Memories of Nubia, the Vanished Land of Gold

Nubia, a country on the border between the Mediterranean world and sub-Saharan Africa, is today almost completely unknown to the general public, despite its remarkable, though often troubled, history. Its strategic location and great mineral wealth attracted the attention of Egyptian pharaohs from the end of prehistoric times. Through conquest and gradual colonisation, they managed to gradually dominate Nubia and eventually integrate it fully into the ancient Egyptian state. An important role in this was played by the system of huge fortresses on the Nile and the magnificent temples dedicated to Egyptian and Nubian deities. Through a confluence of historical circumstances, it was eventually the Nubian rulers who took control of the declining ancient Egyptian state for a short period in the second half of the first millennium B.C. Thereafter, Nubia became the scene of clashes between the Ptolemaic and then Roman power interests and the Meroë kingdom in Nubia. Dramatic struggles did not avoid even the rise of Christianity and Islam in Nubia.