Some argue that the Kushytes never used war elephants while some do argue. I recently found this...
Does anyone have additional info?
Does anyone have additional info?
Lets Talk African History: Ancient Nubia
- Thread starter Bawon Samedi
- Start date
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
The Nile (around modern day North Sudan) must've been a magnet for both Afro-Asiatic and Nilotic cultures. At various times, cultures held dominance
Misreeya
Pro
However as far as written language goes, Afro Asiatic languages was the first written language in both what is today Egypt and Sudan, and of the monuments in Sudan was written in AfroAsiatic language which scholars can read, whereas the meriotic language is not fully decipher yet, which was a later period.
The Nile (around modern day North Sudan) must've been a magnet for both Afro-Asiatic and Nilotic cultures. At various times, cultures held dominance
Especially after the drying of the desert. But Nilo-Saharan speakers are older and were more wide-spread in the beginning. Heck their genetic lineages are much older too compared to AA and Niger-Congo speakers.
Misreeya
Pro
The Nile (around modern day North Sudan) must've been a magnet for both Afro-Asiatic and Nilotic cultures. At various times, cultures held dominance
Modern Sudan and parts of Upper Egypt realistically.
Misreeya
Pro
That is a good question, I know the ruins of Musawarrat sufra has statues of elephants, so maybe that is a clue?
I don't know if most of you know but it is commonly known that the Kushytes were preforming skull surgery and arguable pioneered it!
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5905871/the-lost-civilizations-that-pioneered-skull-surgery
These people were quite amazing.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5905871/the-lost-civilizations-that-pioneered-skull-surgery
These people were quite amazing.
Do you have image of such statues? Because I am having a big argument with another poster on anotyher sitye whether war elephants were used.
All I know is that once the Plolemaic era of Ancient Egypt began thats when we see Kushytes training elephants for the Greek rulers. But there are good arguments that they used war elephants but I as of not yet found no solid evidence.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
What food did the Nubians eat? I've read that the Nubians weren't able to cultivate as much land as the Egyptians because of the geographic uniqueness of their cataract. That meant that they had a smaller population size than Kemet.
Based on the info I posted on Kerma cattle culture they had among the more fertile lands on the Nile Valley.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
Only two miles or so of good farmland in Upper Nubia. I think Kemet had a bit more farmland on either side of the Nile.
The Odum of Ala Igbo
Hail Biafra!
In Upper Egypt, it was 6 miles of good farmland.
They were also using or even invented anti-biotics!
Meanwhile European and Asian populations during the medieval times were getting decimated by the plague.
Ancient beer brewed to include antibiotic - FuturityA chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer.
The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago.
The research, led by Emory University anthropologist George Armelagos and medicinal chemist Mark Nelson of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is detailed in the current issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
“We tend to associate drugs that cure diseases with modern medicine,” Armelagos says. “But it’s becoming increasingly clear that this prehistoric population was using empirical evidence to develop therapeutic agents. I have no doubt that they knew what they were doing.”
Armelagos is a bioarcheologist and an expert on prehistoric and ancient diets. In 1980, he discovered what appeared to be traces of tetracycline in human bones from Nubia dated between A.D. 350 and 550, populations that left no written record. The ancient Nubian kingdom was located in present-day Sudan, south of ancient Egypt.
Armelagos and his fellow researchers later tied the source of the antibiotic to the Nubian beer. The grain used to make the fermented gruel contained the soil bacteria streptomyces, which produces tetracycline.
A key question was whether only occasional batches of the ancient beer contained tetracycline, which would indicate accidental contamination with the bacteria.
Nelson, a leading expert in tetracycline and other antibiotics, became interested in the project after hearing Armelagos speak at a conference. “I told him to send me some mummy bones, because I had the tools and the expertise to extract the tetracycline,” Nelson says.
“It’s a nasty and dangerous process. I had to dissolve the bones in hydrogen fluoride, the most dangerous acid on the planet.”
The results stunned Nelson. “The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time,” he says. “I’m convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.”
Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness, Nelson says.
The first of the modern day tetracyclines was discovered in 1948. It was given the name auereomycin, after the Latin word “aerous,” which means containing gold.
“Streptomyces produce a golden colony of bacteria, and if it was floating on a batch of beer, it must have look pretty impressive to ancient people who revered gold,” Nelson theorizes.
The ancient Egyptians and Jordanians used beer to treat gum disease and other ailments, Armelagos says, adding that the complex art of fermenting antibiotics was probably widespread in ancient times, and handed down through generations.
The chemical confirmation of tetracycline in ancient bones is not the end of the story for Armelagos. He remains enthused after more than three decades on the project.
“This opens up a whole new area of research,” he says. “Now we’re going to compare the amount of tetracycline in the bones, and bone formation over time, to determine the dosage that the ancient Nubians were getting.”
Meanwhile European and Asian populations during the medieval times were getting decimated by the plague.
Misreeya
Pro
But Kerma wasn't in Upper Nubia, but instead Lower.