Religious and political negotiations in a contested frontier zone

A. outlines three major phases of Nubian activity, as indicated by epigraphic evidence, in the Dodekaschoinos: Phase 1 (10 BCE–57 CE), Phase 2 (175–273 CE), and Phase 3 (408–456 CE). In between these three periods are two phases that she calls “interregnums,” a term that here signifies not a gap between political regimes, but rather, an epigraphic hiatus within which no new Nubian-authored inscriptions can be identified.

During Phase 1, which roughly corresponds to the early period of Roman rule in Egypt, the main evidence for Nubian activity in the region comes from legal agreements inscribed in demotic Egyptian in temple entrances or forecourts: that is, relatively publicly accessible areas of a temple (21, 55, 59–61). These agreements mostly deal with the distribution of temple income (53–55) and testify to the activity of numerous individuals of Lower Nubian background, including priests as well as “financial managers and administrators” (71–88, quoting 71). While “it is perplexing to consider that Nubian officials operated within an Egyptian temple system that was under Roman military control” (65), A. persuasively contends that the prominence of Nubian religious personnel probably derives from the earlier Meroitic control of Lower Nubia during parts of the Ptolemaic period (51, 65–66). This phase of inscriptions ceases after the intensification of Roman military presence in Lower Nubia in the later 1st c. CE (91–97). A. proposes that as tensions increased between Rome and Meroe, the Roman state sought to limit the participation of Nubian elites in Egyptian temple positions (95–96).

When datable Nubian inscriptions return in the 2nd and 3rd c. (Phase 2), they do so in a period when Roman power was declining in Lower Nubia, creating a power vacuum that the expanding Meroitic state quickly acted to fill (118–19). At this time Egyptian temples were generally suffering from economic decline,Footnote ⁹ which the Meroites perceived as an opportunity for strategic beneficence. The Meroitic rulers used donations to the Egyptian temples in Lower Nubia as a tool of soft power. Inscriptions from this period testify to lavish gifts of gold, as well as official yearly visits by priestly representatives of Meroe (117, 170–73, 274–75). These infusions of Meroitic gold appear to have become Philae's “primary source of funding” (275). A. persuasively argues that by fulfilling the Egyptian pharaoh's traditional duty of supporting temples, the Meroitic rulers were able to attain a “type of political control exerted by means of ritual activity” (168). Further testifying to this intertwining of religious and political activity, Philae became the standard location for diplomatic meetings between ambassadors from Meroe and Roman Egypt (172).

The inscriptions of Phase 2 are dominated by the Wayekiye family: eight generations of multilingual, “bicultural” (118) Nubian elites. The members of this family held both (Egyptian) priestly and (Meroitic) civil-administrative positions, enabling them to “function in the Egyptian temples as priests while controlling the northernmost Meroitic province as civil administrators for the Meroitic king” (120). The content of these inscriptions is very different from those of the early Roman period. In place of legal agreements about temple finances, we find many prayers and proskynemata to Isis (125–27). These often have a familial aspect, as the authors speak of coming together with their families and clans (26, 118, 126–27). Characteristically Nubian cultural features of these devotional graffiti include an emphasis on matrilineal descent (15–17, 118) and certain phrases such as “calling out” (demotic Egyptian šll) to Isis (23, 126), a practice from which the book takes its title.Footnote ¹⁰

Nubian inscriptions at Philae disappear again with the collapse of the Meroitic state, which fell to Axumite, Noba, and Blemmye attacks (204–5). By the late 4th c., Lower Nubia was controlled not by Meroe but by a Blemmye polity (205). The final phase of Nubian epigraphic activity at Philae derives from the 5th c., when Lower Nubia was inhabited by both the polytheistic Blemmyes and the Christian Noubades (208–12). Even though the government of Egypt was now Christian, Philae remained open by special agreement with the Blemmye rulers, who continued to provide support and patronage to Philae and whose access to the site was guaranteed by a treaty of 452/453 (212, 268). Nubian-authored inscriptions at Philae at this period are written in demotic Egyptian, Meroitic, and Greek (217–20); after the fall of Meroe, Greek was the common language of communication between different Lower Nubian groups, such as the Blemmyes and Noubades (219). These texts are dominated by two groups of priests: the Esmet family, who held the top priestly positions at Philae for five to six generations (212), and the priests of a deity known as Ptiris (235–37). A. argues convincingly that the last priests of Philae were employed by Blemmye kings (220–27, 242). But polytheistic worship was increasingly under pressure even here, and the writing was already (literally) on the wall. A demotic graffito of 439 speaks of “an abominable command against the Abaton,” perhaps referring to the 435 edict in which the Byzantine emperor Theodosius II called for the elimination of all pagan temples (216). Prayer inscriptions, and probably also most aspects of formal, institutional cult, ceased at Philae in the mid-5th c., when the Noubade king Silko defeated the Blemmyes to take control of northern Lower Nubia (217). Subsequently, Justinian officially closed the temple of Isis at Philae in 535–37 (268–69). The pronaos of the main temple became a Christian church, and a Greek graffito in the doorway between the pronaos and naos proclaims, “The cross has won; it always wins!” (216–17).

Agency, identity, and ritual

A.'s meticulous work thus enables her to construct a sweeping, but also impressively detailed, social-historical account of the entangling of politics and religion in Philae and Lower Nubia over a period of almost 500 years. Also striking is the subtlety with which this book negotiates the interplay of macro-scale and micro-scale history.Footnote ¹¹ From the Roman invasion of Egypt to the 5th-c. Noubade conquest of the Blemmyes, A. explores the evolving role of the Dodekaschoinos temples – and of Lower Nubia more generally – in the power struggles of major polities, such as the Meroitic and Roman Empires. Yet at the same time, the fine-grained nature of the epigraphic sources also enables A. to follow the changing fortunes of specific named individuals and families, like the Wayekiye family and the Esmet family. Throughout this study, the stories of individual people – like Esmet ʿʾʾ, recording his protest in stone against a Christian emperor's “abominable command against the Abaton” (216–18) – intertwine with the big-picture narratives of kingdoms and empires, each deriving meaning from the other.

One of the most exciting features of A.'s book is her emphasis on the agency of all the peoples and groups involved in cross-cultural interactions in northern Nubia. In addition to pushing back against Egyptocentric, Hellenocentric, or Romanocentric assumptions, she also draws crucial distinctions between the goals and strategies of different Nubian actors. Earlier scholarship sometimes characterized all Nubian activity at Philae as “Meroitic” (13, 20), eliding the differences between polities (e.g., the Meroitic Empire, which was located to the south in Upper Nubia, and whose degree of control over Lower Nubia fluctuated over time), geographic regions (e.g., Upper and Lower Nubia), and ethnic groups (e.g., the multiple peoples who inhabited those regions). Calling Out to Isis does away with such flattening imprecision. A. makes a compelling case that the interests of Lower Nubian individuals were often quite distinct from those of Meroe (12–17), and that far from claiming any overarching shared identity, many Nubians would have “conceived of themselves as belonging to a clan lineage, rather than having a larger ethnic group” (17). Indeed, the “Nubians” of A.'s three epigraphic phases appear to belong to quite different worlds, pursuing different activities and affiliated with different polities (274). Geographically and socially, Lower Nubia emerges as a buffer zone between powerful states: to the north was Egypt (itself first Ptolemaic and then Roman-ruled), and to the south lay the formidable Meroitic Empire. The northernmost area of Nubia – the so-called Dodekaschoinos region, which was sometimes characterized as the “temple estate” of Philae (10–11) – was often (though by no means always) controlled by Egypt, whether Ptolemaic or Roman-ruled. But farther to the south, the Akin region of southern Lower Nubia and northern Upper Nubia was controlled by the Meroitic Empire, whose center lay even further south at Meroe (12–13). Positioned between two powerful states, the local inhabitants of Lower Nubia had to strategize about how most effectively to pursue their own interests.

Although it is not explicitly framed as an intervention in theoretical debates on anthropological or sociological definitions of identity or ethnicity, Calling Out to Isis provides in many ways a model of subtle and nuanced discussion of the complexity of group identification in antiquity. A. is very careful not to assume a direct equation between ethnic identities and material assemblages such as “A-Group” or “X-Group” (15) – what archaeologists often call the dreaded “pots equal people” hypothesis.Footnote ¹² Instead, A. effectively explains the danger of presuming collective identities where they may not have existed in antiquity (13–17). She offers a sensitive and judicious treatment of the ethnic, cultural, and (especially in the latest phase) religious diversity of northern Nubia.

Furthermore, A.'s work on the spatial patterning of inscriptions resonates with recent research on “text as object” and the materiality of ancient writing.Footnote ¹³ By analyzing the positioning of Nubian inscriptions within temple settings, A. is able to treat these inscriptions not just as abstracted, dematerialized texts, but as material entities whose meaning was closely related to their physical contexts – and whose location can in fact provide important information about access, exclusivity, hierarchy, and ritual performance. For example, the inscriptions of Phase 2 at Philae are concentrated in regions associated with rituals particularly important to Nubian worshippers, such as areas featuring depictions of milk offerings (124, 176–88, 276). Another room, the “Meroitic Chamber,” contained “only Meroitic-language inscriptions and reliefs” (122; see also 169). Later, in Phase 3, the placement of Nubian devotional inscriptions in “isolated and peripheral areas” suggests the increasing Christianization of Philae, with polytheists restricted to more marginal spaces (215–16).

Grounds for quibbling are scarce. One or two references to Greco-Roman adaptations of Isis worship could have drawn on more recent publications.Footnote ¹⁴ One might also wish that the press had provided for larger and higher-resolution illustrations; the images, as published, are a bit on the small side, and dedicated image plates might have enabled readers to better read the inscriptions in A.'s excellent photographs. But these are extremely minor suggestions. Calling Out to Isis is a major achievement, a landmark publication that will transform scholarly understanding not just of the specific site of Philae but, more generally, of Nubia and its relations with Egypt and the Greco-Roman world in later antiquity.

Nubia, Egypt, and the Greco-Roman world

For the remainder of this essay, I will focus on the ways that this book intervenes in debates of particular significance for readers of JRA, whose research commitments are presumably situated within the Roman world. Although Calling Out to Isis is primarily framed as a work of Nubiology and Egyptology, the book also makes several major contributions of cross-disciplinary significance. This is an important study, which will be necessary reading material not only for specialists in Nubia and Egypt, but equally for historians and archaeologists of the Roman world from the early Imperial period through Late Antiquity.

A. explicitly positions the book as an intervention in several longstanding scholarly discussions concerning the internationalization of Isis worship, the rise of Christianity, and the nature of interactions at the frontiers of ancient empires (4–9). As A. points out, this is one of relatively few Late Antique Roman frontiers at which we can find numerous first-person accounts from the non-Roman “Others”: “This wealth of written information from Roman ‘enemies’ is not often available to the Roman historian. Its presence at the southern border of Egypt is an untapped resource for the field of Roman border studies” (9). In positioning Nubians and Nubian evidence at the heart of these discussions, Calling Out to Isis demonstrates the crucial role that Nubiology has to play within interdisciplinary debates – and, as a result, the need for Egyptologists, Classicists, and scholars of early Christianity to look southward. In place of old Egyptocentric narratives that emphasized the notion of Egyptian influence on Nubia, A.'s book constructs a compelling case for making more space for the impact of Nubian peoples and practices on Egypt and the Greco-Roman world.

In that regard, this book – even though it focuses on a relatively late period of antiquity – also effectively complements recent research on the entanglement of Nubia and Egypt in much earlier periods. Going back to the 6th millennium BCE, people in both regions appear to have practiced similar lifestyles as “migratory cattle pastoralists” (2). In the 4th millennium BCE, the so-called A-Group society emerged at the same time as the proto-kingdoms of Predynastic Upper Egypt (2–3). Certain forms of iconography that would later become central to the Egyptian state appear in A-Group contexts around the same time as to the north. For example, one of the earliest images of the White Crown – a symbol of Upper Egyptian kingship in Pharaonic Egypt – appears on an incense burner from Lower Nubia.Footnote ¹⁵ When we see evidence for shared Egyptian and Nubian cultural practices in later historical periods, we can no longer assume these resulted from a one-way process of Egyptian “influence” on Nubia. While some shared practices and material forms should certainly be understood within the context of Pharaonic-period Egyptian imperial rule over Nubia, some surely also relate to a much older shared heritage. And as the postcolonial turn in archaeology has made abundantly clear, the material koine of empire is also not just a matter of one-way transmission; even in colonial and imperial contexts, agency is more multifaceted, and the dynamics of hybridization and entanglement affect both colonizer and colonized.Footnote ¹⁶ Analogous to the problematization of “Hellenization” and “Romanization” within Greco-Roman studies of the last few decades, A.'s work thus adds meaningfully to a broader recent move to reject “Egyptianization” as the dominant framework for Nubian/Egyptian interactions.Footnote ¹⁷

The final page of A.'s monograph concludes with a challenge to scholars to incorporate her findings into “scholarly work in three related fields”: namely, studies of “1. Expansion of the cult of Isis beyond the borders of Egypt, 2. Transition from pharaonic religion to Christianity, and 3. Roman border studies” (277). For this reviewer, given my own research commitments, the temptation is irresistible to gravitate to the first of these! While considerations of personal interest and knowledge lead me to focus here on just one of the three areas in which A. seeks to intervene, this choice should not be taken as diminishing the importance of the others, and I hope to read scholarship in the future that takes account of Calling Out to Isis in regard to all three subjects (and more). Furthermore, beyond demonstrating the value of Nubian studies for a better understanding of Egyptian and Greco-Roman antiquity, it is very much to be hoped that studies such as A.'s book will help usher in an expanded role for Nubian studies within the contemporary academy.

In the interest of accepting A.'s invitation and following up on her exhortation, then, I conclude by reflecting on a few ways in which her findings may open up new possibilities for better understanding the internationalization of Isis cult, as well as the internationalization of so-called “Aegyptiaca”Footnote ¹⁸ more generally. Indeed, A.'s work suggests that many supposed “Egyptianizing” objects in the Greco-Roman world may instead, or additionally, be understood as “Nubianizing.”

For example, in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods, certain aspects of the trans-Mediterranean iconography and theology of Isis appear to have especially close parallels at Philae. Take, for example, the famous “Isis aretalogies,” a series of Greek and Latin texts praising Isis as a supreme deity. Much debate has addressed the degree to which these texts draw on Egyptian versus Greek precedents.Footnote ¹⁹ But to what degree might the broad categories of “Egyptian” and “Greek” be overly blunt instruments here? When we turn to specific Egyptian-language precedents, some of the closest textual parallels to the exaltation of Isis as supreme deity come from Philae in particular. For example, an early Ptolemaic-period hieroglyphic hymn from Philae praises Isis as a cosmic creator deity, “the Lady of Heaven, Earth, and the Netherworld, having brought them into existence through what her heart conceived and her hands created.”Footnote ²⁰ This representation of Isis as henotheistic, all-encompassing creator provides an obvious Egyptian-language parallel for the Greek and Latin-language hymns.Footnote ²¹ Similarly, one of the characteristic attributes of the Greco-Roman Isis – a bucket-like, often breast-shaped situla which typically held milkFootnote ²² – has close parallels in the situlae that, as A. has previously shown,Footnote ²³ were used together with hes-vases for milk libations at Philae. To be sure, milk libations were prominent in both Egyptian and Nubian ritual activity, and henotheism was a central and ancient structuring principle of Egyptian theology.Footnote ²⁴ As A. rightly notes, Nubian Isis cult differed from Greco-Roman Isis cult in adhering much more closely to Egyptian forms and traditions (6). Nonetheless, given the prominent role of Nubians in the worship of Isis at Philae,Footnote ²⁵ we might well ask to what extent the practices of Nubian priests, administrators, and worshippers helped to shape the cult of Isis not only at this particular site but also abroad.Footnote ²⁶ After all, Apuleius does name the “Aethiopes” before even the Egyptians as those peoples who know Isis's true name and rites (Met. 11.5).

Beyond specifically religious iconography, Greek and Roman art includes numerous images not just of Egypt and Egyptians, but also of Nubia and Nubians. For example, the Nilotic mosaic from the Italian site of Praeneste (Palestrina) appears to depict the landscape of Lower Nubia as well as Egypt.Footnote ²⁷ Additionally, many Greek and Roman images in multiple media depict individuals whose physical features resemble the Nubian topos in Egyptian art – although here it is sometimes difficult to determine whether Greco-Roman audiences understood the figures in question as Nubians or Egyptians (or potentially either), given evidence that Greeks and Romans often perceived Egyptians and Nubians as sharing a similar phenotype.Footnote ²⁸

Some other so-called “Egyptianizing” objects from Roman Italy actually appear to have closer parallels in Nubia than they do in Egypt. For example, Roman pyramids like that of Gaius CestiusFootnote ²⁹ are much closer in size and shape to Meroitic pyramids than to the Old Kingdom pyramids at Giza. This observation has been made before,Footnote ³⁰ but in light of A.'s findings, we might start pushing further to explore the significance of this parallel. How and why is it, in fact, that Roman pyramid-builders sought to emulate specifically Meroitic forms?Footnote ³¹ Or, for a rather less monumental example, let's take an unusual faience statuette from Pompeii, depicting a hawk-headed crocodile.Footnote ³² This statuette has been the object of some debate, regarding both its basic iconographic identification and the forms of value that it might have held for Roman consumers.Footnote ³³ Yet I would propose one of its closest parallels to be an image that A. identifies as a reoccurring motif at Philae and other Nubian sites (235–38, with Fig. 27).Footnote ³⁴ While hawk-crocodile deities are also attested farther north in Egypt, the examples from Nubian contexts are particularly numerous and in some ways iconographically closer to the Pompeian statuette.Footnote ³⁵ This correspondence raises new questions about both production and consumption. A recent multi-analytical provenience study suggests that most of the faience artifacts at Pompeii can be identified as Egyptian imports, but the hawk-crocodile figurine is an exception; analysis suggests that it has a different origin from any other known Pompeian faience.Footnote ³⁶ The identification of Nubian parallels for this statuette would not, of course, solve questions about how the artifact functioned in its Pompeian context. If anything, that identification complicates those questions and raises new ones, concerning ancient Italian trade connections not only with Roman-ruled Egypt, but also (whether directly or indirectly) with Nubia. Greek and Roman imports at Nubian sites have attracted increasing scholarly attention,Footnote ³⁷ but the other side of this equation – the study of Nubian imports and emulations in the Greco-Roman world – also holds great promise. In deepening and enriching our understanding of Nubian society and religious practice, Calling Out to Isis opens up new directions for scholars to pursue such lines of research.

The cases above provide just a few examples of objects of “Roman” material culture – some longstanding stars of the art-historical canon, some still relatively unstudied – that we might start seeing very differently in the light of A.'s important work. Many others could easily be added. All of which is to say: for readers with research commitments in Roman archaeology, Calling Out to Isis raises many exciting new possibilities for studying not only the international expansion of the worship of Philae's chief goddess, but also the more general subject of northeastern Africa in connection with the Greco-Roman world. A.'s meticulous research reminds us that such connections cannot be framed exclusively in terms of Egyptian encounters with Greeks and Romans; we need to consider the agency of Nubian individuals and the international impact of Nubian practices, objects, and ideas. Calling Out to Isis elegantly demonstrates the importance of centering Nubia and Nubians within interdisciplinary narratives about the ancient world.