It is often difficult for us modern readers to conceptualize a city that was built and used as a habitation for the gods as opposed to a warren of dens for us little monkeys. The city as a ceremonial center is the usual genesis of civilization, although walled villages have also formed the genesis of civilizations.
The Sahara of the Nile region served as an immigration “pump” throughout prehistory, periodically drying and growing lush, drawing people up out of Africa, and then spitting them out north as the land dried behind them. Egyptian civilization eventually corked this bottleneck and forced migration south, east and west.
The tone of this documentary is superior to the Politically Correct crusading tone of the History Channel documentaries, which place the single black dynasty of Egypt as having the significance and cultural sophistication of the Egyptians themselves.
It is noteworthy that Nubia was long considered a source of wrestlers, bodyguards and dancing girls. I find it somewhat embarrassing, as an honorary African American, that the first thing the British Mulatto academic and the Sudanese scholar did was investigate a musical instrument in the form of a rock gong.
Militarily, the Nubians were a tough nut to crack, as they were herding people. It would fall under Egyptian dominance with the advent of the chariot. However, unmentioned by the narrator in this documentary, Nubian slaves served as police to control and punish common Egyptians and also assumed trusted roles in the hierarchy, such as bodyguards and soldiers.
Like most barbarian people invaded by civilized armies, but not exterminated, that the Nubians eventually brought terror to Egypt, is cyclically predictable. This reverse conquest was very similar to the eventual German conquest of Rome. Unlike the Germans, they were unable to hold it and fell prey to greater forces. They did, however, make their mark in stone.
