Nubian and Egyptian Ethnicity 195portraying Nubians and other foreigners as barbaric, uncivilized, and likened to animals
(see the text that follows, and also Loprieno 1988; Liverani 1990; Smith 2003). These
ascribed constructs of ethnic “other” seem illegitimate to us, since they are imposed
externally and do not necessarily conform to a group’s self-identity. This idea springs
ultimately from an essentialist view that sees ethnic groups as primordial and immutable,
so that there can be only one “authentic” definition of an ethnic group. As Bernard
Knapp (Chapter 3 in this volume) and others point out in this volume, ethnicity has
been approached conceptually by scholars in various ways, ranging from very specific
formulations to broad definitions that essentially conflate ethnicity with culture, some-
thing that has prompted Goody (2001) and others to question the utility of the concept.
I prefer a definition that acknowledges ethnicity as rooted in a sense of common origins,
real or invented, constructed ultimately by individuals and both self-ascribed and ascribed
by others in order to create distinctions between people (see Chapter 3 in this volume
by Bernard Knapp, and cf. Díaz-Andreau and Lucy 2005).
Archaeologists have generally sought ethnicity as a distinctive material assemblage,
reflecting ethnicity’s emphasis on primordial attachments, but under this essentialist def-
inition ethnic groups have proven elusive in the archaeological record (see also, in this
volume, Chapter 3 by Bernard Knapp, and Chapter 5 by Johannes Siapkas), causing some
archaeologists to despair of ever identifying ethnicity (e.g., Díaz-Andreau 1996; Hides
1996; Hall 1997, 2002). Jones (1997) deploys practice theory as a solution to this conun-
drum, arguing that ethnicity is grounded in, but not directly equivalent to, Bourdieu’s
(1977) notion ofhabitus, as Bentley argues (1987: 27–9;contraYelvington 1991: 168).
Instead, she argues that a sense of ethnic identity is drawn from thehabitusin specific
social contexts in order to create a consciousness of difference (Jones 1997: 92–4). Since
it is possible to connect material culture with social practices (Bentley 1987), this theoret-
ical model can help us find individual expressions of ethnic identity in the more mundane
archaeological record that reflects everyday encounters and activities while acknowledg-
ing the important influence of the particular social milieu of those actors. The tension
between individuals andhabitusis particularly heightened in situations of cultural contact
that involve competition and conflict, as is the case with Nubia and Egypt (Spicer 1962;
Isajiw 1974; Hodder 1979; Royce 1982; Comaroff and Comaroff 1992; Jones 1997;
Smith 2003).
Ethnic Self and Other in Ancient Egyptian Ideology
Ancient Egyptian state ideology explicitly linked ethnic groups with territory (Loprieno
1988; Liverani 1990; Smith 2003), generally divided into four different ethnic groups.
Asiatics and Libyans to the northwest and northeast and Nubians to the south sur-
rounded the Egyptianethnos. The depiction of the Egyptian and foreignethnêin art
and literature matches Akhenaton’s description of the “peoples” created by the sun god
Aton (Lichtheim 1976: 131–2): “You set every man in his place....Theirtonguesdif-
fer in speech, their characters likewise; their skins are distinct, for you distinguished the
peoples.” Akhenaton, and Egyptian ideology in general, offers us a remarkably modern
textual and visual construction of ethnicity, representing ethnic groups as essentialized,
distinctive traditions, bounded in space and time (see also, in this volume, Chapter 5 by