What is Nubia?
Nubia is the stretch of the Nile valley running south from Aswan into what is now northern Sudan. It has been home to its own kingdoms, its own writing systems and its own languages for more than four thousand years, and for about seventy of those years it ruled Egypt. Nubians still live in Aswan and still speak Nubian languages. Much of the land those communities came from is under Lake Nasser.
Egyptian sources call the land immediately south of Aswan Wawat, and the land beyond it Kush. They describe a relationship that swings between trade, tribute, occupation and outright conquest — in both directions.
The modern border is recent. Egypt and Sudan were divided along the present line at the end of the nineteenth century, which cut Nubia in two administratively without changing who lived where.
Two things follow, and they shape every page in this section. Ancient Nubia and living Nubian culture are related but they are not the same subject. And a community is not an attraction.
Both. The region straddles the modern border, which was drawn across it. Egyptian Nubia is the northern part; the larger share is in Sudan.
The museum opened in 1997 and was developed with UNESCO to hold and explain material recovered before the flooding.
Reviewed by no Nubian editor appointed yet · We will not mark this section reviewed until a real, named person has read it.