The Kingdom of Kush: An African Centre on the Periphery of the Bronze Age World System

@article{HafsaasTsakos2009TheKO,
  title={The Kingdom of Kush: An African Centre on the Periphery of the Bronze Age World System},
  author={Henriette Hafsaas-Tsakos},
  journal={Norwegian Archaeological Review},
  year={2009},
  volume={42},
  pages={50 - 70},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:154430884}
}
The Kingdom of Kush flourished in northern Sudan between 2000 and 1500 BCE. During this period, the capital Kerma emerged as a major economic and political centre in the Nile Valley. After a short review of the application of world system theory and centre-periphery perspectives in archaeology, the author proceeds to a presentation of the Bronze Age societies in northern Sudan and their wide-reaching trade relations. A central argument is that an incentive for the rise of the Kingdom of Kush… 
View on Taylor & Francis
19 Citations
Background Citations
5
Methods Citations
1

19 Citations

The ‘Bronze Age’ Concept and Nubia during the Second Millennium bce: Does One Size Fit All?

This paper considers the extent to which ancient Nubian cultures might be considered ‘Bronze Age’ during the Second Millennium bce and questions the application of the term ‘Bronze Age’ to Middle…

Walking the Line: Bronze and Iron Age as Terms in Middle Nile Valley Archaeology?

This paper explores the justifiability, usefulness and appropriateness of employing the terms ‘Bronze Age’ and ‘Iron Age’ in the context of Middle Nile valley archaeology. It argues that the…

The Transmission of Courtly Lifestyles in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean

This thesis offers and applies a new theoretical and methodological framework for understanding the diplomatic relationships between the ancient court societies in the Bronze Age Eastern…

Changing food ways as indicators of emerging complexity in Sudanese Nubia: from Neolithic agropastoralists to the Meroitic civilisation

    R. Haaland
    History, Agricultural and Food Sciences
  • 2012
This article focuses on politico-economic and socio-cultural processes affecting a changing cuisine in Sudanese Nubia from the 5th millennium BC until the collapse of the Meroitic state during the…

Sahara: Barrier or corridor? Nonmetric cranial traits and biological affinities of North African late Holocene populations.

Light is shed on the extent to which the Sahara Desert inhibited extensive population movements and gene flow and the role of the Sahara as a barrier is corroborated by the significant correlation between the Mahalanobis D(2) distance and geographic distance between the Garamantes and the other populations under study.

Edges of bronze and expressions of masculinity: the emergence of a warrior class at Kerma in Sudan

The author revisits the celebrated cemetery of the Bronze Age Kerma culture by the third cataract of the Nile and re-examines its monumental tumuli. The presence of daggers and drinking vessels in…

Tej Consumption and Production in the Commensal Politics and Political Economy of States in Northern Highland Ethiopia

Control over the production and consumption of tej (honeywine) and the honey to produce it, was part of the political economy of the Abyssinian kingdom/Ethiopian empire (1270-1974 CE) and possibly…

Nubian identity in the Bronze Age Patterns of cultural and biological variation

Th is study uses a bioarchaeological approach to examine the cultural and biological relation- ships between two groups who lived in ancient Nubia during the Bronze Age, C-Group and Kerma. While…

Marginal Communities and Cooperative Strategies in the Kerma Pastoral State

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between marginal Nubian communities—who are culturally different and who occupy peripheral contexts—and the Kerma “pastoral state” in Upper Nubia during…

Bronze Age as a Term in Northeast African Archaeology? A Plea for Regional Chronologies

The paper discusses the relevance of the term ‘Bronze Age’ as a chronological term in Northeast Africa by taking a closer look at definitions and the presence of bronze objects especially in Nubia.…

46 References

What Would a Bronze-Age World System Look Like? Relations Between Temperate Europe and the Mediterranean in Later Prehistory

AbstractThis paper examines differences in the nature of inter-regional relations in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and early Iron Ages, in an attempt to define the specific characteristics of Bronze-Age…

Ancient Core-Periphery Interactions: Lower Nubia During Middle Kingdom Egypt (ca. 2050-1640 B.C.)

This paper applies the core-periphery theoretical framework as an attempt to explain the nature of the Egyptian intervention in Lower Nubia and the subsequent sociopolitical status the region…

Dynamics of Trade in the Ancient Mesopotamian “World System”

Maritime trade in the Arabian Gulf connected Mesopotamia with societies in the Gulf and with the Indus during the Bronze Age. This article explores the Gulf trade in light of shifting consumption…

MULTIPLE LEVELS IN THE AEGEAN BRONZE AGE WORLD-SYSTEM

Aegean societies in the third and second millennia B.C. developed complex economics based on the accumulation of substantial agricultural surpluses, craft specialization, and intricate distribution…

Ancient Egypt: Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c . 2686–1552 BC

The Old and Middle Kingdoms together represent an important unitary phase in Egypt's political and cultural development. The Early Dynastic Period had seen the creation and consolidation of a type of…

African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective

This new revised edition of African Civilizations re-examines the physical evidence for developing social complexity in Africa over the last six thousand years. Unlike the two previous editions, it…

The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century

In order to describe the origins and initial workings of a world system, I have had to argue a certain conception of a world-system. A world-system is a social system, one that has boundaries,…

Nubia and Egypt

Much of the historical writings of Africa's past has involved the conscious and systematic representation of Africa as a continent void of any capacity to have contributed to world civilization.…

The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan

1. Introduction: Nubia, Sudan and Sudanic Africa 2. Hunters, Fishers and Gatherers (c.10,000-5,000BC) 3. Developing Complexity and Expanding Worlds of Herders and Farmers (c.5000-2000BC) 4. Kush and…

The Balance of Trade in Southwestern Asia in the Mid-Third Millennium B.C. [and Comments and Reply]

Trade frequently is considered an important and distinct subsystem that is integrated within a prehistoric cultural system. This paper rejects this interpretation and attempts a structural analysis…