 Good morning. As Associate Curator of the Bodie Museum, I would like to welcome you all to today's lecture. I'd first like to introduce Bodie Museum Assistant Curator Jessica Johnson to read our land statement. Hello everyone. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the Hootune, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chotanyua Loan. Thank you, Jessica. I would now like to introduce today's speaker. Solange Ashby received her PhD in Egyptology with a specialization in ancient Egyptian language and Nubian religion from University of Chicago. Dr. Ashby's expertise in sacred ancient languages, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic and Coptic, Ethiopic, Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew underpins her research into the history of religious transformations in Northeast Africa. Her first book, Calling out to Isis, the Enduring Nubian Presidents at Filet, explores the temple of Filet's history as a Nubian sacred site. Dr. Ashby has been awarded a president's postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her current research describes the roles of women, queens, priestesses, mothers, and traditional Nubian societies. In 2023, Dr. Ashby will join the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA, where she will teach Egyptology and Nubian studies. She is a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society, which seeks to create pathways for people of African descent on the continent and in the diaspora to engage in the study of African antiquity. Today she will be speaking to us about priestesses, queens, goddesses, women of Nubia. Take it away, Solange. Right. Thank you. Let me just share my screen. All right. So I would like to just start by thanking the folks at the Bade Museum and the ARF at UC Berkeley for inviting me to take part in their symposium on gender performance in the ancient world. I'm really happy that the queens of Nubia are going to be part of this discussion. So let me just get started. I have gotten in the habit of using this beautiful painting by Armonia Rosales, an Afro-Cuban American painter, called the Virgin to just sort of set the tone because I feel that this image collects or gathers so much of what is important and noteworthy about these queens from ancient Nubia. So this woman in the image, I should be clear, is not an ancient Nubian queen. However, her forthright gaze, her bared breast, the obvious fact of her maternity and how powerfully she's connected to her infant, together with the golden halo around her head, showing her sanctity all bring to mind really important elements of the queens of ancient Nubia. And I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge my friend and colleague, Deborah Hurd, with whom I was a graduate student at University of Chicago. It was from Deborah at Chicago that I first heard about these ancient Nubian queens. Okay, so first to get us situated in time and space, I want to point out that the land of Nubia, this ancient territory is now divided between Egypt in the north and Sudan in the south, both located in the northeast corner of the African continent and really centered on the Nile River, which it's important to remember flows from south in the heartland of the African continent north to finally dump or release at the delta in the Mediterranean sea. So, Nubia is bounded traditionally conceived of as a land bounded on the north at the first cataract, which is there at the city of Oswan, an ancient city that is still a modern city in Egypt and the site of the ancient temple of Philae. And then on the south at the sixth cataract, which is the general vicinity of the ancient city of Merylway. So what is the cataract, you might ask, it is a region of the Nile River that is interrupted, if you will, by boulders both under the surface of the water and strewn along the path of the river that creates the cities and tidal pools and sometimes even small waterfalls and makes passage to boat traffic difficult and dangerous. And so this was an area in antiquity and, well, I'll just say in antiquity where boats had to be disassembled and taken out carried around the cataract reassembled in order for the river journey to continue. So this could be an important place for cities and trade markets to be established and we see that in the land of Nubia we have three chronological capitals that all together are referred to as the kingdom of Kush. And so this very early as capital is located at the third cataract and called karma. Subsequent capital was located at the fourth cataract and called Napata. And the final capital was located right around the sixth cataract and called Merylway. I'd like to share these dates so you have an idea of the incredible longevity of the kingdom of Kush and so it very much parallels what we see in Egyptian antiquity. But karma is that oldest lasting for about 1000 years and then there's a break where Egypt is controlling Nubia and so there's no indigenous kingdom. But then when Egypt falls on hard times and the third intermediate period begins we have Napata arising and the 25th dynasty kings who then conquer and rule Egypt for a period. And then finally we get to the kingdom of Merylway which is where we encounter these soul ruling queens that I will talk about today. So, Merylway. I want to lead with saying that it was contemporary with first Ptolemaic Greek rule in Egypt. That was the last ruler being Cleopatra the seventh and then Roman rule where we have Octavian who later becomes Caesar Augustus conquering Egypt and and maintaining Roman rule in Egypt for about three centuries. And I use this beautiful photograph by Chester Higgins Jr. of royal burials at the North Cemetery in Merylway to depict this phase so what you see in the background is a steep sided pyramid, under which all of the rulers were buried, and then in the foreground jutting out on the east side monumental gateway. I was saying yes this monumental gateway fronts a funerary chapel that jutted out from the east side of all of these royal burials and we'll look at some imagery from the interior of these funerary chapels as we proceed. I'm going to introduce the five queens that I'll focus on today and that's not to say that there weren't other Marawitic queens but these I will focus on and they lived sometime around 50 BC to about 100 of the common or AD, and their names are Nahirco about whom I don't know much so I'm not going to say much about her today, but then followed by Amani Reynas, who was followed by Amani Shaketo, and then now we the mock and finally Amani Tore. So you'll see that I've noted titles for four of these queens and so at the bottom you can see that the Marawitic title Korae means the ruler and so in this ungendered language it can be used for a male or a female ruler just with the idea that this is the paramount leader of the kingdom, the soul ruler. And then the more gendered title is Kandake which probably means queen mother and was held by a series of very powerful women who also had their own spheres of influence within the royal family. And to illustrate this I just used the image of Amani Tore on the right from a stone bark shrine that was found at the sacred site of Wad Ben Naka and I'll show you where that is very close to Maraway. But in it again we see her with her arms up raised she's literally holding up the sky you can see stars I hope along the top there. She's dressed bared again much like the image of the Virgin that I used to open this talk. I hope you can see around her neck she's wearing a necklace comprised of three Rams heads that make reference to the Ram God moon his newbie in manifestation. I would say for those who don't know a bark shrine just provided a place to sit and rest a sacred boat that was used in ritual processions in in the Marawitic rights. This table taken from cloud re French scholar who does a lot with the Marawitic language I want to illustrate multiple things that being first that there were not only ruling Queens but also ruling Kings since I focus on and present about the Queens I often get asked were there any Kings in Maraway and yes indeed so in this list you'll see that the names that don't have ran for Queen in French before them are ruling Kings. And then the other thing I want to show what this table is how uncertain we are about the specific dates of the rule, the reins of these various Marawitic kings and Queens. And then the other thing that I will show you in just a minute is how the burial seem to really alternate between at the south at the current capital city of Maraway and then sometimes being buried up again at the fourth cataract at the older capital city of Napa and site of a sacred site dedicated to moon that Ram headed God that's so closely related to Nubian royalty. So let's just start here. I'm going to point out after these two Kings Adi Kalimani and Tabirco we have this first soul ruling Queen named Nahirco. And she's buried at the North Cemetery at Maraway this abbreviation stands for beggar we are north and her burial is numbered 11. She's followed then by two Kings and then after that an unknown Queen whose name is not preserved, who's buried now up again at the fourth cataract so up to the north at the old capital. This unknown Queen then is followed by two male rulers again and then we have Queen Amani Reynas, who also likely but unsure is buried in the north at Jebel Barco. Tarikas is the spouse of Amani Reynas and Akini Dodd probably was their heir. After that pair of three royal rulers then we have Queen Amani Shaketo, who is buried now in the traditional Royal Cemetery at Maraway. And then Nawid Amak, again buried at the fourth cataract at Jebel Barco number six. And then Queen Amani Tore who ruled with the co ruler listed immediately below her, Nataka Amani who was either her husband as we used to say or her son as cloudry has recently proposed. And she is buried in that north cemetery at Maraway. So I'd like to just now zoom in on the north cemetery at Maraway, beggar we are north and show you three of, I think, almost 60 royal burials at this north cemetery. These three are up on a ridge with a beautiful view to the east so facing the rising sun and you'll see that they're very steep sided pyramids, each of which is fronted by a funerary chapel. And this first one beggar we are north 11 is the one that has a double pylon so two monumental gates. And as I believe I mentioned the interior of these funerary chapels that are decorated with scenes of the funerary rights performed for the deceased ruler. This is the burial place of Queen here go now according to cloudry beggar we are north 12 is where her son was buried, and then yet another ruler to the right in beggar we are north 13. And yet they're very similar looking royal pyramid burials at the fourth cataract so at this site of Jebel Barco and you can see in the background that raised plateau in the back is the sacred of Jebel Barco and then along behind it where you see the greenery and this otherwise desolate land is where the Nile River is flowing and so it is an open question why some of these ruling queens chose to be buried at this cemetery at the fourth cataract. I should also point out that these steep sided pyramids also had funerary chapels to their east side they're largely destroyed now so you can't see them but the early explorers did record the decorated interior of these funerary chapels and we'll see one for Queen now we tomorrow. In fact it was used to advertise this talk so you've already seen it. Okay, so let's get started with this very early unnamed queen I just love this sculpture and so I'm including it even though she's not one of the queens that I'm focusing on this powerful piece is at the museum of fine arts in Boston which really has the largest Nubian collection in the United States and one of the largest in the world. And so in the center we see the queen in this very typical voluptuous thick, curvaceous shape that was considered beautiful and also conveyed power and may in fact have been how the queens actually looked. She is wearing two rearing cobras called ureae on her brow at the front of her crown. She has on a beautiful ball bead necklace that probably has the ram head of a moon as its centerpiece and she's holding in her hand something that Nubiologists tend to call a pine cone, but following Janice Yellen I also agree that this is likely a head of sorghum, a brain crop that was the main carbohydrate grown and eaten in the kingdom of Maroway and still today in Sudan. And then the queen is bracketed on either side by two goddesses who are pouring out libations from vessels on their laps and wearing crowns that seek to identify them perhaps. This is a little bit worn but maybe it is the throne that writes the name of Isis in the Egyptian script or Nephthys hard to say it's a little bit worn, and then this being the crown of Hathor, but a crown that was adopted by the goddess Isis in the late period. So, this looks a little busy at first but I want to give you some idea of how these sites that I'm describing are situated with in relation to each other geographically so you'll have to imagine these two maps the one on the left is being showing the north you'll see some lower Nubia here. And then the one on the right is showing upper Nubia and so this so I can see a little bit better and get my pointer working. So here's lower Nubia closer to Egypt. There's a double barcle circled here and then Meraway there at the bottom. Sorry, this thing keeps getting in my way. Okay, good. So the first arrow is pointing to the Temple of Dhaka where we have an inscription that is written in the Meraway script that is an attestation of this ruling Queen Amani Rainas, her spouse Tiritakas, and a Kinidad. So that is up very close to Egypt and the Temple of Philae probably about 80 miles or so south of Philae. While this arrow that I just clicked on the map on the right shows both the Temple of or the site of Meraway, and just below that the site of Hamadab so I will show you a Stila from that site. This arrow a bit further south is pointing to the site of Wadbanaka where we saw that bark stand and we'll see a Stila from that site. And then the Temple or the site of Naka that has many temples, Merawayic temples, including the so called Lion Temple, dedicated to the God of Petamak and the temple to the God Amun. So just to give you an idea of the vast territory that these Merawayic kings and queens were claiming dominion in building temples in dedicating Stilae and other sacred objects. Okay, so let's start with the Merawayic queens as Queen Mothers. I'm going to divide this talk according to the titles held by these queens, either Kandake being the Queen Mother, and then later I'll talk about those who held the title as sole ruler. I note that two of these queens held both titles so I will talk about them in each section. So the Kandakes that I'm focusing on are Amani Rainas who ruled around 50 BC, and then Amani Shaketo around 10 BCE, and finally Amanitore in about 30 CE or AD. In this image we see Amanitore embraced by the God Amun. She is, and he's in his ram-headed manifestation. He's reaching out to touch him. He's grasping both her elbow and her shoulder, and you'll see in the queen's left hand that she's holding the ankh sign, the Egyptian way of writing the word for life. And so this is an allusion to the queen coming together with the God to create offspring who will be eligible then to be considered to sit on the throne of Meraway. The bear at the bottom is just what this title Kandake looks like in the Merawaydix script. It's red cursive Merawaydix script I should say. It's red from right to left. And it looks like a three with a tail is the letter K, and this is an alphabetic script I should say. So quite a departure from the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the Demotic script from which it is developed. So we see here K and then D, the letter N is not written, another K, and then the letter E to write Kandake, Kandake. And then this L is just for the definite article meaning the Kandake. So here's our first attestation of Imani Reina's who, again, according to Janice Yellen is not depicted in any imagery and so this will stand in for this earliest Kandake. In the inscription that you see on the left, it's again written in that Merawaydix cursive and surrounded in a cartouche, which is the typical object that surrounds the king's name in ancient Egypt. The text names Teriticus, so her husband who holds the title Korae, he is the ruler, while Amani Reina is given as Kandake, so the queen mother, and then Akinidad has the Merawaydix title Pakara, which probably designates him as the heir apparent, although he never comes to rule. And it also is a title that's associated with Governor of the northernmost area of Nubia, where Dhaka is. In Meraway it was the province of, called the province of Akin. And so this inscription was just found on the facade of this Egyptian temple built in Nubia and it's a way that these Merawaydix rulers were claiming ownership of this space, if you will. So here is an image from the interior walls of the funerary chapel of Queen Amani Shaketo and we see her very regally seated upon a lion throne. Let me see if I can get my laser pointer going. Here she's seated on a lion throne, she is wearing this typical autef crown of Merawaydix royalty, the long coat and a cord. You can see this cord hanging down here in the royal sash so she's very much depicted as the ruler she has her fierce. Okay, let me get rid of this pointed fingernails that was characteristic of these queens and I use this to depict her as kandake because the worshippers around her who are burning incense before her nostrils and holding up a hand and reverence behind her head are probably her offspring so sons on either side, and then to the left offering palm branches, which are a symbol of life in this culture. So that's Amani Shaketo as kandake. I'm showing these this pair Amani Torre on the right and the Takamani on the facade of the temple of Amun at that site called Naka. And they're very much co rulers they are jointly dispatching enemies of the kingdom of Meraway, and perhaps you can see beneath their feet beneath the king Naka Amani on the left is a lion mauling a prisoner, and underneath the queen a lion, reaching out to grab some of those bound prisoners. So that was Nataka Amani Torre on the front of the temple in a posture very much as an aggressor a powerful ruler here on the side of this temple at Naka we see her more in the role of kandake where they are before the lion god Merawidic lion god a pedamak on the left. We see first the king. He's again holding that pine cone in his right hand and then in the center of this group of worshipers is the kandake Amani Torre, and right behind her is one of several princes who are prominently portrayed around these Merawidic temple so this is very much Amani Torre in her role as kandake. Alright, so Merawidic queens as sole rulers so we'll have some familiar names coming up now. Both Amani Rainas and Amani Shaketo held also this title of Koray there at the bottom of the screen on the left and then no weedama we never see her as kandake but she is that sole ruler and holds the title Koray. The image that I chose for this slide is Amani Shaketo there in the center again very thick very voluptuous she is wearing the necklace of the three Rams heads of Amun you can see on both her and the goddess who is ushering her into the presence of a pedamak on the right. On both of the females the queen and the goddess you can see a very pearly natural afro. The goddess is bare breasted as is probably the queen. But this is an image from a stele that is showing the sole ruler Amani Shaketo being ushered into the presence of divinity and thus alluding to their. Allowing her to hold the throne of the kingdom of Meraway. So here is the stele at that site of Hamadab that I showed on that opening map so really walking distance from the capital city probably about six kilometers. And it has so many lines of Merawidic cursive text that probably relays the Merawidic side of the story when Meraway met Rome in battle. Octavians troops having conquered Egypt in about 30 BCE leading to the death of Cleopatra the seventh Rome got control of Egypt and then tried to push south into Nubia several years later and was met with military force from the kingdom of Meraway. It's quite possible quite likely that the Merawidic side of the history of those series of battles is recorded in this text that we can not yet read. I tried to give you a little bit more of a close up here. Still hard to see but we see a male and a female figure standing before God and a goddess it is Amani Reynas is the female and Akini dad is the male at this point to retakas. We have to assume has died and Amani Reynas now holds the title of Korea. If anyone's interested this object is in the British Museum and there's the museum object number there. So a little bit of the Greek side of this history of the conflict between Rome and Meraway since we can't read the Merawidic cursive script on the homodob Stila will have to go with Strabo from his geographical and he was contemporary with these incredible queens who ruled in Meraway will just place him in the early first century CE. So I'll take this quote from the geographic and read it out loud to you but I've substituted some interpretations of his, his language so he says quote, but the Ethiopians, and one must always remember when Greeks or Greek writers say Ethiopia they're talking about Nubia. So the Ethiopians attacked the Thebaeus and the garrison of the three cohorts at Syene and by an unexpected onset took Syene and Elephantinae and Philae and enslaved the inhabitants, the generals of Queen Candice. So here we should be hearing Candace, who was the ruler of the Ethiopians in my time, a masculine sort of woman and blind in one eye and quote. So the, the sort of Greek take on fearless and fierce queen who actually led her troops into battle against the Roman troops attempting to push south into Nubia. So what about those toppled statues that were carried away by the Meroitic invaders into southern Egypt. We have this head of Caesar Augustus who was known as Octavian when his troops invaded Egypt. Apparently put up statues of himself all over the country and this was taken home as a trophy, if you will, by the Meroitic forces when they then left Egypt after attacking deep up into Egypt. This head was found buried under the steps of a building in the capital city of Meroe, I think it is M292, often called the temple of victory because of some images that I will show you shortly that were painted on the interior walls. And there's the British Museum object number, very interesting in their description of this object, they omit much of the history of how it came to be in Meroe. So here's just a little bit of the painted decoration from the interior of that building M292. And what it shows I'll show you a larger image on the next slide but it shows bound prisoners and this is probably as the result of conflict military conflict between Rome and Meroe and we see a series of people with their arms prisoners pinned behind them. This one on the top on the left has been identified as possibly a Roman soldier who was captured and taken as a prisoner to Meroe. So I'll just show you a larger image of this scene it's said to be or it used to be on the right hand wall of this temple in Meroe city unfortunately now it's been lost but an early visitor did a watercolor and so along the top you can see royalty here standing before seated gods and then under the feet are these same bound prisoners who you can see much larger size and painted. And I like to point out that the God best is here under the throne, and on this side an image that's called semi towel we in Egypt that very important concept of the unification of the two lands. So maybe an illusion to when Kush was able to extend control over Egypt during the earlier Napa 1025th dynasty, but really beautifully rendered bound prisoners they're clearly painted in characteristic ways so that people in antiquity at least who would see them would immediately be able to identify which ethnic groups were under the dominion of the kingdom of Meroe and they're shown sort of thrown down at the feet of the ruler. So on to Amani Shaketo as a core a soul ruling queen, this line drawing shows the full body where the photo at the bottom is showing what the actual carved relief on the facade of her funerary pylon at the north cemetery at Meroe. So we see this very large very voluptuous queen in the traditional royal attire of a coat, the tasseled cords, this cloak over her right shoulder and down to her left hip. She's dispatching enemies with a spear and she has her name written in a cartouche above her head. But I listed these other attestations of Amani Shaketo as core just to show the geographic range of her building projects, her political control and her involvement as a ruler at Meroe. This is a block from Temple T, originally built by Taharco of the 25th dynasty then a cotton period at the third cataract at Kawa, a granite stele from Meroe city. This is found at a palace at Wad Ban Naka that other sacred site by Meroe, a stele from Kasser Ibrahim far north at the second cataract. This cartouche that you're seeing in the image on the left from the pylon of her funerary pyramid and also an offering table from that same royal burial. So very well attested queen. Not only in buildings but in this amazing cache of jewelry that was found by the explorer, looter, treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini, who had the terrible habit of blowing the tops off of these royal pyramids thinking he was going to find more gold buried in them. This image on the right shows all of the objects that were found in association with the burial of this Meroetic Queen Amani Shaketo, this beautiful bracelet in the center that shows probably the goddess Isis in her winged form, which was very popular in Meroe. Again on the left, this beautiful stele where you see Amani Shaketo on the right and the goddess, Meroetic goddess Amasimi on the left who has not only facial markings. She is also wearing a very beautiful short natural afro that mirrors that of the queen and she's breathing out ox signs, the Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for life from her nostrils into the nostrils of the queen. And then really beautiful examples of Meroetic hieroglyphs that say simply on the left, this is Amasimi, and this one says this is Amani Shaketo. I should say it's so many fewer examples of Meroetic hieroglyphs, the bulk of all of the inscriptions that we have in the Meroetic language are in that cursive script, which I believe we'll see again. Okay, so then on to our third ruling queen holding this title core, this is the image on the right that was used to advertise this talk. And then we see Noida Mock again seated on that lion throne, you can see that under her skirt, the lion head popping out. And her name, the arrows indicating her name is in a cartouche so indicating this is a name of a ruler. I think it says there. And then above this young man's head we're told that his name is Yaktarate, if I get that right. And he again holds this title that we saw associated with Akini Dad, he's a peccara, which it changes over time but it is probably referring to him as the royal heir. And that is his job and his honor to make funerary offerings to the deceased queen. But he's also then as a serving as governor or a ruler of this northern province of Akini that is Lower Nubia. On the left, just a sketch of a beautiful gold statue of the Queen that is now held in the National Museum and Cartoon. Highly recommend to visit there if you ever have a chance to be in Sudan. You'll see it's missing its head. It's probably about nine or 10 inches tall. You can see that the Queen is wearing all of the traditional regalia of Merawidic royalty now the coat that tasseled cord which is hanging down in the back the image on the right, the sash from her right shoulder to her left hip. And it used to be attached to a base that had Merawidic cursive script, a text around the bottom, letting us know that this was in fact no Weedamock, and she's holding the title of Korae and that piece which had unfortunately been separated from the statue is in the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Ohio in Oberlin, Ohio. One day I will get there to see that if it is on display. So I just want to close with this really powerful image of a young woman in Khartoum. Her name is Allah. She was a university student at the University of Khartoum in Sudan while the protest against the former dictator happened in 2019 and in fact, these protests got large enough to topple that dictatorship. But what is pertinent to this lecture is the way in which she this photo went viral on social media many of you have probably seen it or heard me talk about it in other pictures, but she's labeled as the Kandaka for in recognition of her leadership role and the way that she galvanized the crowd. She was chanting in Arabic what do my people want and the crowd responds revolution. She's very much hearkening back to traditional attire of Nubian women from maybe the 40s and 50s so not antiquity, but the gold earrings and the white cover. It's just powerful that that this concept of a powerful woman as leader lives on in this modern country of Sudan so we have the Kandaka depicted here in this photo. And then I'm making a plug for a publication that I wrote was published in 2021 and is available on my academia.edu page if you want to read more about these amazing women from antiquity and if you want to get sort of more granular detail. And with that, I will stop and gladly take questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much Dr. Ashby for your fascinating talk. I would like to now invite our YouTube audience to submit your questions for Dr. Ashby. In the meantime, I wanted to start with the the topic of the Meriwodic burial patterns. I was wondering if you could speak more about the royal burials at a Gebel Barkle and at Meriway. You could tell us what are some of the theories behind as to why Meriwodic queens would want to be buried at either location. Can we see any sort of patterns in the burial location between these two settlements. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Um, so George Reisner from Harvard excavated almost everything in Nubia. He was amazingly productive man. So he excavated both at Napata, Karma and Meriway. So all three major sites. He had the idea that turned out to be mistaken that they were two different royal families, maybe competing contemporary royal families and so they would each be buried in their traditional home of origin. That has turned out to not be true. So now we need to sort of come up with other ideas about why this alternation of burial site and I have read it written. Maybe some of these queens who were engaging the Romans in battle so trying to defend the northern borders of the kingdom of Meriway from Roman aggression would have chosen to be buried further to the north, sort of as a statement of, this is our land, you know, I'm here eternally and making a claim to the place. I don't think that there has been sort of a definitive answer yet about why some chose to be buried in the north and some in the south but I will just say that even in the eastern period, so that that second phase, we do have royal family members who are already choosing to be buried at Meriway at the south cemetery there so it seems to be something that happens for a really long period that both options are available to rulers. If I understood the second part of your question right Brooke it's about how the burials are situated or or laid out like each individual one, I will just go ahead and answer that or you can correct me if I misunderstood. It was it was just about the difference of being buried at these two settlements but yeah if you would like to speak more about the the individual burials would be fantastic. Yeah, so what Reisner did again at the North Cemetery the way that since we don't have any such king list like the Egyptian Egyptologists are blessed to have that list the rulers chronologically a lot of this had to be sort of extrapolated from material culture. And so really the genius of George Reisner was to sort of think about how the burials were located in this site so he understood that the oldest burials were placed in the prime location so up on this ridge where those three that I showed you, and then a succeeding rulers would have to choose perhaps less ideal locations and so they were buried sort of further down the hill. I do want to just reiterate that the essential elements of a Merawitic royal burial were of course the pyramid but always also this funerary chapel on the east side which lets us know that they were doing something similar to what we see in Egypt like the tradition of making offerings to deceased rulers was really vital. And so the offering table which I did not show from Amani Shaketa but almost all of these rulers had offering tables. There probably would have been bar birds placed at the burial and the interior of the funerary chapels show what the processions of carrying the body to the royal burial ground would have looked like and we just see so many people walking in procession often holding palm branches and and very much vital pouring libations for the deceased ruler. Thank you. I also wanted to ask, so you spoke about Amani Rainas as this warrior queen and I wanted to ask, do we see other Merawitic queens being presented in the same way and gives us a common more common and do we see any similarities in the way that both women and men are presented and referenced in these texts that account recount battles and war. Yeah, so that one, it was just a sketch but of Amani Shaketa shown sort of larger than life and very feminine looking but holding a group of bound prisoners and getting ready to dispatch them with a spear. So she succeeds Amani Rainas and she still is presenting herself as a warrior queen and probably also still had to fend off incursions by the Romans in the northern part of her territory. Not to mention sort of the ongoing battles that rulers of the kingdom of Merawai fought against other ethnic groups other culture groups that also lived in Nubia I haven't spoken about them at all but certainly those two queens are shown very much as warrior queens Amani Rainas and Amani Shaketa. And then from that pylon from the temple of Amun at Naka we see Nataka Mani and Amanitore in these mirrored images so that was very much in the conception of Merawitic royalty that the queen was not just a baby producer or like a pretty face or the one who shakes the rattle for Hathor in the temple but that she also was out there dispatching enemies leading troops into battle and Strabo's description of his queen Candace or she's not named but it's the consensus is pretty much that that was Amani Rainas that she's one eyed and might be that she lost that eye in battle. Yeah, yeah so these queens are both very feminine looking we see their breasts and illusions to their ability to bring forth and nurture life but we also see them dripping in gold jewelry with fabulous long pointed nails and then also as warriors leading troops into battle or dispatching enemies so. That's fascinating thank you. We have a few YouTube questions coming in. What are the markings that you mentioned on the face of the goddess. I'm a senior indications of tattooing Hannah markings or scarification as seen in some contemporary African peoples. Yeah so that last section of the comment is right on it is a facial scarification and I am going to imagine at least in contemporary periods. It's meant to really identify a person as belonging to a particular group and I think if we knew more about the different ethnicities living in Nubia during the time that the stealer was made it might identify this goddess as being associated with a particular ethnic group, maybe even the royalty living in in Maroway. So yes very much scarification. I write and think a lot about tattooing in earlier northern Nubian groups called see groups and they did a lot of body tattooing but also scarification so it's a very widespread practice on the African continent because African skin does this interesting thing when it's cut is raised produce a raised scar called the key Lloyd I have a couple of them myself not intentional. And so this sort of reaction of skin of African people makes it possible to make very dramatic markings through scarification and I'm sure that's what we're seeing on the face of I'm a see me. And we have a question about the portrayal of of women in chemets, versus the conticades in points. And why women in chemets were not portrayed with that same full figure as the condom case and points women. Yeah, it might have just been actual physical difference like you see if you travel in Sudan. In Ethiopia and Eritrea where point probably is located or in Kemet itself you just see that people look different there's sort of a continuity of a look but it changes as you move from south to north and vice versa. So, I really do believe that these ancient artists were depicting the women as they looked. Some scholars think that it's just sort of more ideological and making a statement about their physical power their spiritual and political power and I think that is also true but I also think in other places that that the women were just larger that that's just how they were naturally and and that was of course appreciated as the beauty aesthetic. Okay, thank you so much Dr Ashby I want to thank you again for this wonderful talk. I would also like to invite our audience for to our next women and gender performance in the ancient Middle East lecture, which will be on May 11 at 930am. Here Lauren McCormick will present to see and be seen looking essential yet underappreciated attribute of the Jordan pillar of figurine.