Beyond the Nile

Long term Patterns in Nomad-State Interactions across Northeast Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID22014391
AuthorsJulien Cooper (0000-0002-8621-9315, Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume13
Issue1
Pages37-86
Publication date2022-12-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMare Nostrum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2177-4218 • E-ISSN: 2177-4218
PublisherUniversidade de Sao Paulo, Agencia USP de Gestao da Informacao Academica (AGUIA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.11606/issn.2177-4218.v13i1p37-86
OpenAlexW4321633399
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited39

The fertility brought about by the Egyptian and Sudanese Nile Valley allowed for one of the densest urban populations in the African continent, creating a myriad of different dynasties, states, and cities that dominated trade and politics across Northeast Africa. Despite the Nile-centric axis of this world (and our study of it), almost every boundary of the Egyptian or Nubian states were bordered by desert and savannah ecologies, the abode of herders or more properly ‘pastoralist nomads’. From the Marmarica coastal steppe of the Mediterranean coast, to the Atbai Hills of the Red Sea, to the Sahel west of the Upper Nubian Nile in Kordofan, Northeast Africa was dominated by nomads. In this thinking, sedentary urban groups on the Nile are spatially the exception rather than the rule, with urban peoples occupying a thin ribbon of agricultural potential on the banks of the river and select oases. The rest of Northeast Africa was ‘nomad land’. The history of nomad-state interactions is one of constant transgression of each other’s realms, with nomadic peoples coming to the Nile for employment and grazing and Nile peoples journeying through the desert for resource exploitation and trade. This Nile-desert nexus is one of the longest documented case studies in nomad-urban interactions in world history

Archaeology · Geography · Livestock · Pastoralism · African history and culture analysis · African Studies and Geopolitics · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Forestry