198 Stuart Tyson Smith
ears in their chests (Rackham 1938: 250–3). Solinus described them as barbaric savages
who simply leaped upon their prey like an animal when hunting (Sidebotham, Hense,
and Nouwens 2008: 365–8). We cannot know if the Nubians had similar characteriza-
tions for Romans or Egyptians, but the Tswana in South Africa retaliated to being called
“skepsels” (creatures) by Afrikaner settlers by referring to them as “makgoa” (white bush
lice) (Comaroff 1978; Crapanzano 1985).
In grand public settings and more intimate gatherings, the Egyptian king’s surround-
ings and accoutrements emphasized the self–other opposition of superior ethnic Egyp-
tian and inferior ethnic foreigner that, as a legitimizing ideology, tied the king to the
cosmological struggle between order and chaos (Assmann 1990). For example, images
of the king slaying enemies on both large-scale monuments, ritual objects, and regalia
go back to Narmer, a generation or so before the official unification of Egypt (ca. 3100
BC), and continued in use into the Greco-Roman Period (ca. 332BCtoAD400). On
a more intimate level, Tutankhamen, for example, had a number of personal items and
regalia that played on a similar theme. Four of his walking staves hadtopicalimages of
a Nubian and/or Asiatic on their curved base (Malek 2000–2004)—not their handles
as in the recent Tutankhamen exhibit (Hawass 2005: 188), a common mistake deriving
from a superficial similarity to modern canes (e.g., Meskell 2004: 120–1, Figure 5.1;
Shaw 2000: 320; Ritner 1993: 120). In the correct configuration, he would drag his
enemies through the dust as he walked, a form of sympathetic magic that allowed him
to constantly dominate Egypt’s enemies. And just in case one missed that symbolism, a
pair of sandals had similar images, as did his footstool, allowing the king to repeatedly
trample his ethnic foes (Ritner 1993: 119–36).
Case Studies from Nubia
Five case studies drawn mainly from the New Kingdom and Napatan period will serve
to illustrate the role that the integration of archaeology with textual and visual sources
can play in understanding ethnic dynamics using a multi-scalar strategy. After a brief his-
torical overview, the first examines how Nubian Prince Hekanefer negotiated his way
between a self-ascribed identity as an Egyptian official and an ideological role as a mem-
ber of the ethnic “other” of “Wretched Kush.” This is followed by two case studies that
examine the ethnic dynamics of life in Egyptian colonial communities. Ceramics pro-
vide insights into the role that foodways play in ethnic politics at the fortress of Askut,
where Nubian women married into the Egyptian colonial community. A similar situation
prevailed farther south at Tombos, which provides an example of how burial practice
and religion reflect similar countervailing assertions of identity between colonized and
colonizer. Finally, I will examine how Piankhi created fictive ethnic and divine ties as
legitimate king through the revival and adaptation of the Egyptian ideology of self and
other of Egyptian ethnic stereotypes, and return to the complex signaling of Egyptian and
Nubian identities at Tombos, which remained an important center during this period.
Nubia consists of the southern third of Egypt, today inundated by the reservoir of
the Aswan High Dam, and the northern half of the Sudan, stretching from the first
to sixth cataract of the Nile (Figure 13.1). The granite of the cataracts created a nav-
igational obstacle that also marked key cultural boundaries and political borders both