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Illustrated by Brian Delf
Aniba was a very significant fortress in the twelfth dynasty. It was located in Nubia and was about 230Km south of Aswan. Though the place is today flooded by the Lake Nasser, it was deemed a very important town at that time. It was popularly called Miam and was located around the Lower Nubia region which was a very fertile land as at that time.
The remains at Aniba date back as far as 3000BC and are considered to belong to the A-Group Culture. A few cemeteries were found there that belong to the people of Nubia, while some were made in the resemblance of Egyptian cemeteries. During the Twelfth Dynasty, the region was ruled by Egyptians.
Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics of that time, including their warfare, fortresses, politics, trade, and others.
EGYPT AND NUBIA RELATIONSHIP
Nubia and Egypt date far back into history in terms or relating with each other, though this relationship was more against each other than alliances. They had conquered themselves times without number due to various pretexts. Egypt was interested in Nubia because of its resources and potential manpower (its potential to add warriors to the Egyptian numbers if Nubia was added to Egypt). Another reason for the loggerheads between Egypt and Nubia was also that Nubia had great trade channels. A major reason for the conquering of Nubia by Egypt was because of the Nile River which Egypt was very interested in to regulate because of the three Kingdoms around its Banks.
Nubia in the Old Kingdom
Nubia and Egypt also had occasional conflict, probably brought about by competition for trade and trade routes, basically because Nubia was a key factor in their trade since they were a trading corridor for Egypt.
During the 12th Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom period, Egypt was becoming strong again and was again in a great position to subdue their southern neighbor. The Egyptians took up their military campaign against the Nubians through rulers like the Senusret I and Senusret II. During this period, Egyptian Kings built military buildings or forts at important points along the River Nile to prevent the Nubians crossing into Egypt using boats on the river. The Egyptians started defending their southern border with Nubia forces by pushing their forces further into their own territory and away from the border to create a buffer zone around Lower Nubia. This they did solely because they saw the Nubian military as a threat.
HOW THE FORTRESS CAME TO BE
Some sources state that even though Nubians had valuable resources in terms of human, animal and mineral resources, they were exploited to a high degree. The Egyptians made no attempt to subdue the whole country because the indigenous population, usually referred to as the A-Group culture, seemed to be a negligible force that the Egyptians could overrun easily.
This situation changed when the C-Group culture in Nubia came into the picture. This can be traced from the 6th dynasty down in the Lower Nubia region. This brought about most of the wars and issues between the two countries. It was within this period a “great massacre of rebels” in Lower Nubia was recorded.
It was during the reign of Senusret I that he realized securing lasting control for Egypt over the lower Nubia would give future generations uninterrupted access to key resources of the region including their gold. This prompted the need to build permanent fortifications or fortresses.
Fortifications and fortresses during this period included Buhen, Kubban, Ikkur, and Aniba. Though, out of all the archeological remains from these fortresses, only Buhen which was situated at the northern end of the second cataract can be dated back safely back to the years of Senusret’s reign. The other fortifications only suggested a construction style of this particular king.
Aniba, for instance, was situated on the bank of the Nile and had a rectangular layout. Its Ramparts were surrounded by wide ditches. These ditches were protected by separate walls that ran parallel to the curtain. The ditch-defenses were further strengthened using horse-shoe-shaped bastions that projected into the ditches in the form of a present-day caponier.
DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND DEVELOPMENT
It is important to note that all Egyptian fortifications in Nubia (including the Aniba fortress), always achieved a certain standard that still cannot be found in any part of Western Europe before the Early modern period.
With the archaeological remains gathered from the Aniba fortress and other fortifications from Nubia, a better understanding of the architectural characteristics of the Egyptian fortresses has been developed. This was prompted by investigative teams from different nations in the course of the UNESCO campaign salvage of the 1960s. This aimed to preserve the ancient Nubian heritage.
THE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
MUD-BRICKS
Most of the Nubian fortifications were nearly always built in mud-brick. Aniba was not an exception to this as its mud-bricks specification was 37×18×12cm (15×7×5 in). The rising wall of the fortress was completely covered with white plaster, which can also be found in other fortifications as well. The essence of this was to protect the walls from the damages caused by rain and wind.
The mud-brick was a good choice because of its good compressive strength and tensile strength. This is because a dried mud-brick is quite easy to break by bending, which puts a tension force on one edge, but makes a good strong wall where all the forces are virtually compressive. Straw, on the other hand, has a lot of tensile strength when you try to stretch them but almost has none when you try to crumple it up. When you input pieces of straw in a block of mud and let it dry hard, the resultant composite mud-brick resists both squeezing and tearing and makes an excellent building material.
This idea was greatly adopted by Egyptian architects, and they built up their walls and buildings to considerable heights using this particular method of mud-brick construction.
THE ANIBA FORTRESS
THE WATCHTOWER
Owing to discoveries by archeologists, using a model from Abydos, gave us a better insight into how the tower in Aniba was designed. The cutaway section allows a look into a cone-shaped mud-brick building, crowned with a wood supported platform. For this particular tower, as it was with most others, the entrance was moved to the upper floor which was only accessible via a pull-up ladder only. The major reason for this was for safety.
It was a building with three floors and had identical arrangements for all its interior rooms. The tower was mostly garrisoned by as many as eight men.
THE WATCHTOWER
Defensive structure
The Nubian fortresses used same uniform building principles, and those situated at the Nile bank had a rectangular layout just like the Aniba fortress. Their ramparts were also surrounded by ditches with different width and depth that were protected by separate walls that were parallel to the curtains. The ditch defenses weren’t visible to an attacker unless he had reached the top of the glacis. It had a double row of loopholes which produced a nasty surprise for any assailant that reached that far.
GATES
It’s no doubt that for any military architect of any Era or time that the gate is important for them knowing that gates can be vulnerable if not the most vulnerable feature within any fortress, this could weaken the wall by creating an artificial gap. This always makes military architects and cultures develop a very elaborate gateway solution, which ensures the protection of the entrance.
The Egyptian architects of Nubia developed complex entrance solutions to meet some requirement:
- To make the gate impregnable for any enemy
- To allow easy access to the fortresses for their own people, material and pack mules.
The Nubian fortress entrance seemed like a weak spot for the area, but in the real sense, it developed into their strongest part of their fortification.
The gatehouse design can be compared in strength to the Donjons of medieval castles. They were usually strong enough to endure even when everything collapses.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Aniba fortress was a defense system of the first cataract border region. The wall was mainly seen as a link between two fortifications. On the north was a small fortification that was located opposite the southern end of Elephantine, and on the south was a fortress called the fortress of Senmet, even though its remains have not been discovered yet.
The fortress of Aniba (also known as miam) dates back to the early 12th dynasty and was regarded as one of the oldest military installations known in the whole of Lower Nubia. The fortress is situated on the west bank of the Nile River. The Aniba fortress was basically established to gain control over one of the most fertile plains of the Nubian Nile valley. History puts it that not less than six building periods are attested at the site, which moved from a fortified fortress into a town of 8 hectares.
We also see around the Nile region that people lived there, and besides, an A-Group cemetery and C-group cemetery and settlements were discovered.
Over time Aniba switched hands between Egypt, Nubian Nomarchs, and Kerma. The complexity of its design poses a challenge for views that Africa did not produce military innovations that influenced and set the bar for other civilisations. When Aniba was built Rome had not been founded yet.
