Museum to feature East Sudan might be built

Assistant of the President of the Republic, Musa Mohamed Ahmed, Monday received in his office at the Republican Palace the Dean of Fine Arts and Design Faculty at Al-Mustaqbal University, Prof, Hussein Jama'an Omer, and discussed the possibility of establishment of a museum for Sudan heritage in general and for heritage of East Sudan especially.

Prof, Jama'an said in a press statement after the meeting that he acquainted the Assistant of the President of the Republic on richness of the Sudanese heritages and reached agreement with him to conduct a comprehensive study for building a museum in Khartoum to include works on the Sudanese folklore and East Sudan artistic works.

He affirmed that he felt understanding and support of the Assistant of the President to the idea, explaining that efforts are underway to find a site in Khartoum for building the museum.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201309170344.html

Ancient Beja - The Blemmyes

Many forums that look at the history of ancient Egypt touch on the role of the people who lived on the southern border of Upper Egypt. An excellent survey of the Blemmye people is republished below, part of a longer post that included discussion about the Aksumite people. The entire thread might be worth a look.

Posted by Mace1.
The Blemmyes (Latin Blemmyae) were a nomadic Nubian tribe described in Roman histories of the later empire. From the late third century on, along with another tribe, the Nobadae, they repeatedly fought the Romans. They were said to live in Africa, in Nubia, Kush, or Ethiopia, generally south of Egypt.

In antiquity
The Greek geographer Strabo describes the Blemmyes as a peaceful people living in the East Desert near Meroe.

Their cultural and military power started to enlarge to such a level that in 197 Pescennius Niger asked a Blemmye king of Thebas to help him in the battle against the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. In 250 the Roman Emperor Decius took a lot of effort to win over an invasion army of Blemmyes. A few years later, in 253, they attacked Lower Aegyptus (Thebais) again but were quickly defeated. In 265 they were defeated again by the Roman Prefect Firmus who later in 273 would rebel against the Empire and the Queen of Palmyra Zenobia with the help of the Blemmyes themselves. The Roman general Probus took sometime to defeat the usurper and his allies but couldn't prevent the occupation of Thebais by the Blemmyes. That meant another war and the almost entire destruction of the Blemmyes army (279-280).

In the reign of Diocletian the province of Lower Aegyptus (Thebais) was again occupied by the Blemmyes. In 298, Diocletian made peace with the Nobatae and Blemmyes tribes, agreeing that Rome move its borders north to Philae (South Egypt, south of Aswan) and pay the two tribes an annual gold stipend

The Blemmyes occupied a considerable region in current day Sudan. There were some important cities like Faras, Kalabsha, Balana and Aniba, and they were all fortified with walls and towers of a mixture of Egyptian, Helenic, Roman and Nubic elements.

Their culture had also the influence of the Meroitic culture, and so, Blemmyes religion was centered in the temples of Kalabsha and Philae. The former being a huge masterpiece of Nubian architecture, where a solar lion like divinity named Mandulis was worshiped. Philae was a place of mass pilgrimage with temples for Isis, Mandulis and Anhur, and where the Roman Emperors Augustus and Trajan made many contributions with new temples, plazas and monumental works.

- - - 

With the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. The Roman attitude toward the nomads was very different from that of the Greeks: Repulsed by their wild-haired appearance, the Romans regarded them as scarcely more than another kind of desert beast, and treated them accordingly. The nomads began raiding Roman territory and trade routes. By the latter half of the third century of our era, the Blemmyes had united sufficiently to present Rome with a challenge. According to the fifth-century Palestinian historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the Blemmyes overran the Nile Valley in 268, from Syene (Aswan) all the way to Ptolemais, near modern Sohag, and it took the Romans years of bitter campaigning to drive them back into the desert.

From the third to the fifth centuries the Blemmyes continued to threaten Roman hegemony in the region. In his De Bello Persico, the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius recorded that in 284, Emperor Diocletian, faced with continuous Blemmyan conflict, formally relinquished to the Blemmyes jointly with the Nobadae, their rivals, a 250-kilometer (155 mi) stretch of the Nile known as the Dodekaschoinus, which stretched from Syene south to near the present Egyptian Sudanese border. In addition, Diocletian arranged to pay annual tribute to the Blemmyes, and he allowed them access to their favored shrine of Isis at Philae (near modern Aswan), as well as the right to have their own priests in residence there.

Although Diocletian's appeasement did not end Blemmyan raids, the Blemmyes did for a time respect the border at Syene. But by the latter half of the fourth century the Blemmyes were de facto rulers of the Nile Valley far beyond that point. In a contemporary letter, Blemmyan ruler Kharachen assured his administrators at Tanare (some 240 kilometers, or 150 miles, north of Syene, near modern Luxor), "If the Romans make difficulties and do not pay the ordinary tribute, neither the phylarch nor the hypotyrannos [Blemmyan authorities—the Blemmyan language of state was Greek] will prevent you from compelling the Romans to pay it." Interestingly, although the Blemmyes controlled much of the Upper Nile for nearly three centuries, they did not become a settled people. They remained desert-based throughout, interested only in dominating their peripotamian subjects.

The situation changed dramatically in 536, when Emperor Justinian outlawed pagan worship and ordered the removal of the idols at Philae. Outraged, the Blemmyes resumed their raids. Four years later, their hold on the Dodekaschoinus was broken—but not by Rome. Silko, the newly Christianized king of the northern nubian kingdom of nobatia, led an army north, and defeated the Blemmyes so thoroughly that they relinquished all of the Nile and retreated to the desert. The end of their hegemony marked the final blow to paganism in Christian Egypt.

Today, the descendents of the ancient Medjay are part of the Muslim Beja nation.

Historic description of Bisharin tribes

From The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: a compendium prepared by the officers of the Sudan Government. Edited by Count Gleichen  Volume 1, 1905

Text was originally scanned- some spelling mistakes may exist...

The Bisharin

The Bisharin inhabit the desert bounded on the north, roughly, by the Alagi and its tributaries, on the south by the Atbara, on the east by the Red Sea from Shalatein to J. Asotriba, and thence by a Hne joining Mitateb or Umbeiba on the Atbara, and on the west by the Nile from the mouth of the Atbara to Abu Hamed, and thence by the old trade route from Abu Hamed to Korosko.

The Ababda and Bisharin formerly lived a good deal further south in the districts now occupied by the Hadendoas; both tribes moved northwards probably about 100 years ago.

The Ababda by their move north, came into a more civilised country. Their Sheikhs, through the transport needed on the Korosko—Abu Hamed road, came into touch with the Government and acquired at this time great wealth, and with wealth, their numbers increased, whilst the Bisharin of the hills, left far behind as regards progressiveness, soon came to be despised by them.

The Bisharin claim descent from Bishar, the son of Kahl, who was also the father of Abad and Amar, from whom the Ababda and Amarar are said to have sprung.

Kahl is said to have been descended from Zubeir Ibn El Awam,* whose wife was a sister of Abbas, uncle of the Prophet. They maintain, therefore, that they are descended from the noble Koreish Tribe. In the genealogy of the tribe, the three principal ancestors are Kahl, Bishar, and Ali Jalan; on this all accounts seem to agree. The present generation of Sheikhs is generally said to be the ninth or tenth from Ali Jalan.

The descendants of Kahl most likely originally inhabited part of the district now occupied by the Hadendoas, the Bisharin, and Ababda, as stated above, having latterly moved northwards.

The Bisharin are divided into two great families, the Um Ali and Um Naji. The former live in the north, the latter in the south, of their country. Both sections are named after the wives of Ali Jalan, the great grandson of Bishar, who had the following sons :—

Ali .. Shanatir Amer . Hamedor Aliab. Shantirab. Amrab. Hamedorab. Hanr . Eira . Nafi . Mansur
Hanr. Eireiab. Nafab. Mansurab.

Boundaries of Bisharin.
Aliab.— The Aliab, who are far more numerous and wealthy than any of the Um Ali or Um Naji tribes, are divided into the following sub-tribes : Koatil, Mallak, Hamedomerab, Kurbeilab, and Balgab.
The first three named are sometimes classed together and known as the Sararab, on account of their near common ancestry.

The Sheikh of the Koatil has for two generations been the representative Sheikh of these three families ; before this the Sheikhship was with the Hamedomerab.

Sub-tribes of the Aliab.
Koatil.— The Koatil, under Sheikh Isa Abdalla, are a small tribe, and poor. They live at Meshushenai and Terfaui.

Hamedomerab. —Sheikh Mohammed Wad Kurab. This, again, is a small tribe, owning few camels, but good flocks of sheep and goats.  Wadi Meisa, at the head of which is Bir Meisa, is where most of the tribe are to be found during the summer. Their two wells are Meisa and Didaut, close together in the small hills north of the Elba red granite range.

Mallak.— Sheikh Isa Shingeirab. The Mallak, the third Sararab tribe, is by far the richest, and own many camels, and of a breed which is famous among all the neighbouring tribes. The Mallak own many wells.

Balgab.— The next of the Aliab tribes is the Balgab (Isa Abdalla), who live in the hills about Is. They have never, since the time of Abdalla, the father of Isa, had a representative Sheikh, but have always been represented by the Sheikh of the Sararab. They have good herds of camels, sheep, and goats. They do not frequent the Aswan market as much as the other Aliab sub-tribes, but they sell a great deal to merchants who come from there, and buy much of their corn in good

* In spite of their claim to be of Semitic origin, the Bisharin are not true Arabs and are of Hamitic descent,...


Compensation for murder or wounds.

The traditional "diia" or compensation for loss of life among these Arabs is: for a man, 50 male and 50 female camels; for women or children, or loss of legs, arms, eyes, 25 male and 25 female camels.
Wounds are assessed according to their gravity. The cause in which murders are committed, or a wound is received, is always taken into consideration. The above amounts are the limit of compensation.

Get your own copy of this 412 page book.
This book is available for about $20.00 CAN from the University of Toronto print on demand book publishing program. Search here to order... Or get it for about $10 from the University of Pittsburgh.