab suggested that most of the buildings that had stood there were made from mud bricks. As with Abu Nafisa, most of the material found within the fort was close to the surface, and dates from the Funj period or later. Some pottery fragments dating to the post-Merotic/Christian transition period were found in the deeper layers of the trenches, and in the area around a former church within the fort.

The fort at Hosh el-Kab in 2018. Mariusz Drzewiecki in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

Unlike Abu Nafisa and Hosh el-Kab, the fort at Umm Marrahi is located on top of a hill, and contains numerous stone-built buildings, although investigation of these suggests that all are quite recent in origin. The fort is built directly onto the bedrock, which is still very close to the surface at the centre of the fort. Around the walls, however, a sediment layer was present, up to 1.4 m in depth. Excavations produced material dating to the early Holocene, post-Meroitic, early Christian, Funj and modern eras, with the earliest layers within the walls yielding fragments of cooking and storage vessels, as well as pieces of thin, black-burnished handmade bowls of post-Meroitic origin. No pottery of Merotic origin was found anywhere within the fort, which Drzewieki and Cedro take as evidence that the fort post dates the Kingdom of Meroe.

A total of 22 organic samples were recovered during the excavations, of which 19 yielded radiocarbon dates. The earliest of these dates are from the first half of the fifth century AD, roughly 70 years after the Axumite King Ezana's invasion of the area. Based upon the dates recovered, the most likely origin of all the forts was in the late sixth or early seventh century AD.

The best dated site is Abu Nafisa, the construction of which can be placed between 561 and 574 AD, based upon both material from below the fort and material from the lowest level within the fort. Hosh al-Kab is probably slightly younger, with the lowest layers here dated to between 571 and 604 AD. Umm Marrahi is the least well constrained, but was probably built between 536 and 564 AD. All of these dates are around 200 years after the fall of Meroe, ruling out a Meroitic origin of the forts.

At Hosh el-Kab and Umm Marrahi, the forts appear to have remained in use into the Early Christian era, but then to have been abandoned until the Funj period, with no material dating from the Classic and Late Christian periods present. Abu Nafisa appears to have been abandoned earlier, with no Early Christian material present. 

This suggests that all the forts were only in use for a short period of time, and that Abu Nafisa was abandoned quite soon after its construction. This may relate to the site's vulnerability to flooding; considerable amounts of alluvial sediment were found within the walls of the fort, and the site was inundated during the floods which hit Sudan in 2019. If this was also the case in the sixth century, then it is quite possible that the fort was abandoned in favour of the dryer site at Hosh el-Kab, which would also explain why the two sites were so close together. This larger fort was at the edge of the water in 2019, suggesting that its builders had taken the likely extent of flooding into account when building it.

Google Earth images of Abu Nafisa and Hosh el-Kab during the flood of 2019. Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

While vertical masonry was used at Abu Nafisa, it is absent at Hosh el-Kab and Umm Marrahi. If Abu Nafissa does predate Hosh el-Kab, this may indicate that Umm Marrahi was built at roughly the same time as the latter; since it was only half the side of Hosh el-Kab it may have been an auxiliary post intended to work in conjunction with the main fort in some way. Whatever the precise relationship between the forts, they clearly point towards the area being a site of strategic importance in the second half of the sixth century AD.

The material recovered from the lower layers within the forts was remarkably uniform across all three sites, with the smallest civil sites in the Middle Nile Valley producing a much more varied range of material, including luxury items and goods brought in from long distances away, all of which were missing from the forts.

The geophysical survey carried out at Hosh el-Kab found traces of mud-brick buildings along the southern and parts of the northern walls of the city, as well as free-standing buildings, including a church, throughout the enclosed area. This was confirmed by a small trench on the northern wall, which uncovered the remnants of a mud-brick structure. Early Christian pottery and other material were found in the area around the church. 

Most of the original structures within Umm Marrahi appear to have been demolished in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty first centuries, to make way for newer construction. The buildings of Abu Nafisa appear to have been almost totally eroded away by the action of repeated flooding, although a few places may show the remains of stone floors of buildings.

Pottery is the most common material at all three sites, with a total of 1554 fragments collected in total. The distribution of this pottery was not even; Abu Nafisa, having apparently been used only briefly and then subjected to repeated flooding events, unsurprisingly yielded little pottery. Hosh el-Kab had apparently been the subject of numerous excavations in the post-medieval and modern periods, during which much material had been removed, probably for construction purposes in local villages. Umm Marrahi became a centre of religious activity in more recent times, and as such had been relatively undisturbed by local villagers. Excavations here yielded a range of pottery from different periods. However, none of the sites was completely excavated, and it is likely that the discovered pottery represents only a fraction of the total amount present.

The most distinctive feature of the pottery from the lowest layers at Umm Marrahi is that none of it is wheel-made. All of the pottery is hand made, and though it can be divided into coarse ware with thick walls and crude outer surfaces, and finer ware with smoother surfaces, the difference between the two appears to be purely functional. The finer ware, which is usually covered by a slip, generally black in colour, and burnished or polished, and occasionally decorated, is used exclusively for the production of small bowls or dishes. The cruder pottery, which lacked any slip or burnishing, and often preserved the fingerprints of its makers, was used for making larger bowls.

Black-polished bowls from the earliest phase of the Umm Marrahi fort. Aneta Cedro in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

One distinctive group of larger bowls have a shallow, open shape with vertical or steeply sloping walls. The upper parts of these walls are typically thicker, and have a pattern of fingerprints or diagonal cuts along their rims. Fragments of these bowls were found at Umm Marrahi, Abu Nafisa, and Hosh el-Kab, and are also known from Soba. Some of these bowls have soot on their outsides, suggesting that they may have been used for cooking. Fragments of a type of bowl known as a doka, used for the baking of flatbread, were also found, as were pieces of what appear to be storage vessels, including short, wide-mouthed bottles, plain neckless jars, and 'beer jars' which have globular bodies and slender necks.

Examples of coarse ware pottery from the earliest phase of the Umm Marrahi fort. Aneta Cedro in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

A lot of the pottery from the lowest layers at Umm Marrahi is very similar to pottery previously recovered from the city of Soba. Notable example of this are the presence the black slip-ware and of a type of thin-walled bowl with carinated (ridged) walls and either a black or red slip. Examples of this sort of bowl, with both black and red slips, have also been recovered from Soba.

Examples of bowls from the Umm Marrahi fort (left) and their parallels from Soba (right). Aneta Cedro and Ewa Czyżewska-Zalewska in Drzewieki & Cedro (2022).

While the lowest layers at Umm Marrahi produced only hand-made pottery, the higher layers did produce wheel-made pottery. All of this could be dated to the Early Christian period, although some of it was clearly inspired by Late Roman patterns. Again, this was similar to material found at Soba, and likely to have been made in the same workshops.

Some of the pottery items found at Umm Marrahi showed signs of repair, including items which would normally have been considered to have been of low value, such as course bowls and storage jars, but which were apparently worth having their lives extended here. Also found were two potsherds which had been polished and cut into circular shapes, which Drzewieki and Cedro take as evidence that they had been used as spindles, thus providing evidence of yarn production.

The excavations carried out at Umm Marrahi by a team from Khartoum University in the 1970s also uncovered ceramics, including two complete vessels, a small bowl and a cooking pot. All of this pottery conformed to the same types recorded by the Polish team. Evidence of the repair of pottery was also present in this sample.

The pottery from Umm Marrahi is remarkably functional, with no examples of 'luxury' items, or anything else that might be used to denote social status. Even the best made bowls, while well executed, are strictly functional in form, and were probably made at local workshops. No amphorae, or other objects which might be associated with long-distance trade were found.

After pottery, the most common finds at the sites were Animal remains, comprising a collection of 562 bones, teeth, and fragments. The majority of the material from the lowest layers can be assigned to Sheep and/or Goats, with a smaller amount of Cattle remains. Also present were pieces of bone from a Rodent and a Hippopotamus. Notably absent were the remains of any non-consumed domestic Animals (such as Dogs, Cats, Donkeys, or Camels), or bones from parts of Animals not typically consumed (such as the phalanges), suggesting that all the Animal remains originally came to the site as meat for consumption, not live Animals.

The preponderance of Sheep/Goat remains, particularly in comparison to the number of Cattle remains, is puzzling, as at other sites in the area, including Soba and Makurian sites, the reverse is true, with Cattle remains being the most abundant. At Soba, the remains of Pigs are also quite common, but these are absent at the forts.

A very small number of other items were uncovered at the forts, including nine beads, eleven stone tools (grinding stones and pestles), and a piece of copper. The complete lack of luxury goods at the sites suggests that the inhabitants were not members of a ruling or wealthy class. The uniform nature of the pottery implies that everyone present was using essentially the same utensils, storage spaces, and goods, while the preserved remains of the original buildings at Hosh el-Kab reveals that living spaces were arranged according to a regular plan.

This does not necessarily imply that all of the residents were of equal status. The fortified nature of the buildings makes it likely that these were military outposts, where rank would probably be clearly recognised, even if the materials used by all ranks were strictly functional. The one problem with this interpretation is that no weapons have been found at the site, which would normally be expected from a garrison fort, although most weapons known from post-Meroitic Nubia are known from burial sites, so this is perhaps not as remarkable as it would be elsewhere in the world.

Part of the problem with interpreting the purpose of the forts is that the political situation in Upper Nubia in the sixth century is poorly understood. The Byzantine scholar and historian John of Ephesus (c.507-c.588 AD) records that in the latter part of the sixth century the kingdoms of the Middle Nile were starting to convert to Christianity, as well as frequently fighting amongst themselves. Little is directly recorded about Alwa or its neighbouring states, but a line of forts between Alwa and Makuria probably implies that the two states were at least close to conflict with one-another. There was also a potential for conflict with Beja nomads inhabiting the Eastern Desert, as well as various nomadic groups crossing the Bayuda Desert.

The King of Alwa is known to have been baptised into the Monophysite branch of Christianity in 580, by the Byzantine missionary Bishop Longinus, who had travelled from Nobadia for the event. Some correspondence between the two monarchs survives, and suggests that the conversion was part of the forging of an alliance against the Makurians, although what this dispute was about, when it started, and how long it lasted, are all unclear.

The Kingdom of Alwa may have reached as far as the Fourth Cataract in the sixth century, with the last of the nine forts being at El-Ar, just upriver of that cataract. This is a huge area, including all of the central part of the former state of Meroe. However, by the end of the sixth century the Kingdom of Makuria is known to have reached to the Fifth Cataract, presumably at the the expense of the Alwans. Some of the forts in this region, such as Mikeisir, were abandoned at this time, while others, such as El-Ar, were modified and used for other purposes, while forts in the Makurian style, such as Karmel and Ras el Gezira, were erected. 

How long this conflict lasted is unclear, though the forts at  Hosh el-Kab and Umm Marrahi clearly remained in use into the Early Christian period. By the middle of the seventh century the Kingdom od Nobadia had fallen to an Islamic Arab army under Abdallāh ibn Sa΄d ibn Abī Sar, which had marched up the Nile and was now threatening Makuria, possibly lessening that state's enthusiasm for war with Alwa.

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