ARKAMANI Sudan Electronic Journal of Archaeology and Anthropology

GEBEL BARKAL AND ANCIENT NAPATA

Timothy Kendall

Gebel ("Mount") Barkal is the modern Arabic name of a small table-mountain on the western edge of Karima, Sudan. From early in the Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1500 BC), this isolated sandstone butte marked the official upper limit of the Egyptian empire in Africa and the site of an important border town called Napata (Map). Although at least one other pharaonic military outpost lay farther up the Nile at Kurgus, near the Fifth Cataract, Napata was Egypt's southernmost settlement and the site of its most remote religious sanctuary.

Situated on the right bank of the Nile, about 40 km downstream from the Fourth Cataract, Napata probably had no importance as a river port, for the current here was too swift to make shipping practicable.  Its importance seems to have been due to its position on the main river crossing point of the overland road linking the Sixth Cataract region with the Third. It was doubtless the site of an important ferry and customs station, where African products of all descriptions were stockpiled and warehoused before shipment down to Egypt.

In time, Napata¹s strategic importance was completely overshadowed by its cultic importance, which derived from Gebel Barkal (Fig.1). The Egyptians called the rock Dju-wa¹ab ("Pure Mountain") and identified it as the residence of a primeval aspect of their state god Amun of Karnak, who dwelt at Thebes, some 1150 km downstream. Curiously, the Egyptians imagined Gebel Barkal to be a far-flung extension of Karnak and came to believe that each site, Karnak and Barkal, was a manifestation of the other. Amun of Karnak, for example, had always been called "Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands." But when the Egyptians discovered Gebel Barkal, they decided that, "before it was known by the people," the name of the mountain had been "Thrones of the Two Lands". In other words, the mountain was viewed as the source of the god's most ancient epithet, and the source of the name of Karnak. This historical invention allowed the Egyptians to identify Gebel Barkal as Karnak, and vice versa, and to conceive this remote hill in Nubia as the god¹s original home, while declaring at the same time that he had first appeared at Thebes! Even the god¹s temples at Karnak and Napata carried the same name: Ipet-sut ("Sanctuary of the Thrones"), which allowed these shrines, for religious purposes, to be deliberately confused. This new dogma established Amun as divine master of Upper Egypt and the entire Egyptian Nubian empire, with Napata and Thebes as his two cultic poles. Even the name of Napata itself, and the local epithet of its god - "Amun of Napata" (Imn Npt) - may have been contrived to form puns with other very common names of the Theban god, such as "Amen, Lord of Heaven" (Imn Nb-pt) and "Amun of the Sanctuary" (Imn Ipt). This would further have enhanced the idea that Napata and Thebes, and the great gods of each, were actually identical.  

The Egyptians believed that Amun of Napata dwelt inside the mountain, behind the cliff, hidden from mortal view. They also built his temples and those of many other gods associated with him directly in front of the cliff, with their axes directed into the mountain (Figs.2,3). In later times there would be two great Amun temples built before Gebel Barkal, one dedicated to his southern aspect (B 500) and the other to his northern (B 800). The same situation also held true at Thebes, with the temple of Karnak dedicated to his northern aspect, and that of Luxor dedicated to his southern.

A curious feature of Amun¹s nature was his ability to absorb the identities and beings of all the greatest gods into his own being, which was "hidden;" Amun¹s name, in fact, meant "Hidden." As the political fortunes of the Thebes began to rise, even in the Eleventh Dynasty, so did the eminence of its god. When the kings, his "sons," unified Egypt in the early Middle Kingdom, the god became "king of the gods." Amun, however, did not supercede the great gods, he simply "became" them, with the result that each of the great gods was thought to be one of his special manifestations. In time, thus, he assumed the identity and being of Re-Atum, the primordial creator and sun god of Heliopolis. This made him the father of the gods. This, too, meant that he was the deified Sun in all of his other forms: Re, Harakhty, and Khepri. Amun also merged with the ithyphallic gods Min and Osiris, gods of fertility and the inundation, and took over their functions. In the same ithyphallic guise, he was known as Kamutef, "Bull of his Mother," which alluded to his unique ability to recreate himself as his own son the king (who was both the "bull" (ka) and the god's own "double" (ka). When the king died, he merged with the god and thus became his own father (ka="phallus"=progenitor), conceived by the goddess Mut ("Mother"), who was the god's consort as well as the king's divine "mother".

Normally Amun was represented as a man, wearing a kilt and a tall, double-plumed crown. Just as often he appeared as a similarly crowned, mummiform male figure, with an erect phallus, which was his form as Kamutef. When the Egyptians discovered Gebel Barkal and associated the mountain with Amun, they began to represent him in a third way: as a man with the head of a ram (fig.4). There is now a growing body of archaeological evidence that suggests that prior to the arrival of the Egyptians in this region, the Nubians venerated a god identified with the ram. Given Amun¹s propensity to absorb all the important Egyptian gods into his own being, the new ram-headed guise of Amun suggests that the Theban deity simply absorbed unto himself his Nubian counterpart, who may even have been identified with Amun in much earlier times. Except for the reign of Akhenaten, when Amun¹s veneration was proscribed, Amun became the universal god, in whom all gods could be worshiped, and Gebel Barkal became one of his most important cult places. In Greek and Roman times, Amun was thought to be simply a form of  Zeus-Jupiter, and legends then abounded that he and the other gods made frequent visits to Nubia, where, it was said, creation had taken place and where men were the first to have learned to honor god.

Probably long before the Egyptians had set eyes on Gebel Barkal, the Nubians, too, had held it sacred. Although no pre-Egyptian settlement or cultic remains have yet been found there, unstratified Nubian pottery has been recovered, dating from the Neolithic, Pre-Kerma, and Kerma periods. This indicates that the site must have been occupied at least since the fourth millennium BC. The discovery on the summit of Gebel Barkal of thousands of chipped stone wasters, made of types of stones that can only be found on the desert floor, suggests that people brought stones to the summit to work them, a practice that implies a religious motivation. Likewise, the similarity between the sanctuary at Barkal, as it appeared in the Egyptian and Kushite periods, and that of Kerma, as it appeared at the end of the Classic Kerma phase, may suggest that there was a pre-Egyptian cultic connection between Gebel Barkal and the "Western Deffufa" at Kerma. There exists at least the possibility that the latter, a rectangular, brick built, mountain-like platform 19 m high, may have been built at Kerma as a magical substitute or "double" of Gebel Barkal. After all, complexes of temples were built in front of each, and each was conceived as the dwelling place of a powerful god. 

There is no doubt that the Egyptians, and probably, too, the earlier Nubians, attached sacred significance to Gebel Barkal because of its bizarre form. Not only was the hill isolated on a flat desert plain and possessed of a spectacular cliff, 90 m high and 200 m long, its southwestern corner was marked by an enormous free-standing pinnacle, nearly 75 m high (fig.5). This monolith had all the appearance of a statue, but without precise form, and it could be imagined in many ways simultaneously. On the one hand, it could be seen as the figure of a standing king or god, wearing the White Crown. It could be seen as an erect phallus. It could also be seen as a rearing cobra (uraeus), wearing the White Crown. Ancient documents, both written and pictorial, reveal that the rock was imagined as all these things at once and was thus venerated as the source of the divine power of all the various things it represented. As a crowned human figure, it would have represented the living king or the ultimate royal ancestor, or the god himself. As a phallus, it would have represented Amun as father and procreator. As uraeus, it would have represented each and every goddess and all female creative power. It was thus father, mother, and royal child combined as one - which was apparently the very meaning of "Kamutef." Gebel Barkal, by means of the phallic-shaped pinnacle, not only confirmed the presence of Amun, it also had precisely the form of the Primeval Hill of Egyptian tradition, on which the Creator was thought to have appeared at the beginning of time and generated the first gods through an act of masturbation.  

Even today, among traditional animist peoples of the Sudan, natural stones of phallic shape are identified simultaneously with serpents and ancestors and are worshiped as sources of generative power. Gebel Barkal was exactly such a place, and the colossal size of the pinnacle would surely have ensured that it was the center of a major and influential animist cult, probably from prehistoric times. The Egyptians must have fully accepted the primacy and antiquity of the site, because they made the Amun of this place "the great god of the first time, the primeval one".

Western travelers first observed Gebel Barkal in 1820 and correctly identified the surrounding ruins as those of ancient Napata, which was then remembered only through classical texts as the objective of a Roman military raid in 24 BC. In the following decades, other travelers visited and described the site and brought statues and inscribed monuments from here for the museums in Cairo, London, and Berlin. The famous Victory Stele of Piankhy, found here in 1862, created a sensation when it was first translated, and inspired Verdi¹s 1874 opera "Aïda." While it confirmed classical accounts of native "Aithiopian (Kushite) kings conquering Egypt in the eighth century BC, four other stelae found with it revealed that for much of the mid-first millennium BC, Napata and Gebel Barkal also served as the chief cult place and coronation center of an independent kingdom of Kush. 

It was not until the years 1916 to 1920 that the first scientific excavations were undertaken at Gebel Barkal. These were sponsored by Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and were directed by George A. Reisner (fig.6). After excavating twenty-five of the small pyramid tombs west of the mountain, Reisner worked in the temple complex, exposed seven temples and two palaces, and recovered many more important historical inscriptions and statues (fig. 7). Simultaneously, he excavated two other nearby royal cemeteries, el-Kurru and Nuri. In these he found the tombs of the five kings of Kush who had ruled Egypt as its Dynasty 25, those of their many queens, their ancestors dating back to the ninth century BC and their successors to the third. In 1920 he carried his operations further south to Meroë, excavating all of its pyramids and continuing to trace the then unknown names and sequence of Kushite rulers to their end in the fourth century AD. It was one of the greatest achievements in the annals of modern archaeology.

Although Reisner discovered a few New Kingdom stelae and statues at Gebel Barkal, scant remains of the pharaonic sanctuary survived, except for the foundation courses of some of the buildings. The greater part of the surviving ruins on the site belonged to the period after the mid-eighth century BC, when Napata became the cultic heart of the independent Sudanic kingdom that we now call Kush. For six decades (ca. 712-661 BC) Kush ruled Egypt, and it is now becoming increasingly apparent that, despite their non-Egyptian origin, the Kushite kings were able to justify their claims to the Egyptian throne through the ancient cultic ties that had existed between Karnak and Gebel Barkal during the New Kingdom.  In fact we must now suspect that the "Egyptianization" of the Kushite kings and their initial uniting of Upper Egypt with Nubia were programs carefully orchestrated with the Amun priesthood. Their aims must have been, first, to effect the reunion, after three centuries, not only of the god¹s two holiest sites but also his entire southern empire. Second, they sought to restore the true "kingship of Upper Egypt," which had disappeared after Dynasty 20. And, third, they intended to bring back the glory days of the New Kingdom.

 
Kushite rule in Egypt could not last. In 661 BC, the Kushites were driven out of Egypt, back into their homeland, by the invading Assyrians. Settling finally at Meroë, southeast of Napata, they consolidated their kingdom in the far south, which endured for nearly another millennium. Throughout much of this time, however, especially during the Napatan Period (ca. 661-280 BC), Gebel Barkal remained the primary sanctuary of the kingdom, and it was from Gebel Barkal that the king's claimed their royal power. There the rulers undertook major building projects that continued at least until the first century AD. The Great Amun Temple was probably always the kingdom¹s main repository of ancient knowledge, religious literature and historical documentation. It would also have been the kingdom¹s national museum, filled as it was with statues, monuments, and reliefs presenting the celebrated history and characters of Kush and linking them directly with the much earlier pharaohs of the New Kingdom, whom the Kushite rulers counted as their "ancestors."

Throughout most of the history of Kush, Gebel Barkal appears to have been the primary center of royal coronations and kingship ritual. For centuries each new king of Kush came to Gebel Barkal to be confirmed and crowned by the god who dwelt within the mountain, just as kings very likely did during the New Kingdom. Throughout his reign each king of Kush also consulted the god¹s oracle on matters of state and the conduct of war. Until the early third century BC, the same oracle was even said to inform the king by letter of the moment when his reign should end, ordering him to commit suicide. This custom was reportedly abolished by a King Ergamenes, who, so condemned, took matters into his own hands, went to the temple with his troops and slew the priests. The veracity of this tradition is suggested by the fact that until the third century BC, the kings traveled the 230 km from Meroë to Napata for burial in pyramids erected for them across the river from Gebel Barkal at Nuri (fig.8). Given the existence there of a Valley Temple, apparently for mummification, one must assume that most of them made the journey to the cemetery alive.

In 24 BC, Napata was attacked, plundered, and "razed to the ground" by a Roman army. This event was what probably prompted the last major restoration of the Barkal temples by the Meroitic royal couple Natakamani and Amanitore in the first century AD. Unfortunately after their joint reign, we know almost nothing of the site or its continued use. The history of the site in the later Meroitic and Post-Meroitic eras (ca. 100-600 AD) is obscure. After the establishment of the Dongolese Christian kingdom of Makouria, old Napata and the Gebel Barkal Temples were incorporated into a Christian village.
 

Footnotes:
 

1. See Vivian Davies, "New Fieldwork at Kurgus: The Pharaonic Inscriptions," Sudan & Nubia 2 (1998), 26-30.
 

2. See G. A, Reisner, "Inscribed Monuments from Gebel Barkal, Part 2:  The Granite Stela of Thutmose III,"  Zeitschrift für Agyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (henceforth ZؤS) 69 (1933), 35, l. 33.  See also Idem, "Inscribed Monuments from Gebel Barkal, Part 3: The Stela of Sety I," ZؤS 69 (1933), 73-78, in which Amun of Gebel Barkal is called "Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands" and "[Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands], who is in the Pure Mountain."
 

3. See, for example, J.-C. Golvin and J.-C. Goyon, Les batisseurs de Karnak (Paris;1984), pp. 28 ff.
 

4. On the south wall of the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, the god Amun "Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands who is in Ipet-sut" appears sitting inside Gebel Barkal.  See the archive of the 1905-1907 Breasted Expeditions to Egypt and the Sudan at http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/ OI/MUS/PA/EGYPT/BEES/BEES.html (Photo P 2428/OI 1491).  In his Dream Stele, Tanwetamani refers to Amun of Gebel Barkal as "Lord of the Throne of the Two Lands, who is in Ipet-sut" (See T. Eide, T. Hنgg, R.H. Pierce, and L. Tِrِk, eds., Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, vol. I (Bergen: 1994), 193 (Henceforth, "FHN"); Harsiotef refers to the great temple at Barkal as "the Ipet-sut of Amun of Napata" (FHN II, p. 444); and Nastasen refers to it as "the Ipet-sut of gold¹ (FHN II, p. 480). Although it is never stated, Gebel Barkal was probably conceived as a ka or "double" of Karnak.  In the Barkal Stele of Thutmose III, Amun of Gebel Barkal is called the ka of Amun of Karnak. See Reisner, ZؤS 69. 28, l. 2.
 

5. Note that Imn-ipt and Imn nb pt are common names of the Amun of Luxor Temple: see P. Pamminger, "Amun und Luxor:  Der Widder und das Kultbild," Beitrنge zur Sudanforschung 5 (1992), 5 ff. and Helmut Brunner, Die südliche Rنume des Tempels von Luxor (Mainz: 1977), p. 75.  This strongly suggests that Luxor, the "southern Ipet," was really a magical substitute for Gebel Barkal, which must have been the true "southern Ipet" and home of the god¹s ka.  See also Lanny Bell, "Luxor Temple and the Cult of the Royal Ka," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 44 (1985), 251-294; and idem, "The New Kingdom ŒDivine¹ Temple: The Example of Luxor," in B.E. Shafer, ed., Temples of Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: 1997), pp. 127-184..  There is even a Luxor Amun  ("Amun-em-ipet") at Gebel Barkal: see FHN II, 464.
 

6. From the reign of Thutmose III the god of Gebel Barkal was routinely called "(he) who dwells within Pure Mountain."  See Reisner ZؤS 69, p. 25, and see note 2. 
 

7. The first instance accompanies the Kurgus inscription of Thutmose I, which probably dates to the period shortly after the Egyptians observed Gebel Barkal for the first time.  See Davies, Sudan & Nubia 2 (1998), 27.
 

8. See summary of data and references in T. Kendall, Kerma and the Kingdom of Kush, 2500-1500 BC:  The Archaeological Discovery of an Ancient Nubian Empire (Washington: 1997), pp. 75-81, and L. Tِrِk, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (Leiden: 1997), pp. 303-309.
 

9. J.R.Anderson and K. Grzymski, "Sudan: Land of the Hidden Temples," Rotunda 34  (Summer/Fall, 2001),  22-29.
 

10. Diodorus Siculus 3. 2. 2; and see FHN II, 644.  See also Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans, An Essay (London: reprint 1970), pp. 187-200.
 

11. In 1989 and 1996, the MFA Boston Expedition found many such early varieties of potsherds mixed with later debris in the sanctuary as well as on the western cliff of Gebel Barkal, just outside the mouth of a shallow cave where there was an outcropping of kaolinite.  Kerma sherds were found in small numbers in Reisner¹s dump from debris of the kitchen area of the Napatan palace B 1200.  See T. Kendall, "Excavations at Gebel Barkal, 1996: Report of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Sudan Mission," Kush 17 (1997), 336.
 

12. Noted in 1988 by Isabella Caneva for the Italian Mission of the University of Rome "La Sapienza."
 

13. Suggested in Kendall, Kerma and the Kingdom of Kush, p. 79, and  see C. Bonnet, Kerma, royaume de Nubie (Geneva: 1990), pp. 32, 59-67.
 

14. See, for example, R.T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (London: 1991), pp. 36-44.
 

15. A.R.C. Bolton, "The Dubab and Nuba of Jebel Daier," Sudan Notes and Records 19 (1936), 92-108, and G. Bell, "Notes: Nuba Fertility Stones," Sudan Notes and Records 19 (1936), 314-316.

16. Reisner, ZؤS 69, 37, l. 43.
 

17. F. Cailliaud, Voyage à Meroé au Fleuve Blanc au-delà de Fazoqlٹv.II (Paris: 1826), p. 43; v. III, pp. 226-227; A.H. L. Heren, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, Trade of the Carthaginians, Ethiopians and Egyptians v. I (Oxford: 1832), pp. 429-430.
 

18. See L. Tِrِk, The Kingdom of Kush, pp. 7-20; R. G. Morkot, The Black Pharaohs: Egypt¹s Nubian Rulers (London: 2000), pp. 8-22; T. Kendall, "The American Discovery of Meroitic Nubia and the Sudan" in Nancy Thomas, ed. The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt Essays (Los Angeles:  L.A. County Museum of Art, 1996), 151-164.
 

19. FHN I, pp. 232 ff; 252 ff; 259 ff; II, pp. 438 ff; E.A.Wallis Budge, Egyptian Literature, vol. II:  Annals of Nubian Kings (London: 1912); N.-C. Grimal, Quatre stèles napatéens au Musée du Caire JE 48863-48866 (Cairo: 1981).
 

20. Ibid., p. 155-157 and references; and see G.A. Reisner, "The Barkal Temples in 1916 (Part I),"  JEA 4 (1917), 213-227; idem, Part II,  JEA  5 (1918), 99-112; idem, Part III,  JEA 6 (1920), 247-264; and D. Dunham, The Barkal Temples (Boston: 1970).
 

21. D. Dunham, The Royal Cemteries of Kush, I:  El-Kurru (Boston: 1950); idem, The Royal Cemteries of Kush, II: Nuri (Boston: 1955).
 

22. D. Dunham, The Royal Cemteries of Kush, IV:  The Royal Tombs at Meroe and Barkal (Boston: 1957).
 

23. See following article:  "Gebel Barkal:  Nubian Center of Creation and Legendary Source of Egyptian Kingship and the Crown."  Herodotus ii. 29. 7.  See FHN I, p. 308.
 

24. Diodorus 3. 6. 1-4.  See FHN II, p. 647.
 

25. See note 20.
 

26. Strabo 17. 1. 54.  See FHN III, p. 831.

Figure Captions:
Map: Showing Gebel Barkal, Napata, Karima, Merowe, Sanam, Kerma, Third Cataract, Fourth Cataract, Fifth Cataract, Sixth Cataract, Kurgus, Meroë.
 

Fig.1. Aerial view of Gebel Barkal, with the modern town of Karima, Sudan, visible at right (northeast). After their conquest of Upper Nubia, about 1500 BC, the Egyptians associated this strangely isolated mountain with the Primeval Hill of their mythology.  Here, they believed, the Creator God first manifested himself and engendered the other gods, the sun, and kingship itself. They built a temple complex in front of the cliff and the town of Napata along the river.  The Meroitic royal pyramids can be seen in the desert at left. Photo: Courtesy of Enrico Ferorelli and the National Geographic Society.
 

Fig.2. Aerial view of the Gebel Barkal sanctuary (western sector), as presently revealed by excavation.  Most of the buildings have foundations dating to the New Kingdom, but the visible ruins date mostly from the era of the later kingdom of Kush (ca. 800 BC-350 AD). The structures are: B 500 (Great Temple of Amun of Napata), B 800 (temple of Amun of Karnak), B 700 (temple of the Osirian Amun, Dedwen, and deceased kings), B 600 (temple of the living king or royal ka [?]), B 1200 (early palace), B 1100 (Pr-wr ["Great House"] or Coronation Temple), B 1150 (Pr-nsr ["House of Flame"] or Temple of the Royal Uraeus Goddesses of the "Eye of Horus"), B 300 (Temple of Mut, "Eye of Re"), B 200 (Temple of Hathor, "Eye of Re").  Photo: Courtesy of Enrico Ferorelli and the National Geographic Society.
 

Fig.3. Tentative restored view of the Barkal Temples.  From right to left, they are B 500, B 600, B 700, B 800, B 300, B 200, and B 1200.  Missing are B 1150 and 1100, discovered in 1996, which would have partially blocked the view of B300 and 200.  Computer rendering by W. Riseman, 1990, for the MFA Boston Expedition.
 

Fig.4. Amun of Gebel Barkal in the guise of a ram-headed man, who confers the crowns upon the living king.  From a stele of King Piankhy (ca. 744-712 BC) now preserved at the Gebel Barkal Museum, Karima, Sudan.
 

Fig.5. Aerial view of Gebel Barkal, looking northeast, with the town of Karima visible in background and the ruins of the Amun sanctuary at right. The gigantic phallic-shaped pinnacle, which in certain lights and from certain angles also looked like a royal statue as well as a rearing, crowned uraeus, gave the mountain its complex religious associations. Photo: Courtesy of Enrico Ferorelli and the National Geographic Society.
 

Fig.6.  George A. Reisner (1867-1942), Director of the Gebel Barkal Expedition of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1916-1920.  Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
 

Fig.7. Colossal statues of the Kushite kings Anlamani (left) and Aspelta (right), found by Reisner at Gebel Barkal, as presently exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  These statues are just two of numerous impressive monuments from Reisner¹s excavations now divided between the Boston and Sudan National Museums.
 

Fig.8. Aerial photograph of the Nuri pyramids, to the southeast.  Founded by Taharqa (ca. 690-664 BC), the cemetery was used by all but one of his twenty successors and their many queens to the early third century BC. The pyramids, across the Nile from Gebel Barkal and about 10 km to the northeast, are visible from the summit of the mountain.  Photo:  Courtesy of Enrico Ferorelli and the National Geographic Society.