EAA 2018: Abstract

During the New Kingdom (c. 1550 – 1077 BC) Egypt has established state control over Nubia (modern south Egypt and north Sudan) through military campaigns against the kingdom of Kush, with is capital in Kerma, and other local polities in the region. Although being in contact with the region since the fourth millennia BC, after the control over it has been established in the New Kingdom, Egyptians become increasingly present in Nubia and Nubians become more prominent in Egyptian iconography. This paper will examine New Kingdom Egyptian textual and iconographic sources on Nubians from gender perspective. Through analysis of reliefs and inscriptions from temples and private tombs together with small finds with depictions of Nubians it will be argued that New Kingdom Egyptian ideology gendered Nubian men and boys as women-like and cowardly and Nubian women as hyper-sexual. Drawing on “decolonial feminism” of María Lugones (2007, 2011) the paper will explore how this ascribed constructed gender binary not only served Egyptian imperial ideology in constructing the enemy Other, but also at the same time normativised Egyptian binary gender system. Finally, the paper will consider the possibilities of exploring how Egyptian gender discourse influenced the lives of inhabitants of Nubia under the Egyptian rule.

Egypt, Nubia, New Kingdom, ideology, gender inversion

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

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