Nubian and Egyptian Ethnicity 197Figure 13.2 Scene from Tutankhamen’s painted box showing the king larger than life in his
chariot, defeating a chaotic mass of Nubians. Source: Photo by author, Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
the “barbaric” foreigners, protecting the inner order and civilization represented by
the ethnic self. In a military context, Nubians were cowards, instantly defeated by the
king, if they even fought at all (Liverani 1990). For example, Tutankhamen’s painted
box shows the Nubian army in disarray, rushing in full flight before the might of an
oversized Pharaoh (Figure 13.2; N. M. Davies and Gardiner 1962). On the Semna
Stela, Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senwosret III asserts (Lichtheim 1973: 119): “Since
the Nubian listens to rumors, to answer him is to make him retreat. Attack him, he will
turn his back, retreat, he will start attacking. They are not people one respects, they are
wretches, craven hearted.” In keeping with this literarytopos, the ethnic toponyms of
Egypt’s traditional enemies, Kush (Nubia), Palestine, and Libya, were always followed
by the term “wretched” during the New Kingdom (Smith 2003).
The foreignertoposalso likened the ethnic other to animals (Loprieno 1988), echoing
the ambiguity of the termethnos, which, as discussed by Siapkas in Chapter 5 in this
volume, might be used to refer to animals as well as peoples (also Tonkin, McDonald
and Malcom 1989; Hall 1997). For example, at the end of the New Kingdom text “The
Instruction of Ani,” the student complains that no one could possibly learn everything
that Ani presents to him. Ani replies that animals can be trained, and that “one teaches
the Nubian to speak Egyptian, the Syrian, and other strangers too. Say ‘I shall do like
all the beasts’, listen and learn what they do” (Lichtheim 1976: 144). In a similar vein,
Tutankhamen’s box juxtaposes hunting scenes on the lid with the images of defeated
ethnic enemies on the sides (N. M. Davies and Gardiner 1962). The Romans also cre-
ated negative stereotypes of the groups who resisted them on the Egyptian frontier with
Nubia. For example, to Pliny, the Nubian Blemmyes were headless people with eyes and