Greg Reeder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Katherine,
> I am sure I must not understand what you are
> saying?
>
> "Nowhere does an Egyptian text call any part of
> Nubia "Ta-Seti"".-KGG
>
> Dictionary of Ancient Egypt ed. Shaw, British
> Museum p.204
> "Nubia (anc. Yam. Irem, Ta-Sety, Kush)".
>
> I thought Ta Seti was the name of the first Nome?

It was, see, for example, Baines and Malek's nome map on p. 14, and their Egyptian population map on p. 16. I don't know of any ancient text which calls the area of the first nome "Nubia." But then again, neither does Baines and Malek call the actual area of Nubia /tA-sti/, if you read the quote you gave again (see below). Think its a misunderstanding of how the term /tA-sti/ was used, in primary and secondary usages (see more on this, below).

This misunderstanding, IMO, has also confused the issue of whether the nome, Ta-Sety = Nubia.

> "South of Gebel el-Silsila was the first Egyptian
> nome... main towns were Aswan and Kom Ombo. Its
> early separate status was recorded in its name
> 'Nubia'".
> p.20 Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Baines and Malek.
>
> Are they not referring to Ta Sety as Nubia?

No, they're not - Again, see below.

<snip>
> Is there some big misunderstanding in the more
> popular literature?

Yes, I think there is a misunderstanding, more a glossed over way of trying to explain how modern Sudan (until the 1970's at least) was subdivided in ancient times, and how unnamed areas were expressed - not as land designations, but as descriptions of the inhabitants.

Let's take a geographical examination of the issue first, for example, using your Baines and Malek quotation, which is, in full:

South of Gebel el-Sisila was the first Egyptian nome or province, whose main separate towns of Aswan and Kom Ombo. Its early separate status was recorded in its name 'Nubia' [by whom? where? when?* KGG]. Between the first and second cataracts lay Lower Nubia, which was always the prime target for incorporation into Egypt. (Baines and Malek 1980: 20).

So, as you can see here, according to Baines and Malek, the area of "Nubia" is the first Egyptian nome, but the area below of Lower Nubia is somehow considered different and separate from Egypt.

But then, Baines and Malek are not consistent in this designation. According to them, Ta-Sety, the first southern nome of Upper Egypt, historically and traditionally began at Elephantine in the south, just above the First Cataract, and ends at an area just below Edfu in the north. As pointed out by Baines and Malek, southern (Upper Egypt) nome positions were set by the 5th Dynasty and did not waver (Baines and Malek 1980: 14-15), but Ta-Sety's position as the first Upper Egyptian nome was determined before the First Dynasty.

This is reflected in Baines and Malek's map located on p. 31 (Baines and Malek also note on p. 30 that demarcation, culturally and politically, between the areas of Egypt (from Ta-Sety northwards) and Nubia began during Naqada II/Early Dynastic Period through the pharaonic period). So, if Ta-Sety was determined at the beginning of the pharaonic period as "Egyptian" and the Nubian culture was considered "separate" from Egyptian culture, why would they use the same name for both lands?

It is also noted in this same volume that Biga Island is the "natural" boundary between the first Upper Egyptian nome and Lower Nubia, at the First Cataract, and that the nome of Ta-Sety was above this island (from Elephantine to Gebel el-Sisila) and was consistently seen as part of Egypt, since the land which is the nome of Ta-Sety was probably annexed into Egypt at the beginning of the Dynastic period (Baines and Malek 1980: 72), reflecting Baines and Malek's earlier comments. Yet, the land of "Nubia" was not seen as part of Egypt udring its early state formation. It would come to Egypt by conquest, which came in the Middle and New Kingdoms, as we know from history.

---

Now, back to the Baines and Malek statement about the first Upper Egyptian nome being called "Nubia":

* The Wb notes the term /sti/ (not "Ta-sety", BTW) has, as a land designation, two meanings: the first and primary usage is as the name for the Upper Egyptian nome, and the second, less used, as a quasi-designation of "a foreign land within the area of the Sudan" (Wb III: 488; 8, 9), i.e. 'Nubia'.

Both terms come from the time of the Pyramid Texts, according to the Wb, though I personally have never seen /sti/ used for "Nubia", but rather interpreted as "where there are bow-men," or "land of bow-men."

So, I suspect the context of the term /sti/ may be everything, and this is where I think the main confusion started that Ta-Sety (Egyptian nome) = "Nubia."

I say this because the use of the related term /sti.w/ is consistently used to designate foreign bowmen both to the north of Egypt, as well as those south of Egypt (Wb III: 488; 11, 12). Since the bow is the primary determinative of /sti/, it may mean any land or group where there are archers, especially when you consider that the term /iwntiw sti.w/ literally means "strangers/foreigners (usually nomadic) with bows."

This dual meaning to /sti/, as a land, was also the reason why I suspect Goedicke (1977) argued (quite effectively, IMO) that in propaganda literature, such as the Prophecy of Neferti, one would "foretell" a "saviour" Egyptian king coming from Egypt itself, as opposed from a foreign land, which is why he interpreted /tA-sti/ in that text as being the area of Elephantine (he shows other support for this argument in analysis of other terms surrounding /tA-sti/, such as the term "Residence" refers to Heracleopolis). It should also be noted that by the time of the Middle Kingdom, the term for Nubia was most consistently expressed as/kAS/ "Kush" and not /sti/ (Wb V: 109, 1).

Reference:

Baines, J. and J. Málek 1980. Atlas of Ancient Egypt. Cairo: Les Livres de France.

Wb = Erman, A. and H. Grapow 1926. Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache. (7 Vols.). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich.

Goedicke, H. 1977. The Protocol of Neferyt (The Prophecy of Neferti). John Hopkins Near Eastern Studies. H. Goedicke. Baltimore/London: John Hopkins University Press.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom