This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Archaeologists have discovered a faience workshop at a major temple complex in the ancient Nubian capital of Napata, showing how the rulers of ancient Kush used specialized craft production to reinforce royal power. Ancient Egypt thrived in the northern Nile Valley, but its southern neighbor, Nubia, in modern Sudan, was arguably just as important, with Nubia's Kushite Empire even taking over and controlling Egypt during the eighth century B.C.
However, while Egypt has captured the imaginations of people for centuries, we know comparatively little about Nubia, and scholarship has often viewed the Kushite Empire as imitating Egypt in many of its political and economic undertakings. "Recent scholarship has increasingly challenged older views that portrayed Kush simply as a copy of Egypt, but important questions remain about how the Kushite state controlled resources, labor, production and the distribution of prestige goods," states the study's lead author, Dr. Rennan Lemos from Durham University.
To tackle these questions, Dr. Kathryn Howley from New York University and Lemos, alongside a team of investigators, excavated at the major temple complex of Sanam, built by the Kushite king Taharqo in the seventh century B.C. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.
The authors uncovered the remains of a faience workshop at the temple, complete with hundreds of faience beads and even a faience shabti, a type of funerary figurine included in royal burials in both Egypt and Nubia. "Faience is a deliberately manufactured vitreous material made mainly from silica mixed with varying amounts of alkali and lime. Firing the paste at relatively low temperatures produces a glassy surface, binding the material together.
Faience was valued for its bright, glossy appearance, most often in blue, green or white. In ancient Egypt, it was called 'that which is brilliant,' reflecting both its shine and role as a desirable material," write the authors. Faience production was a noxious, smoky process, so it is perhaps surprising to find a faience workshop so close to a religious center.
In Egypt, faience workshops were typically located on the edges of settlements. However, temples were central to the Nubian state economy, intrinsically linked to royal power. Therefore, the benefits of associating faience production with royal authority likely outweighed the unpleasant side effects of firing, indicating that royal power was closely linked with control of the production of valuable goods in ancient Nubia.
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