Soba: historical summary

D.A. Welsby and C.M. Daniels

@Pharaoh

Published in 

Egypt

 · 15 Dec 2023

None of the literary sources which mention Soba in its heyday during the Christian period or in its decline and ruin in the post-Christian period record any tradition of its early history. With the possible excep­tion of the excavations on mound C conducted by Budge and Stanton (see Appendix A) no demon­strably pre-Christian structures have been found, although there is evidence to suggest that the site was occupied in the Meroitic period.

A Meroitic stone ram, the most famous object found at Soba, was first recorded by Cailliaud in 1821 (Shinnie 1961, 17; see also Hofmann 1981). On the base of this sculpture part of a cartouche with the royal name . . .]reqerem survives. Hintze suggests a date in the 2nd century AD for this ruler (Hintze 1959, 33, 68 fin. 1). Shinnie's list of objects said to have been found at Soba prior to his excavations in 1950/52 included a few pre-Christian antiquities and two apparently Napatan scarabs. A similar scarab was found on the surface of the gravel mound at the western end of mound B in 1984 although there is some doubt as to whether this is genuine. A glass lion's head of Meroitic date was also recovered during the recent excavations. The sphinx and the relief of the goddess Hathor found in association with building B add considerable support to the case for a Meroitic or Napatan temple at Soba. Hitherto the view had been held by some scholars that the Meroitic ram had been brought to soba from elsewhere (Shinnie 1967, 97). The presence of three monumental pre-Christian sculptures now makes this suggestion seem much less likely, although the site of the pre-Christian occupation remains unknown. The rarity of recognizably Napatan or Meroitic pottery from the Antiquities area makes it unlikely that the early occupation was on the site of the later Christian city. If Soba had been an important pre-Christian site, its choice as the capital of the Kingdom of Alwa is more easily explained.

Events associated with the collapse of the Meroitic Empire and the rise of the three Nubian kingdoms which were later converted to Christianity, are very obscure. An inscription found at Axum (Littmann 1913, No. 11) records that King Ezanes invaded the NileValley, circa AD 350, in retaliation for raids by the Noba on allies of Axum. The army of Ezanes found the Noba settled in Meroitic towns around the confluence of the Niles, one of which was presumably Soba (Kirwan 1981, 116). The campaign was also directed against the Kasu, probably a name for the Meroites, and there can be little doubt that much devastation occurred resulting possibly in the collapse of the Meroitic state (ibid. 117). On the inscription, Ezanes bears among his titles those of king of the Beja and of the Kasu. [For a rather different interpretation of this inscription see Behrens 1986.]

Kaleb, king of Axum around AD 525, retained the title of king of the Beja and of the Kasu and added the Noba to the list, while his son returned to the titles of Ezanes (Munro-Hay 1982-3, 88 fn. 5). Whether the retention of these titles into the 6th century indicates that the Axumites continued to exert some political control over part of the area, which presumably then lay within the borders of the Kingdom of Alwa, is unclear. Axum, however, seems to have exerted little cultural or religious influence on the people living along the NileValley, (Chittick 1982; Fattovich 1982). Although a town named Alwa is mentioned on the inscription of Ezanes, it has been suggested that this refers to the Meroitic capital at Begrawiya, 190 km north of Soba¹ If this were so the transfer of the name Alwa from Meroe to the kingdom with its capital at Soba may suggest that the Kingdom of Alwa was seen, at least by its rulers, as the legitimate successor of the old Meroitic state.² The inhabitants of medieval Alwa included the descendants of the Meroites and the Noba. It was against this Noba-Meroitic cultural background that the Kingdom of Alwa developed.

Why Soba was chosen as the capital of the Kingdom of Alwa is not clear. With the loss of the northern part of the Meroitic Empire to the Nobatae and Blemmyes, Meroe may have been relatively isolated and vulnerable as it lay well towards the northern border of the new state, or there may have been a conscious decision to ‘found' a new Christian capital away from the influence of the pagan Meroitic cults. The higher rainfall in the Soba area with its greater agricultural potential may well have been a factor in the siting of the state capital. Although the Kingdom of Alwa was in existence by AD 580, when the conversion of its king to Christianity is recounted by the Byzantine bishop and Church historian John of Ephesus, nowhere is it stated that Soba was the capital city visited by the proselytizing Bishop Longinus, and Kirwan has suggested that, given Longinus' description of the last stage of his journey in a letter to Theodore, the Coptic patriarch at Alexandria, the site of Meroe as Alwa seems likely (Kirwan 1987). The earliest mention of Soba as the capital of the Kingdom of Alwa occurs in the work of the ninth century writer al Yagubi in his Kitab el Buldau (891-92) (see Vantini 1975, 71).

If Meroe was the first capital of Alwa, the scarcity of evidence for Christianity indicates that its position was usurped by Soba soon after AD 580, if not before. It has been suggested that the re-use of a Meroitic temple at Musawwarat es Sufra as a church pre-dated the official conversion of Alwa to Christianity (Török 1974, 89-90) and the presence of a few Axumite Christian visitors in Alwa at the time of Longinus' visit is recorded by John of Ephesus (in Vantini 1975, 20). The Kingdom of Alwa is first mentioned in the writings of John of Ephesus who recounts at some length the events which led to the conversion, first of the northernmost Nubian kingdom, Nobatia, and later of the southern kingdom, Alwa, by monophysite missionaries. No mention is made of the conversion of the Kingdom of Makouria which lay between the two, but it was noted that it was hostile to missionary activity in Alwa. A contemporary authority, John of Biclarum, a Melkite, asserts however, that the Mak­ouritae were converted to Christianity in AD 569 or 570. Ibn Selim El Aswani records that the Nuba and the Maqurra [Makouritae] were distinct races who were at war before the arrival of Christianity (in Troupeau 1954, 285). On the basis of modern scho­larship, Kirwan has cast doubt on the accounts of John of Ephesus and John of Biclarum of the conversion of the Nubian kingdoms to Christianity and sees no evidence that Makuria was converted to the Melkite persuasion. The known hostility between Makuria and Alwa would have explained Longinus' decision to take the EasternDesert route on his journey to Alwa (Kirwan 1982).

It would appear that the Nubian rulers were eager to be converted to Christianity. On the conversion of Alwa by Longinus, John of Ephesus writes:

When the king of the Alodaei [the Greek name for the Kingdom of Alwa was Alodia] sent the delega­tion to the king of the Nobades, asking that bishop Longinus be sent to them to instruct his people and baptize them, it was clear that the good disposition of that people towards conversion had been pro­duced in a certain miraculous way by God ... And when he reached [the capital], the king himself moved to meet him and received him with great joy. And having settled among them and spoken the word of God to the king and all his nobles, they received it with open heart; within a few days they were instructed and the king was baptised together with all his nobles and the greater part of the population. (Vantini 1975, 17-18)

By conversion the Nubian rulers would have aligned themselves with the power of the Byzantine Empire and the culture of the Mediterranean world. To the later history of Alwa, the present excavations allow us to add little. We need, however, no longer doubt the report of the Arab writer and ambassador from Egypt Ibn Selim El Aswani (preserved in an excerpt by Maqrizi) circa AD 976, that Alwa had ‘fine buildings and large monasteries, churches rich with gold and gardens' and that ‘the ruler of Alwa is more powerful than the ruler of Makouria, he has a stronger army and more horses. His country is more extensive and more fertile' (Troupeau 1954, 288).

Ibn Hawqal, who claims to have visited Alwa in the latter half of the 10th century, states that the Kingdom (and king) of Dongola (i.e. Makouria) was under the authority of the king of Alwa (Vantini 1975, 166), although in AD 943 Mas'udi mentions that the king of Nubia, reigning at Dongola, controlled both Makou­ria and Alwa (ibid. 130). The possibility that circa AD 975 an heir to the throne of Alwa, Simon, held high office in the northern kingdom further suggests a close connection between the two kingdoms (Munro-Hay 1982-3, 109). The marble tombstone of King David found in the recent excavations indicates that at least in the very early years of the 11^th century Alwa and Dongola had different rulers. Ibn Hawqal describes Soba in its heyday: ‘The most prosperous part of the country [Nubia] is the territory of Alwa, which has an uninterrupted chain of villages and a continuous strip of cultivated lands, so that a traveller may in one day pass through many villages one joining the next. supplied with water from the Nile by means of saq'yas' (Vantini 1975, 162-3). Abu Sa1ih adds ‘Here there are troops and a large kingdom with wide districts in which are 400 churches ... Around it [the town] there are monasteries some at a distance from the stream and some upon its banks' (Vantini 1975, 326).

Very few sites are known in the territory assumed to have been controlled by the kings of Alwa. To the north it bordered on the Kingdom of Makouria as can be seen from the terms of the Baqt, a treaty enacted in AD 652 between the Muslims in Egypt and the Nubians (as recorded by Maqrizi) ‘to the chief of the Nuba and to all the people of his kingdom, a convention binding all the Nubians, great and small, from the boundary line of Aswan to the frontier of Alwa' (Vantini 1975, 640).

There is no consensus among modern scholars as to where the border between Makouria and Alwa lay. The inhospitable area between the fourth and the fifth cataracts may have acted as a buffer between the two kingdoms (Adams 1977, 470). To the south, there are no obvious geographical barriers until the Sudd is reached. It has been suggested that at an earlier period Meroitic influence extended as far south as the Sudd in the vicinity of the mouth of the River Sobat (Dixon 1963, 234; Arkell 1950, 40), and up the Blue Nile into the area around Roseires (Chataway 1930). To the southeast the edge of the Ethiopian highlands, domi­nated by the Axumites, will have dictated the extent of the Nubian kingdom. To the east and west there are no obvious frontiers.

Recently pottery similar to that found at Soba has been recovered from the Gash Delta over 350 km to the east (Fattovich 1984). In the opinion of Vantini, during the 10th century the Baqlin (Taflin), a Beja tribe whom Ibn Hawqal describes as Muslim, nomadic herdsmen ruled by a king who was a vassal of the king of Alwa, inhabited the valley of the Gash (Vantini 1975, 163 fn. 13, 164; cf. Kirwan 1972b, 462 : for the possible extent of the Kingdom of Alwa seeAdams 1977, fig. 70 and Osman 1982, fig. 2). Ibn Hawqal further notes that gold mines, which extend along the sea as far as the country of the Zanj, were under the control of Alwa. As he locates the Zanj opposite Aden (in Vantini 1975, 167) this again suggests that Alwan control extended as far east as the Red Sea. Gold was exploited on a small scale in the Red Sea hills in the recent past (Sudan Almanac 1960, 88). A1 Yagubi records that another of the Beja tribes, the Bazin, border on the kingdom of the Alwan Nubians and the Baqlin Beja (inVantini 1975, 72). Vantini identifies the Bazin with the Cunama tribe who today occupy the Eritrean western lowlands (Vantini 1981, 101). Ibn Selim El Aswani (preserved by Maqrizi) talks of ‘the Beja of the interior, who live in the desert of the country of Alwa along the (Red) Sea up to the frontier of Ethiopia' (in Vantini 1975, 630). He also speaks of the people along a river, perhaps to be identified with the Atbara, ‘mixed (by intermarriage) between the Alwa and the Beja' ( ibid. 610), suggesting that peaceful coexistence between the Alwans and their nomadic neighbours to the east did occur on occasion. Sites of Christian origin have also been claimed in Western Sudan (Monneret de Villard 1935, 1269-79; Arkell 1959, 115-19). Arkell reported on the finding of two sherds of pottery clearly of a Christian Nubian type at Ain Farah, Darfur within a building which had hitherto been identified as a mosque (cf. ArkeJl 1936 ;de Neufville and Houghton 1965, 200). Two other sites in Western Kordofan, Abu Sofyan and Zankor, have also been thought to be of Christian date. At the former site pilgrim flasks have been found. Late Christian Nubian pottery has been noted in Chad at Koro Toro and Bochianga (Shinnie 1971, 49).

Four kilometres west of Soba, near Umm Dom, are red brick mounds strewn with pottery identical to that found over much of the Soba site. At Defeia, northeast of Khartoum, there was appar­ently a Christian centre possessing grand edifices (Vercoutter 1961, 102). Red brick walls associated with Christian pottery, including a sherd of Soba ware and a sherd from an imported amphora which appears from the published photograph to be ware U3 (Addison 1930, pl. II, nos. 3 and 12), were found at Burri to the south of Khartoum Power Station in 1929. F. Werne, who visited Burri in the 1840s, mentions brick remains ‘where the traces of a very great colony are extant' (Werne 1849, 68). Other Christian sites were noted by Crowfoot early this century as far upstream along the Blue Nile as Sennar (quoted in Budge 1907, II 305-6) and to these can be added several sites noted by Balfour Paul (1952, map 1). For the location of possible Christian sites along the White and Blue Niles see fig. 3. James Bruce passed through Alti, Arbagi, Bashaqra and Wad Medani in 1772 but made no mention of ruins (Bruce 1805, IV, 507-14), suggesting that by then no prominent ruins survived.

At Wad el Haddad graves found in 1925 contained pottery vessels, some of which are of types well represented at Soba, decorated with unmistakable Christian motifs, the ‘Ichthus', the Chi-Ro mono­gram, the processional Coptic cross and the palm branch (Balfour Paul 1952, 213). Grave goods associ­ated with burials of people who must have been Christians are not unknown elsewhere in Nubia. At Faras in all the bishops' graves up to the end of the 10th century, grave goods were absent. Thereafter they were invariably present and included large water jars, lamps and censers as well as objects of wood and metal (Zurawski 1985, 414).

Although the heartlands of the Kingdom of Alwa lay well within the area where annual rainfall is now approximately 200 mm per year, as all precipitation is confined to a short period in late summer sedentary agriculture can only be practised near the Nile and its tributaries. Ibn Selim El Aswani (preserved in the work of Maqrizi), writing of the wealth of the Kingdom of Alwa, sayshis country is more fertile [than the Kingdom of Makouria] and larger. He has few palm trees and few vines. The commonest grain among them is the white dhurra which resembles rice; with it they make their bread and their beer; they have plenty of meat because of the abundance of their flocks and large plains for grazing land, so vast that it takes several days to reach the mountains. They have excellent horses and tawny camels of pure Arabian pedigree. (Troupeau 1954, 288)

A1 Idrisi, writing in the 12^th century, adds the following:

The population of this town [Alwa] drink the water of the Nile. On its banks they grow barley, millet and other vegetables such as rape, onions, horseradish, cucumber and watermelon. The general aspect of Alwa, its buildings, the habits of the people and its trade are similar to those of Dongola. (Vantini 1975, 274)

Archaeological evidence suggests that Alwa was largely self-sufficient. Only a relatively small proportion of the fine pottery was imported from Northern Nubia while Arab glazed wares are rare (see Appendix F). Similarly, the rarity of Egyptian amphorae provides little evidence for long distance trade in wine or oil. Imported glass, however, forms a large proportion of the glass found on the site and indicates that trade routes for relatively high-value goods did exist. Alwa possessed fertile land and no doubt there was trade in agricultural produce. The power and wealth r Alwa was possibly based on the resources of potential slaves available beyond its borders, whereas northern kingdom had access only to the relatively uninhabited deserts beyond the Nile. One of the provisions of the Baqt, which remained in force for many centuries, specified that the Nubians should hand over 360 slaves annually.

Trade in ivory and animal skins was probably also important. The large Muslim quarter in Soba recorded by Ibn Selim El Aswani suggests there were substantial trading links with the Arab world and el Yagubi tells of Muslims visiting Soba to hear news of thearrival of the summer flood of the Nile, for it was first reported there (Vantini 1975, 78). Whether the gold mining area around Fazugli (Famaka) to which Axumite kings sent expeditions (Kirwan 1972a, 170) was under the control of Alwa is unclear, but productive gold mines in Alwa are mentioned by Ibn Hawqal who notes curiously that nobody among the people cares for them (in Vantini 1975, 167).

The significance of such archaeologically attested events as the abandonment of the southern church on mound B, its partial demolition and use for domestic purposes followed by its rebuilding and re-use as a church, and the hint of a similar sequence of events in the northern church, is unclear. Do these reflect events significant to the whole of Soba, perhaps an ideolo­gical change brought about by foreign occupation of the city, or can they be explained by purely local factors of little moment? Similarly what is the signifi­cance of the dumping of the fine and probably still serviceable glass vessels into room m1 of the mud brick building and the later abandonment of the building and the erection of a new structure on its denuded remains? This may have been a result of the damage sustained by the earlier building during the fire of phase III, yet a similar abandonment of a large mud brick building further to the east on mound B, excavated in part by Peter Shinnie, and the building of another structure over its remains, may be related. If so, we have evidence for a major reconstruction of what was probably the religious and political centre of Soba late in the Christian period; perhaps at a time when the churches at the western end of the mound had already fallen into decay and were being occupied by squatters. A radiocarbon date from material associ­ated with domestic activities in room H and the glazed ceramics from the same deposits in the northern church on mound B suggests that by the 12^th century the building had ceased to be used for worship. The distance from the mother church at Alexandria and the Islamization of Nobatia would have attenuated Alwa's links with the Christian world.

In the 12^th century the kingdom was apparently in decline and an independent state, the Kingdom of Al Abwab, was created within its northern borders. The absence of Terminal Christian pottery and of Islamic glazed wares of later date than the 13^th century suggest that the fortunes of the city of Soba were in decline by the 14^th century at the latest. Our main source for the fall of Alwa is provided by the Funj Chronicle: ‘Previous to this date [1504] the Funj had overthrown the Nuba and made the city of Soba their metropolis; and in that city were beautiful buildings and gardens and a hostel occupied by the Mohamme­dans' - and elsewhere: ‘So Omara and Abdulla Gema'a with their men went and made war on the kings of Soba and El-Querri and defeated them and slew them' (Vantini 1975, 786-7).

The Funj Chronicle was compiled at a date far removed from these events and its reliability is open to question (Adams 1975, 15). The paucity of Funj pottery from the site rather suggests that the city was not then occupied. The reference in the Chronicle to the fine buildings, gardens and the hostel occupied by Mohammedans is clearly taken from the work of Ibn Selim El Aswani (cf. Vantini 1975, 613) and has no relevance to the Funj city at Soba. When David Reubeni passed through Soba in 1523 he described it as in ruins with the inhabitants living in wooden huts but he was able to travel for 10 days to the Kingdom of Al Ga'1 which still lay under the control of the Kingdom of Soba.

No mention of Soba was made by Bruce who travelled north along the Blue Nile from Sennar in 1772 on his return journey from Ethiopia. He did not, however, pass through the site owing to local condi­tions. ‘The Battaheen were encamped near Umdoom, a large village on the side of the river, about seven miles from Halifoon. They are a thievish, pilfering set and we passed them early in the morning before it was light' (Bruce 1805, IV, 514). With the conquest of the Sudan on the orders of Mohammed Ali in 1820, a number of European travellers, the first of whom was Cailliaud, visited Soba and left accounts of the remains, but it is clear that by the early years of the 19th century the buildings of Christian Soba were no more visible than they are today. Accounts of some early visitors were collected by Shinnie (1961, 82-4) and further accounts are contained in Appendix A in this report.

Material relevant to an absolute chronology of Soba includes the following.

LiteraryThe King of Alwa was converted AD 580. The kingdom was powerful and prosperous in the tenth century, in decline by the twelfth, and captured by the Funj in the early sixteenth. Soba was in ruins in 1523.

Inscriptions and monumental sculptureA stone ram, perhaps 2^nd century AD, records the name of a Meroitic king; sphinx and relief of Hathor, both Napatan or Meroitic. A tombstone is dated to AD 897 and that of King David to AD 1015.

Findsa prehistoric potsherd; Napatan and/or Meroitic sherds, glass, etc. have been found; also Christian artefacts; imported ceramics and glass; glass jeton dated AD 1020-1035; and Funj pottery. Radiocarbon age determinations - these are listed in Appendix I.

Appendix A

Structures recorded by visiting antiquaries or excavated at Soba in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Gates

When Budge visited Soba in 1903 ‘the remains of the side buildings of several of the city gates were considerable.' (Budge 1907, 42). After excavating in the church on mound C. Colonel Stanton and he examined the remains of a stone gateway which he says did not appear to be as old as the temple that he believed to have existed beneath the church (ibid.325). No indication is given as to where these gates were found and no evidence today, from the ground or from the air, suggests the presence of a defensive circuit.

Temple

Budge when describing the church on mound C remarks that the ruins ‘indicate that in the early centuries of the Christian era a heathen temple was turned into a church,' (ibid.43). The evidence for this statement is not mentioned, but he was presumably heavily influenced by the Meroitic ram said to have been found in the vicinity of the church.

Church

Budge described the ruins of the church on mound C as being far from insignificant. Colonel Stanton and he excavated around the standing columns and found a number of mastabas built of mud brick and standing to a height of about 3 feet. Two of these were found to cover burials without associated grave goods (ibid.324). In 1910 Somers Clarke re-excavated part of the church and published a conjectural plan of the building (Clarke 1912, 36ff).

Tombs

In 1851 Cardinal Massaia arrived at Soba³. He describes the discovery of two tombs, the bodies from which were exhumed and the bones scattered. Crosses were found with both burials and ‘The interior of each tomb was formed by four great brick slabs, about one metre in length and a half a metre wide, fixed on a surrounding wall. Some were still intact, but the others had been broken up by the demolition of the walls. I saw some Coptic and Ethiopic letters in the inscriptions which covered them' (Toniolo and Hill 1974, 311-12).

Notes

1. If T örök's identification of Alwa with the AI(a)be- Abate of the Juba itinerary, i.e. modern El Moqren at the junction of the Nile and Atbara, is correct then, as Torok notes, it is unlikely that the kingdom would have taken its name from that place (Török 1988, 35, 72-73). The Arab writer Ad Dimishoi (died 1327) records that the King of Alwa resided in a town called Kusa (in Vantini 1975, 457) and the Egyptian A1 Harrani (circa 1295) calls the capital of Alwa Waylula (ibid. 447).
2. This reference was kindly brought to my attention by Sayid El-Saddiq Satti Hamad.
3. This reference was kindly brought to my attention by Sayid El-Saddiq Satti Hamad.

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