Karanog ( Meroitic: ''Nalote'') was a Kushite town in

Lower Nubia Lower Nubia (also called Wawat) is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, ...

on the west bank of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

(near Qasr Ibrim). It was probably a provincial capital under its own (governor) in the second and third centuries AD. It was excavated between 1907 and 1910 by David Randall-MacIver and Leonard Woolley of the

University of Pennsylvania Museum A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. Richard Lobban, ''Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia'' (Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 215–16. Karanog was occupied throughout the Meroitic period from the third century BC. By the second century AD, it was of strategic significance on Kush's northern frontier with Rome, facing Egyptian Maharraqa. The original provincial capital had been at Faras, but it was transferred downstream as the Roman presence in the south of Egypt, the Dodecaschoenus, weakened. The town was at least partially walled. The houses of the rich and powerful, as well as the castle–palace complexes of the s, have been excavated. The latter reached a size of . The homes of commoners, being of mud brick construction, have not been preserved. The cemetery at Karanog also served the nearby towns of Akin and Shimale. The distribution of

grave goods Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into an afterlife, or offerings to gods. Grave goods may be classed by researche ...

shows a high level of

social stratification Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political ...

, although the cemetery was extensively plundered over the years. Some of the less plundered graves contain luxury items, including jewellery; bronze utensils, bowls and lamps; glass beads; iron arrowheads; cotton and linen textiles; carpentry tools; ebony- and ivory-inlaid wooden objects; painted ceramics and even

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white Ceramic glaze, pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an stannous oxide, oxide of tin to the Slip (c ...

. Karanog also contained no less than 100 objects—offering altars to Hotep and stelae—bearing inscriptions in Meroitic cursive. One stela containing both Meroitic and Egyptian demotic may be the only case of the latter found south of Egypt. Karanog remained occupied even after the fall of Kush, when it came under the so-called X-Group culture. With the arrival of the

Nubians Nubians () ( Nobiin: ''Nobī,'' ) are a Nilo-Saharan speaking ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of th ...

, it disappears from the archaeological record. Today, its remains lie under

Lake Nasser Lake Nasser ( ', ) is a large reservoir (water), reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. It was created by the construction of the Aswan Dam, Aswan High Dam and is one of the List of reservoirs by volume, largest man-made lakes in the wo ...

See also

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