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Blemmyes
The Blemmyes (Ancient Greek: Βλέμμυες or Βλέμυες, Blémues [blé.my.es], Latin: Blemmyae) were an Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources from the 7th century BC until the 8th century AD. By the late 4th century, they had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state.
The Blemmyes are usually identified as one of the components of the archaeological X-Group culture that flourished in Late Antiquity. Their identification with the Beja people who have inhabited the same region since the Middle Ages is generally accepted.
Around 1000 BC a group of people, referred to by archeologists as C-group, migrated from Lower Nubia (the area between present-day Aswan and Wadi Halfa) and settled in Upper Nubia (the Nile Valley north of Dongola in Sudan), where they developed the kingdom of Napata from about 750 BC. For some time this kingdom controlled Egypt too, supplying its 25th Dynasty. Contemporary with them are the archaeological remains of another cultural group, the "pan-grave people." They have been identified with the Medjay of written sources. Sites related to them have been found at Khor Arba'at and Erkowit in the heartland of present-day Beja. The evidence suggests that only a minority of "the pan-grave people" lived in the Nile Valley, where they existed in small enclave communities among the Egyptians and C-group populations, being periodically used as desert scouts, warriors or mine workers. The majority were probably desert nomads, breeding donkeys, sheep and goats. After 600 BC, the Napatan, C-group dynasty lost control over Egypt as well as the then-rather desolate Lower Nubia. The latter area subsequently remained more or less without permanent settlements for four centuries. The main explanation for the hiatus of sedentary population in Lower Nubia has been the drying up of this part of the world, making river valley agriculture difficult. Due to climatic change, the level of the Nile had been lowered to a degree which could only be compensated for at the beginning of the first century AD, when the saqiyah waterwheel was developed. Until then, the area was only sparsely populated by desert nomads. Politically, it was "a sort of no-man's land where caravans, unless they were provided with considerable escort, were delivered to brigands".
An etymology first proposed by Joseph Halévy connects the name Blemmyes with the modern Beja term bálami "desert inhabitant, nomad", derived from bal "desert".
The people referred to in Greek texts as Blemmyes may have their earliest mention as Egyptian Bwrꜣhꜣyw in the Kushite enthronement stela of Anlamani from Kawa from the late seventh century BC. The representation Brhrm in a petition from El Hiba one century later may reflect the same root term. Similar terms recur in Egyptian sources from later centuries with more certain correspondence to the Greek etymon of Blemmyes. In Coptic, Ⲃⲁⲗⲛⲉⲙⲙⲱⲟⲩⲓ, Balnemmōui, is widely accepted as equivalent to Greek Βλέμμυης, Blémmuēs.
The Greek term first appears in the third century BC in one of the poems of Theocritus and in Eratosthenes, who is cited in Strabo's Geographica (first century AD). Eratosthenes described the Blemmyes as living with the Megabaroi in the land between the Nile and the Red Sea north of Meroë. Strabo himself, locating them south of Syene (Aswan), describes them as nomadic raiders but not bellicose. In later writings, the Blemmyes are described in stereotypical terms as barbarians living south of Egypt. Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder described them as headless beings with their faces on their chests.
The cultural and military power of the Blemmyes started to grow to such a level that in 193, Pescennius Niger asked a Blemmye king of Thebes to help him in the battle against the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.[citation needed] In 250, the Roman Emperor Decius put in much effort to defeat an invading army of Blemmyes. A few years later, in 253, they attacked Upper Egypt (Thebaid) again but were quickly defeated. In 265, they were defeated again by the Roman Prefect Firmus, who later in 273 would rebel against the Empire and the Queen of the Palmyrene Empire, Zenobia, with the help of the Blemmyes themselves. The Blemmyes were said to have joined forces with the Palmyrans against the Romans in the battle of Palmyra in 273.
The Roman general Marcus Aurelius Probus took some time to defeat the usurpers with his allies but could not prevent the occupation of Thebais by the Blemmyes. That meant another war and almost an entire destruction of the Blemmyes army (279–280).
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Blemmyes
The Blemmyes (Ancient Greek: Βλέμμυες or Βλέμυες, Blémues [blé.my.es], Latin: Blemmyae) were an Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources from the 7th century BC until the 8th century AD. By the late 4th century, they had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state.
The Blemmyes are usually identified as one of the components of the archaeological X-Group culture that flourished in Late Antiquity. Their identification with the Beja people who have inhabited the same region since the Middle Ages is generally accepted.
Around 1000 BC a group of people, referred to by archeologists as C-group, migrated from Lower Nubia (the area between present-day Aswan and Wadi Halfa) and settled in Upper Nubia (the Nile Valley north of Dongola in Sudan), where they developed the kingdom of Napata from about 750 BC. For some time this kingdom controlled Egypt too, supplying its 25th Dynasty. Contemporary with them are the archaeological remains of another cultural group, the "pan-grave people." They have been identified with the Medjay of written sources. Sites related to them have been found at Khor Arba'at and Erkowit in the heartland of present-day Beja. The evidence suggests that only a minority of "the pan-grave people" lived in the Nile Valley, where they existed in small enclave communities among the Egyptians and C-group populations, being periodically used as desert scouts, warriors or mine workers. The majority were probably desert nomads, breeding donkeys, sheep and goats. After 600 BC, the Napatan, C-group dynasty lost control over Egypt as well as the then-rather desolate Lower Nubia. The latter area subsequently remained more or less without permanent settlements for four centuries. The main explanation for the hiatus of sedentary population in Lower Nubia has been the drying up of this part of the world, making river valley agriculture difficult. Due to climatic change, the level of the Nile had been lowered to a degree which could only be compensated for at the beginning of the first century AD, when the saqiyah waterwheel was developed. Until then, the area was only sparsely populated by desert nomads. Politically, it was "a sort of no-man's land where caravans, unless they were provided with considerable escort, were delivered to brigands".
An etymology first proposed by Joseph Halévy connects the name Blemmyes with the modern Beja term bálami "desert inhabitant, nomad", derived from bal "desert".
The people referred to in Greek texts as Blemmyes may have their earliest mention as Egyptian Bwrꜣhꜣyw in the Kushite enthronement stela of Anlamani from Kawa from the late seventh century BC. The representation Brhrm in a petition from El Hiba one century later may reflect the same root term. Similar terms recur in Egyptian sources from later centuries with more certain correspondence to the Greek etymon of Blemmyes. In Coptic, Ⲃⲁⲗⲛⲉⲙⲙⲱⲟⲩⲓ, Balnemmōui, is widely accepted as equivalent to Greek Βλέμμυης, Blémmuēs.
The Greek term first appears in the third century BC in one of the poems of Theocritus and in Eratosthenes, who is cited in Strabo's Geographica (first century AD). Eratosthenes described the Blemmyes as living with the Megabaroi in the land between the Nile and the Red Sea north of Meroë. Strabo himself, locating them south of Syene (Aswan), describes them as nomadic raiders but not bellicose. In later writings, the Blemmyes are described in stereotypical terms as barbarians living south of Egypt. Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder described them as headless beings with their faces on their chests.
The cultural and military power of the Blemmyes started to grow to such a level that in 193, Pescennius Niger asked a Blemmye king of Thebes to help him in the battle against the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.[citation needed] In 250, the Roman Emperor Decius put in much effort to defeat an invading army of Blemmyes. A few years later, in 253, they attacked Upper Egypt (Thebaid) again but were quickly defeated. In 265, they were defeated again by the Roman Prefect Firmus, who later in 273 would rebel against the Empire and the Queen of the Palmyrene Empire, Zenobia, with the help of the Blemmyes themselves. The Blemmyes were said to have joined forces with the Palmyrans against the Romans in the battle of Palmyra in 273.
The Roman general Marcus Aurelius Probus took some time to defeat the usurpers with his allies but could not prevent the occupation of Thebais by the Blemmyes. That meant another war and almost an entire destruction of the Blemmyes army (279–280).
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