Photos by George Gerster; notes on Nubian architecture and architectural drawings by Horst Jaritz; Forward by Laila Shukry El Hamamsy; Captions by Hamza El din and Elizabeth Warnock Fernea; Additional Photos by Abdul Fattah Eid.

The displacement of the Egyptian Nubians from their ancient lands and their resettlement deeper in the land of Egypt in 1964 had an impact on Nubian culture and the Nubian language. Contemporary Egyptian Nubian consists of two dialects, Fadicca and Matoki. After the resettlement of Nubians, the interactions between speakers of the two Nubian dialects and speakers of Arabic increased. Nubian, an East Sudanic language, came into contact with a dominant Semitic language, Arabic. How has this increased contact affected the Nubian language in Egypt? The aim of this work is to examine from the perspective of a 'language-contact situation' the impact of the resettlement on the future of the Nubian language. The comparative data on the Nubian situation will add an important contribution to our fund of knowledge on processes of language contact. This is the first sociolinguistic study of the Nubian language from such a perspective.

"Ancient Nubia ... will introduce you to the peoples and culture of the ancient land of Nubia. A civilization sometimes threatened by, but more often competitive with, its more powerful northern neighbor, Egypt. Ancient Nubia had an identitiy and a diversity of tradition that is extraordinary to investigate."--Cover.

Numerous research projects have studied the Nubian cultures of Sudan and Egypt over the last thirty years, leading to significant new insights. The contributions to this handbook illuminate our current understanding of the cultural history of this fascinating region, including its interconnections to the natural world.

Learn about how the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Nubia, and Kush coexisted along the Nile.

Photos by George Gerster; notes on Nubian architecture and architectural drawings by Horst Jaritz; Forward by Laila Shukry El Hamamsy; Captions by Hamza El din and Elizabeth Warnock Fernea; Additional Photos by Abdul Fattah Eid.

A lushly illustrated gazetteer of the archaeological sites of southern Egypt and northern Sudan and named a 2012 American Publishers (PROSE) Awards winner for Best Archaeology & Anthropology Book For most of the modern world, ancient Nubia seems an unknown and enigmatic land. Only a handful of archaeologists have studied its history or unearthed the Nubian cities, temples, and cemeteries that once dotted the landscape of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubia’s remote setting in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with access by river blocked by impassable rapids, has lent it not only an air of mystery, but also isolated it from exploration. Over the past century, particularly during this last generation, scholars have begun to focus more attention on the fascinating cultures of ancient Nubia, ironically prompted by the construction of large dams that have flooded vast tracts of the ancient land. This book attempts to document some of what has recently been discovered about ancient Nubia, with its remarkable history, architecture, and culture, and thereby to give us a picture of this rich, but unfamiliar, African legacy.