All language subtitles for BBC.Lost.Kingdoms.of.Africa.1of4.Nubia.PDTV.XviD.AC3.MVGroup.Eng

Africa, where the human race began.

Nearly a billion people live here.

And it's a continent

with an incredible diversity
of communities and cultures.

Yet we know less of its history
than almost anywhere else on earth.

But that's beginning to change.

In the last few decades,
researchers and archaeologists

have begun to uncover a
range of histories

as impressive and extraordinary
as anywhere else on earth.

It's a history which has been
neglected for years,

and it's largely without written
records.

But it is preserved for us in the
gold and statues, in the culture,

art and legends of the people.

My name is Gus Casely-Hayford.

Over many years I've studied the
history and culture of Africa.

As an art historian,
I'm used to drawing stories

from mute objects from the past.

I'm going to discover the history
and find out what really happened

to the Lost Kingdoms of Africa.

I'm beginning my search in the far
north of the continent,

in what is now known as the Sudan.

I'm looking for the
legendary kingdom of Nubia.

Nubia is the traditional name
for the northern part of Sudan,

near the Egyptian border.

For thousands of
years, a civilisation

dominated the area there
in what's now the eastern Sahara.

It's first mentioned by the ancient
Egyptians as a primitive outpost,

a source of slaves and treasure,
dancing girls and wrestlers.

To the Romans, too,
it was a barbarian wasteland.

Yet these people were
conquerors in their own right,

ultimately defeated not by their
rivals but by their environment.

Nubia has left us some of the most
spectacular monuments

not only in Africa,
but in the whole world.

There are more pyramids here
than there are in Egypt.

This was a major civilisation, but
its history is barely remembered.

So what was Nubia actually like?

How powerful was it
and what happened to it in the end?

To begin my search, I'm leaving
the Sudanese capital, Khartoum,

and flying north into Nubia.

This is every schoolboy's dream.

This ancient old helicopter is
going to take us up to see some

of the ancient Nubian sites.

And I've got this fantastic guide
here. This is Mahmoud,

who's going to tell me
what some of the sites mean.

Mahmoud Bashir is one of Sudan's
most respected archaeologists.

He's taking me on a journey not just
through space, but time, going back

nearly 10,000 years, to the time
when humans first began to plant

crops, and to keep domestic animals.

We're going northwards
along the Nile.

If it weren't for the Nile

and its irrigation
this whole scene would be desert.

And from the air it's
easy to see how narrow

the cultivation strip really is.

But Mahmoud tells me we're going to

leave the green corridor of the Nile
and head out into the desert proper.

Out here is one of the
toughest places on earth.

The temperature here is more
than 120 degrees Fahrenheit,

and yet there are still
people working here.

This is where I'm going
to start my journey,

right in the back of beyond.

We've flown more than 250 miles
north from Khartoum

into the middle
of the Nubian desert.

15,000 square miles
of arid sandstone,

with scarcely a single oasis.

From here, we're going to
drive across the scorching sands.

Mahmoud tells me we're
going to start

with the very beginnings
of Nubian culture...

..more than 7,000 years ago.

Oh, it's hot.

It's baking.

What are you doing to me?
I can't believe we've come out here.

It feels like the middle of nowhere.

It's one of the driest, most remote
places I've ever been, but Mahmoud

says that here there's something
that makes all the suffering

we've gone through really
worthwhile.

So let's have a look.

But why did you bring me out here?

Something interesting.

Oh, it's a bell.

So how old is this, Mahmoud?

5,000 years. Wow!

So I'm playing a 5000 BC instrument.
Yes.

The actual sound is the natural
result of the consistency of the

rock, but it's been worn smooth
by the actions of people playing it

more than 7,000 years ago,

long before the Romans,
long before the Pharaohs.

This is a sign of
human civilisation.

So would they sing along to this?

More dancing.

In the last few years,
archaeologists have

found hundreds of rock gongs like
this in the Nubian desert,

possible evidence of a sizable
population.

I imagine you'd be able to
hear it from a long distance.

Archaeologists think the people here

may have used the rock gongs to
communicate across the valleys.

And that this is the beginning
of the Nubian culture.

But why here?
This is the middle of one of the

harshest deserts in the world.

Mahmoud has something to show me.

It's been a secret until recently.

Oh, wow!

That's amazing. It's cattle.

Yeah. How old is that?

BC? 5000-6000!

It's just astounding.

When were these discovered?

Last March?
We are in August. Five months ago.

So not many people have seen them?

Really? Really.

Rock art is the oldest form of
pictorial representation known.

Research has shown
that the pictures are unlikely to be

just a depiction of everyday life.

Instead,
they concentrate on subjects

that are of great significance
to the people who made them.

So I'm amazed to discover
that out here,

deep in the Nubian desert, they
should be making images of cattle.

But this is desert though.

Mahmoud tells me it's a story of
catastrophic climate change.

Recent research has shown that
some 7,000 years ago

most of the Sahara
was in fact green.

You can see the outlines
of dry valleys, or wadis.

They were once big rivers
which flowed into the Nile.

And between them stretched grassland
savannahs of the kind that you have

to go much further
south to see today.

So this area here,

once upon a time, would have had
grass and it would have been lush,

it would have supported cattle
and probably complex communities?

What kind of animals?

So the wildlife and the ecology of

sub-Saharan Africa
once existed here?

Yes. That's amazing.

And this is the proof of that.

So you can imagine, sort of,
the cattle - well, with a stretch of

the imagination - the cattle in this
valley, the river just down there.

Yes.
And people, someone, at some point,

coming up here, and with one of
these stones just making this mark.

It took thousands of years for
the desert to dry out completely.

So the cattle herding or pastoralist
society which created the rock art

was able to develop into a
much more complex community.

And I'm told that they produced
something quite spectacular,

and that's where I'm headed for now.

We're pushing northwards along the
Nile, some 700 miles from Khartoum,

and less than 200 from
the Egyptian border.

Our destination is the small town
of Kerma, which sits by the Nile.

This was once the capital of the
kingdom which the Egyptians knew

as Kush.

This was the heart
of the Kingdom of Nubia.

Over the last few decades,
archaeologists have uncovered

the remains of an impressive city
here, dating from around 2000 BC.

This extraordinary structure
looms like a man-made mountain

over the ruins.

At the heart of this great city
is a huge mud brick structure

known as the Deffufa.

It's the oldest known
mud brick building in Africa

and one of the largest.

But it has no rooms.

It's a solid block of masonry.

They've actually built a piece of
geography, because it's absolutely

solid mud. And what is it, and
what might it have been used for?

We don't know who the god or gods
were that these people worshipped,

but according to Mahmoud it was the

temple on the top of the Deffufa
which was the main focus here.

It was surrounded by palaces for
royalty or priests.

So these are raised foundations?

Judging by the buildings that the
archaeologists have uncovered in the

last 10 years, Kerma was not so much
a residential city as a place of

pilgrimage, where people would come
from miles around for ceremonies.

Then, of course,
it would have looked very different.

It's easy to forget that all of this

was really green.

So it could have been
a fairly wealthy area?

There's a small museum here
with some of the finds from

the excavations, which give a
flavour of the Nubian culture.

And even when it's laid out like
this, with the artefacts numbered

off and catalogued, you can
see quite how distinctive it is.

Take the pottery.

Archaeologists now know that people
were making pottery here even before

they began to plant crops,
and long before ancient Egypt.

The polished surfaces and black rims
imitate the forms of

polished drinking gourds I've
seen and used elsewhere in Africa.

It's extremely finely made,
but it's done entirely by hand.

They weren't using a
potter's wheel for this.

And the extraordinary thing is
that this technique can still be

found today, 4,000 years on.

Everywhere you go around here, you
see these characteristic water jugs.

They aren't
mass-produced in a factory.

Instead, they're made by women
in a local village.

Just gathering some goat poo,

I think it is, which apparently is
used in the mixture with the clay.

This is a village across the Nile

from where we've been staying, where
they create these amazing clay pots.

And we're being shown by
one of the local women

how they do that from the point

of kneading the clay to
the finished product.

I've done some pottery myself,
but I know from hard experience

that this technique
is actually extremely difficult.

It's as sophisticated
as the mud-brick architecture

of the Deffufa.

This technique may be ancient,
but it's perfectly adapted

to the conditions here.

The red slip is designed
to get the surface of the pot

just right,
porous enough for slow evaporation,

to keep the contents cool.

These continuities of tradition and
practice are an even more important

insight into the culture of ancient
Nubia, because the Nubians of Kerma

never developed writing.

But archaeology has revealed some
more astonishing insights

into this ancient city.

This is where the Nubians of Kerma
buried their dead.

The cemetery was first excavated
by an American-led team in 1913.

What they uncovered
told an astonishing story.

We're standing on the edge of

what was once an enormous funeral
mound, nearly 100 metres across.

The centre is marked
by a mysterious white rock,

and there's a kind of smooth
avenue which crosses the space.

It's a huge area that seems to
be the burial mound of a king.

But he wasn't buried alone.

How many people were sacrificed?

Gosh.

The archaeologists think that
the victims - men, women and

children, too - were sacrificed
to provide servants and retainers

for their master in the life beyond.

The vast cemetery itself
was used for over 1,000 years.

It contains over 30,000 graves.

It must have been quite
an eerie and melancholy place.

If anything is going to

really make you think about life
and death, it's a place like this.

Archaeologists have also
found something which ties Kerma

directly to the people of the rock
art - cattle.

So this would be a king or
something. 5,000 cattle...

Were these cattle that
were slaughtered especially for...?

Wealth is measured in cattle?

But if that many cattle, that many
people, are being sacrificed for one

person, one, it suggests they were
incredibly powerful and, two, that

there must have been an enormous
cattle culture here and probably

a big population that that
supported.

That really does get me thinking
in a different way about Kerma.

This was an enormous civilisation.

The scale and relative
sophistication of the

Nubian civilisation here in Kerma

led Western archaeologists
in colonial Sudan to assume

that this culture must have been
brought in from Egypt or elsewhere.

But now it's believed that this
was an indigenous development,

a civilisation created
by the descendants

of the people who created
the rock art.

4,000 years after it was built,
the people of Kerma still gather

like ghosts around the
temple at the Deffufa.

Although the Nubian kingdom is
long gone, it still exerts a pull.

And these ruins have really
affected me.

In a sense, Kerma is
the lost kingdom

that I'd always dreamt of seeing.

It's every bit as spectacular as
anything that I've seen in Egypt.

4,000 years ago, the Nubians of
Kerma were apparently thriving,

with their great
mud-brick monument,

their herds of cattle
and a sizable population.

So why did they disappear
and where did they go?

Water was the key to
this Nubian kingdom.

It provided the lush, fertile land
on which their cattle-herding

society was based.

It was a different story for Nubia's
northern neighbours, the Egyptians.

Their lack of pastoral land
had led to the development

of irrigation technology,
drawing as much water as they could

from the Nile to transform their
parched, desert soil.

But even with this technology,

it was a lot harder for them to
create the rich greenery that Nubia

had at this time in abundance,
thanks to the rivers

which ran through it.

Nubia was a tempting target
for the ambitious Pharaohs.

There were
frequent raids and retaliations.

Then, around 1500 BC, the records
show us that the Egyptians invaded.

Their target wasn't just Kerma.

They continued another
180 miles along the Nile

to a place called Jebel Barkal.

Mahmoud and I are
following the Egyptians'

invasion route up the River Nile.

Our objective is the same as the
ancient Pharaohs - the apparently

symbolic mountain of Jebel Barkal.

I'm not seeing a cobra,
I must admit!

So we're looking at something
which is sitting like that and

you can imagine a sort of
dancing cobra and on its head

there is a crown. Wearing a crown.

I see it.

To the ancient Egyptians,

the rearing cobra
was a symbol of kingship.

And here was a natural sculpture
which signalled to them, it seems,

that within the mountain dwelt Amun,
King of the Egyptian gods.

They felt that justified
their conquest of Nubia,

and so they built an enormous temple
to Amun at the foot of the mountain.

How did the Nubians feel about
the Egyptians actually being here?

It does seem a little
bit like colonialism.

Egyptian images at the time of
theconquest

are explicit about the
subjugation of the Nubian people.

They clearly regarded them
as inferior.

Miserable Nubia?

The images also make it clear
that the Egyptians made the most

of Nubia's natural resources and
demanded riches as well as respect.

Here, the Nubians are
bringing tribute - gold, ivory,

along with wild animals,
monkeys and leopard skins.

And of course cattle are prominent.

They even seem to have
imported Nubian wrestlers

to entertain them like gladiators.

The people who built Kerma's
magnificent buildings

had, it seemed,
been reduced to slaves,

or certainly that's what the
Egyptians wanted everyone to think.

There's a suggestion that even
the name by which we know them

is pejorative.

The word "nuba"
originally meant "slave".

THEY SING AND PLAY DRUMS

It's clear that, whatever their
justification, the Egyptians claimed

Jebel Barkal as a holy place.

What's amazing is that, more than
3,000 years later, it still is.

HE CHANTS

This evening, Mahmoud and I have
come here to share the devotions

of a local Sufi Muslim sect.

They honour the memory of a local
sheikh

who is buried in a shrine
at the foot of the holy mountain.

Sufi mystics were instrumental
in the conversion of Sudan

to Islam in the Middle Ages.

In the process, they adapted and
made use of local cultural customs.

So, although this ceremony is
clearly Islamic, it's likely

that it contains glimpses of

far more ancient religious
observances from this area.

And in the clearer light of dawn,
seeing the Egyptian temple

and the Sufi shrine from
the top of the mountain,

I'm struck by the continuities
which seem to persist.

History piled upon history here.

You can just feel
it's one of those special places...

..and it sets me thinking back
about those gongs.

Hearing those Sufis, those repeated
rhythms, it gives you a sense of the

way in which those repetitions
of prayers, of incantations,

of thoughts, reflect back over
generations, over millennia, but

in some way are still very special
to the people of this land today.

The Egyptians had painted
the Nubians as mere slaves.

What Mahmoud wants to show me
is that the story isn't so simple.

It's just astoundingly hot today.

Apparently it's above 50 degrees

and I've never experienced it
before, but it gets above 50

in this environment and it's
no longer just hot from the sun.

It just feels like it's coming
at you from every direction.

The Egyptians only ruled
Nubia for just a few centuries.

And there's hard evidence that the
Nubians were able to get

their own back on their conquerors.

But surrounded by all these
massive Egyptian remains,

I find that hard to believe.

Mahmoud says that
if I had any lingering doubt

that the Nubians turned the tables
on the Egyptians, that that would

be completely extinguished by
having a look at what's in here.

This is absolutely stunning.

Stunning.

So what is this?

It's a temple, apparently built
by a Nubian ruler called Taharka

in around 700 BC.

So that is where we actually sat.

Actually inside?
Inside the mountain.

In here? Yes.

So Taharka

representing the people here? Yes.

But what these images show

is that Taharka wasn't
just a ruler of Nubia.

He was also a Pharaoh of Egypt.

The conquered had
become the conquerors.

He is one of a whole
dynasty of Nubian Pharaohs

which ruled over the entire Nile
Valley under the auspices of Amun.

Wow! Cos usually these things
are so ambiguous and you have to

make a bit of a leap of faith with
history or archaeology,

but this is absolutely categorical.

And suddenly I'm
seeing that snake again.

These are black Pharaohs, Nubians,

part of that lost kingdom of Nubia.

But they didn't just rule
over Nubia.

They also ruled over Egypt,
as one continuous kingdom.

These hieroglyphs show how Taharka
celebrated his joint Nubian-Egyptian

kingdom in the sanctuary
of this temple.

On one side,
he depicted the Nubian gods.

And there is a wall here.

..with the Egyptian
deities on the other.

This black African civilisation held
sway from the Upper Nile all the way

to the Lebanon for over a century.

These statues, discovered
only few years ago, give us

a portrait of the Nubian Pharaohs in
all of their self-confidence.

These people
ruled the whole area from here

down in the Nubian territory,
right the way up into Egypt.

And you can tell that by looking
at their headdress, with two snakes,

one for Nubia, one for Egypt.

And you can tell how threatening
they were to the Egyptians

because they've all at some point
had their heads knocked off.

Just look at them.

And though they were unable
to keep their hold on Egypt,

the Nubian kingdom survived
for centuries afterwards.

But now they had acquired
some Egyptian habits.

From this time onward, Nubian rulers

would be buried in pyramids
like the Pharaohs of old.

There are more pyramids in Sudan
than in Egypt.

But this wasn't simple imitation.

It had been centuries since
Egyptian rulers used pyramids,

and these pyramids are of a very
different shape.

This was the Nubians
celebrating their own glory.

But the Nubians had another
greater enemy than the Egyptians -

the environment.

At the time of Taharka,

around 700 BC, the archaeological
records show that the desert was

approaching ever-closer and Kerma
itself had lost its grazing land.

The pressure of the desert meant
that the heartland of the Nubian

kingdom now moved further south,
another 350 miles along the Nile,

around a place called Meroe.

Today, the desert here is littered

with the remains of
pyramids and temples.

The society that
built them flourished

between 700 BC and 400 AD.

The rebirth of the Nubian kingdom
at Meroe, still green and lush

back then, is marked by
countless palaces and temples.

And although the Egyptians had left
their mark on the Nubian culture,

there's evidence here
also of more ancient Nubian beliefs.

I can see the Egyptian influence
in the shape of this temple.

But the relief sculpture
on the walls expressed

a decidedly un-Egyptian world view.

By 200 BC, the Egyptian god Horus

has been demoted to the
back of the line.

So this is in the line of seniority?
Exactly.

Even the great Amun of Jebel Barkal
is playing second fiddle

to the completely non-Egyptian war
god Apedemak. He is more senior,

shown presenting the sign
of kingship to the Nubian ruler.

And there's another way

the Nubians held on to their
traditions from before.

Mahmoud has brought me to one of
the most spectacular sites in Sudan,

the royal cemetery itself...

..where the Nubian kings of
this period were buried

in their distinctive pyramids.

There's evidence of a return
to their traditional way of life,

where one thing
was of the utmost importance.

So there's a whole row of cattle,
just going from right to left?

So the thing that they value
is obviously cattle? Exactly.

And the whole of their social world

can be translated
into value through cattle?

Wow. Amazing.

So, in a sense, there does seem
to be a link between kingship and

cattle, something quite fundamental.

700 years after they were
subjected to Egyptian domination,

the Nubians of Meroe were still
a distinct and African culture,

a heritage that still connects them
to African cultures today.

It's time to leave the ruins and
had to be inhabited part of Meroe.

We're off to the
royal city of Meroe.

They've supplied some fantastic
transport for us.

Modern Meroe is where Mahmoud
carries out his main research.

His speciality is the history of
the iron trade,

and many of the old techniques
survive unchanged.

So, for thousands of years,
people have been...

The Nubians are thought to
have developed the earliest

iron industry in Africa.

The first iron technology appeared
here during the first millennium BC,

around the same time
as our own Iron Age.

The archaeology shows
us that Meroe became a

relatively large industrial centre,
producing vast amounts of iron.

For 1,000 years after the loss
of the Egyptian kingdom,

the Nubians of Meroe flourished.

By the second century BC,
they'd even developed writing.

But whilst archaeologists long ago
decoded the sounds of the alphabet,

no-one has yet
cracked the language itself.

This was a confident, independent
civilisation, far from the barbarian

wilderness described by the ancient
writers, a place that was justly

famed for its ironwork,
its wrestlers and its cattle.

It's possible that the encroaching
desert was their friend as well as

their enemy, protecting them from
another invasion from the north.

But the desert continued
its relentless incursion.

It had long ago destroyed
their civilisation at Kerma.

Now, too, the Nubians of Meroe saw
their grazing lands disappearing.

This land is just dry and
desiccated. Nothing could grow here.

But can you imagine actually
having invested your livelihood

in living here as a farmer
just to see it all turn to dust?

You can imagine the people thinking

this was something which might have
been seasonal, perhaps a few dry

summers or winters, and then
it just lasted for ever.

It changed the culture, changed the
landscape and eventually the people

would have had to have given up.

With the desert came one of thefew
animals to thrive

in its conditions - the camel.

They were first domesticated in
Arabia about 1000 BC and took some

time to reach Nubia. When they did,
they eventually brought a nomadic

way of life to the eastern Sahara
and everything changed.

Mahmoud believes it was the loss
of its trade routes to camel-riding

nomads which destroyed the
Nubian kingdom at Meroe.

Others debate this.

But, by 400 AD, archaeologists agree

the ancient kingdom of Nubia
was in terminal decline.

The Nubian way of life
had become impossible.

But what became of
the Nubian people?

We're on our way south
and we're suddenly confronted

by the new kings of the desert.

It's an enormous camel train

on its way, it seems, to the great
camel markets of southern Egypt.

Some of the guys who
are on these trains

have fairly sort of
dicey reputations.

We're going to be OK, are we?

Yes, hopefully we should be OK.

We will
be very careful when we approach.

As you said, there
have been some problems.

There's someone
under the tree there.

When we meet up with
the camel herders,

we're given a friendly greeting.

These men have travelled all the way
from Darfur,

near the border with Chad.

They've covered more than 700 miles
and have hundreds more to go.

This is the way of life that

now dominates the desert,
where once the Nubians ruled.

Their days are spent guiding
their camels from well to well,

from oasis to oasis.

But they don't seem to
think it's any hardship.

These men will travel 40 days
at a time,

ten kilometres a day and rest
when the sun is highest in the sky.

But there are still small
communities here,

people who eke
out a living off this harsh land.

They, too,
are dependent on the camel.

Are we are close now?

I wonder if these people are
among the descendants

of the original Nubians?

But where once their ancestors lived
lives defined by lush grazing land,

these people must
cluster around small wells.

I can do the pulling. There is
something quite sophisticated

going on with the wrists,

which I think is
probably avoiding it being tangled.

What is that, actually?

It is a sharp contrast to

the pastoral way of life
which once thrived here.

And getting thirsty animals watered
is laborious work.

Wow, I imagine it is going to take
about ten of these

to make any real decent sort of
attempt on this.

I imagine we have probably got our
work cut-out

for the evening with this.

This is a culture
perfectly honed to the desert.

But it isn't Nubian.

To see if there are any traces
of the old Nubian civilisation,

I am going to have to head out of
these desert zones further south.

Central Sudan, and here
is the landscape of ancient Nubia.

It is just great to see

this green environment
and it is so reminiscent of what

Kerma must have been like.

Not just the housing,
the farming technology, but just

the landscape, this green landscape
is just what it must have been like.

700 miles south of Kerma,
the land that still enjoys regular

rainfall is sought-after by
pastoral communities.

And the frontier between
desert and green continues

to be a source of conflict,

just as it was for Egyptians
and Nubians 3,500 years ago.

These are UN vehicles
going off to Darfur.

It is fascinating that the same
sorts of issues of food, resources,

of power, are still, in a way,
the dynamic thing that infuses

this landscape, even today.

A key component of the recent
fighting in Darfur in western Sudan

was a dispute over lush
well-watered pastures.

The same issues were a factor in
the deadly civil war that engulfed

southern Sudan for over 20 years.

These lush green hills were recently
a battleground.

It is so glorious, so idyllic
here, it is hard to believe that

only a decade ago, this place
was the site of a civil war.

I was wandering around,
a few minutes ago and found a spent

bullet case and there are dozens
of them scattered across here.

And it is not just the recent thing,

over centuries, people have
fought over this landscape.

And in a sense, there is
history, the story we are telling

is of that being replayed
over centuries and centuries.

The name of these hills
reflects that history.

These are the Nuba hills
and the Nuba people believe

they are descended from the
ancient kingdom of Nubia.

THE PEOPLE SING

WHISTLE BLOWS

I have come here with Shaza Rahal,
educated in Britain,

but a member of a traditional
ruling family here.

Her uncle, the leader
of the village community,

remembers the family traditions
well.

HE SPEAKS IN DIALECT

He comes from a royal family.

He arrived many years ago.

Many years ago, how many years
might that be?

This is roughly around 300 years ago.

Their tradition says
that they originally

came from an area near Meroe.

That ancient Nubian City
more than 500 miles away.

I'm really keen to find out if
there is a connection between

the people of this region,
the Nuba and ancient Nubian,

I'm just really keen if this very
much living place

has a connection with
that old mythology.

They all the same people, they
just separated, so there are some

that stayed in Egypt, some came to
Sudan and...

THEY SPEAKS IN DIALECT

..The rest stayed in Meroe.

The only difference between here
and there, you'll see is the colour

of the skin, but in terms of
the language,

it is the same, the traditions
are the same.

Can there really be a connection
between the people in this region

and the ancient
civilisation of Nubia,

born more than 7000 years ago
to the sound of a rock gong?

The extraordinary thing is, that
although we are miles from ancient

Nubian lands, there do seem to be
some echoes of those far-off times.

Today, the young men still compete

in what has become their most
famous sport - wrestling.

The wrestling is in just
the same style

as in the pictures from 1500 BC that
Mahmoud showed me at Jebel Barkal.

The same stance,
the same grips even.

Can I finally get to grips with this

ancient civilisation I have been
searching for? I have to have a go.

Wait, wait, wait.

LAUGHTER

That is just amazing.

But suddenly, I begin to realise,
this is just like

those ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
of wrestlers,

it is just like it.

SHE ULULATES

Of course, the similarities in
style of their wrestling may be

a coincidence. If there really is
an inheritance from old Nubia, it

should show up in more fundamental
features of the Nuba way of life.

Abdu, a cattle drover,
certainly believes that the way

of doing things hasn't
changed in a long time.

HE SPEAKS IN DIALECT

It has gone through tradition
through history, through family...

..and from an early age,

everyone is allocated
a certain number of cows.

Oh, really? Yes.

So that they can raise them and they
feed from them, like they use the

milk from them to grow their children
and then they build on those and

obviously, the more cows you have,
the more wealth you have.

So, cattle are absolutely
integral to politics, to culture,

to weaving the whole of
this community together?

Yes.

There are cattle cultures like this
one, right across Africa, from here

in the hills of Sudan down to
KwaZulu in South Africa

and so many of them
are connected to kingship.

It is possible, that many of
these stories may have begun in

ancient Nubia, right the way back
to the rock art people and Kerma.

SINGING

The Kambala,
is the Nuba's most important dance.

Its origins are in ceremonies
which initiate young men

as full members of Nuba society.

These head-dresses are
made out of cattle skulls.

And I am struck by something.

At Kerma, the great
burial mound was surrounded by

5,000 cattle skulls just like these.

Perhaps they were once the
head dresses worn by dancers

at the king's funeral.

Who could
fail to be convinced by this?

Those ancient Kerma cultures just
brought to life. I mean, the cattle.

I mean, you can just feel it. This
is women singing about the cattle,

this is men reliving those ancient
traditions,

this is absolutely everything I
have seen along the journey but

made alive in this incredible dance.

Are these people the descendants
of people of that ancient kingdom?

There seems to be an inheritance
expressed in traditions about

cattle, about wrestling and in
legends about an ancient homeland.

Beyond that, it is difficult to be
certain of the links between

the people of Nuba and those of
ancient Nubia.

But such a connection,
would only be icing on the cake.

The most important thing is the
weight of evidence we now have

for the existence of Nubia
as a remarkable, long-lasting

and indigenous Kingdom.

Nubia wasn't a barbarian wasteland
on the fringes of civilisation

as the Egyptians and
Romans would have us believe.

It was a real power
which developed independently

and rivalled the Pharaohs, a place
with a distinctive way of life.

In the end, it became the
victim of climate change,

but I think Nubian ideas of power,

wealth and kingship continue
to resonate in modern Africa.

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