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Ancient African Civilizations: Kush and Axum
This book examines two ancient African civilizations, Kush and Axum, which were the most highly developed civilizations south of Egypt, but are often overlooked in modern texts.
Stanley Burstein has compiled and edited with commentary the most significant Greek and Roman sources concerning these states. The result is a fascinating book about the people of the southern part of the Nile valley, the gold mines of Nubia, and the Hellenistic city of Meroe, capital of the Ethiopian empire of Kush with its own highly developed culture (300 BC-300 AD).
Axum is best known as one of the oldest capitals of the ancient Ethiopian empire (100-500 AD). The texts in this book describe the Red Sea trade and the rise of Axum, the birth of the Axum Empire, the conversion of Axum to Christianity, and Axumite civilization on the eve of the Middle Ages.
Stanley Burstein has compiled and edited with commentary the most significant Greek and Roman sources concerning these states. The result is a fascinating book about the people of the southern part of the Nile valley, the gold mines of Nubia, and the Hellenistic city of Meroe, capital of the Ethiopian empire of Kush with its own highly developed culture (300 BC-300 AD).
Axum is best known as one of the oldest capitals of the ancient Ethiopian empire (100-500 AD). The texts in this book describe the Red Sea trade and the rise of Axum, the birth of the Axum Empire, the conversion of Axum to Christianity, and Axumite civilization on the eve of the Middle Ages.
166 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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January 15, 2023
This book was surprisingly interesting! So the introduction actually reads more like a paper, which is what I was expecting out of the entire book, but actually most of it is just a collection of translated documents about and/or from Kush and Axum, with notes and footnotes by the author. When I first realized this was the actual format, I was a bit disappointed, but after reading some more, I remembered I actually love reading old texts.
While most of these documents are probably available through other means, this is a great resource for viewing the timeline of Meroe and Axum and the other Nubian kingdoms. It gives a decent picture of what we know (or knew at the time of publishing) about the area in chronological order, but the book expects you to pick it up mostly as a researcher would, via reading contemporary sources.
The footnotes are excellent! I kept trying to skip these for time, and inevitably ended up reading them again. I didn't expect a nonfiction reference text to make me laugh, but the author's commentary on the ancient Greek habit of naming groups of people based on their primary means of subsistence actually drew chuckles from me. I also really appreciate the author's notes at the beginning of each chapter, lending context to documents that generally can't be taken at face value, such as the document from the friend of the Roman governer of Egypt who specifically said a bunch of nice things about his friend that weren't all entirely true.
Lastly, I also wanted to mention how much I appreciate reference nonfiction, as opposed to popular nonfiction. I've tried to read some more popular nonfiction in the past several years, but more often than not they end up a) including a bunch of random personal nonsense that isn't needed, and/or b) trying to sell some oversimplified theory of everything. This is just a reference text, so the author is not really peddling much besides interesting info about ancient Kush.
If I had any criticisms of this book, it's primarily that I would have liked to see even more context for some of the documents. Maybe there just isn't the information we would need to know more, but, for example, the documents about the Christianization of Nubia felt like they were...possibly a bit over-exaggerated. They imply that these kings just found Jesus and were saved, but I felt this hard to take at face value. Was there some sort of political rivalry that might have caused the different kingdoms to want to ally with Byzantium? Were there similar situations in other areas that were Christianized around the same time that we could reference? The book mentions there was a huge shift away from Egyptian culture due to the pantheon being kicked out, but how complete was this change, or was there some syncretism? As much as I got out of the book, I also felt like I had a lot of questions too (unfortunately my current library doesn't have much else on the subject).
Kush/Nubia is a very underrepresented culture, and I found this book really fascinating. I'm not personally a researcher so I can't recommend it either way on that front, but it's definitely an interesting read.
While most of these documents are probably available through other means, this is a great resource for viewing the timeline of Meroe and Axum and the other Nubian kingdoms. It gives a decent picture of what we know (or knew at the time of publishing) about the area in chronological order, but the book expects you to pick it up mostly as a researcher would, via reading contemporary sources.
The footnotes are excellent! I kept trying to skip these for time, and inevitably ended up reading them again. I didn't expect a nonfiction reference text to make me laugh, but the author's commentary on the ancient Greek habit of naming groups of people based on their primary means of subsistence actually drew chuckles from me. I also really appreciate the author's notes at the beginning of each chapter, lending context to documents that generally can't be taken at face value, such as the document from the friend of the Roman governer of Egypt who specifically said a bunch of nice things about his friend that weren't all entirely true.
Lastly, I also wanted to mention how much I appreciate reference nonfiction, as opposed to popular nonfiction. I've tried to read some more popular nonfiction in the past several years, but more often than not they end up a) including a bunch of random personal nonsense that isn't needed, and/or b) trying to sell some oversimplified theory of everything. This is just a reference text, so the author is not really peddling much besides interesting info about ancient Kush.
If I had any criticisms of this book, it's primarily that I would have liked to see even more context for some of the documents. Maybe there just isn't the information we would need to know more, but, for example, the documents about the Christianization of Nubia felt like they were...possibly a bit over-exaggerated. They imply that these kings just found Jesus and were saved, but I felt this hard to take at face value. Was there some sort of political rivalry that might have caused the different kingdoms to want to ally with Byzantium? Were there similar situations in other areas that were Christianized around the same time that we could reference? The book mentions there was a huge shift away from Egyptian culture due to the pantheon being kicked out, but how complete was this change, or was there some syncretism? As much as I got out of the book, I also felt like I had a lot of questions too (unfortunately my current library doesn't have much else on the subject).
Kush/Nubia is a very underrepresented culture, and I found this book really fascinating. I'm not personally a researcher so I can't recommend it either way on that front, but it's definitely an interesting read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review