ANIBA FORTRESS AND OCCUPATION

Aniba was a very significant village in the Twelfth Dynasty. It was a village in Nubia which was about
230Km south of Aswan. Though the place is today flooded by the Lake Nasser, it was deemed a very
important town at that time. It was popularly called Miam and was located around the Lower Nubia
region which was a very fertile land as at that time.

The remains at Aniba date back as far as 3000BC and are considered to belong to the A-Group Culture. A
few cemeteries were found there that belong to the people of Nubia, while some were made in the
resemblance of Egyptian cemeteries.

History has it that during the Twelfth Dynasty, the Nubian region was mostly ruled by Egyptians.

Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics of that time, including their warfare, fortresses, politics,
trade etc.

EGYPT AND NUBIA RELATIONSHIP

Nubia and Egypt date far back into history in terms of relating with each other, though this relationship
was more against each other than alliances. They had conquered themselves times without number due
to lots of reasons. Egypt was solely interested in Nubia because of its resource, manpower (in terms of
slaves and warriors) and also for their rocky areas. Another reason for the locker head between Egypt
and Nubia was also that Nubia had great trade channels. A major reason for the conquering of Nubia by
Egypt was because of the Nile River which Egypt was very interested in to regulate because of the three
Kingdoms around its Banks.
 Nubia in the Old Kingdom

Nubia and Egypt also had occasional conflict, probably brought about by competition for trade and trade
routes, basically because Nubia was a key factor in their trade since they were a trading corridor for
Egypt.

During the 12th Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom period, Egypt was becoming strong again and was again in
a great position to subdue their southern neighbor. The Egyptians took up their military campaign
against the Nubians through rulers like the Senusret I and Senusret II. During this period, Egyptian Kings
built military buildings or forts at important points along the River Nile to prevent the Nubians crossing
into Egypt using boats on the river. The Egyptians started defending their southern border with Nubia
forces by pushing their forces further into their own territory and away from the border to create a
buffer zone around Lower Nubia. This they did solely because they saw the Nubian military as a threat.

HOW THE FORTRESS CAME TO BE

Some sources state that even though Nubia had valuable resources in terms of human, animal and
mineral resources, they were exploited to a high degree. The Egyptians had not taken the whole country.
The indigenous population usually referred to as the A-Group culture, seemed to be a negligible force
that the Egyptians could control easily.

This situation changed when the C-Group culture in Nubia came into the picture. This can be traced from
the 6th dynasty down in the Lower Nubia region. This brought about most of the wars and issues had
between the two countries. It was within this period the “great massacre of rebels” in Lower Nubia was
recorded.

It was during the reign of Senusret I that he realized that making Egypt have a lasting control over the
lower Nubia made them have uninterrupted access to their resources including their gold, this prompted
the need to build permanent fortifications or fortresses.

Fortifications and fortresses during this period included Buhen, Kubban, Ikkur, and Aniba. Though, out of
all the archeological remains from these fortresses, only Buhen which was situated at the northern end
of the second cataract can be dated back safely back to the years of Senusret’s reign. The other
fortifications only suggested a construction style of this particular king.

Aniba, for instance, was situated on the bank of the Nile and had a rectangular layout. Its Ramparts were
surrounded by wide ditches. These ditches were protected by separate walls that ran parallel to the
curtain. The ditch-defenses were further strengthened using horse-shoe-shaped bastions that projected
into the ditches in the form of a present-day caponier.

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND DEVELOPMENT

It is important to note that all Egyptian fortifications, in terms of their engineering, the Nubian
fortifications (including the Aniba fortress), always achieved a certain standard that still cannot be found
in any part of Western Europe before the Early modern period.

With the archaeological remains gathered from the Aniba fortress and other fortifications from Nubia, a
better understanding of the architectural characteristics of the Egyptian fortresses has been developed.
This was prompted by investigative teams from different nations in the course of the UNESCO campaign
salvage of the 1960s. This was pointed at preserving the ancient Nubian heritage.

THE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

MUD-BRICKS

Most of the Nubian fortifications were nearly always built in mud-brick. Aniba was not an exception to
this as its mud-bricks specification was 37×18×12cm (15×7×5 in). The rising wall of the fortress was
completely covered with white plaster, which can also be found in other fortifications as well. The
essence of this was to protect the walls from the damages caused by rain and wind.

The mud-brick was a good choice because of its good compressive strength and tensile strength. This is
because a dried mud-brick is quite easy to break by bending, which puts a tension force on one edge, but
makes a good strong wall where all the forces are virtually compressive. Straw, on the other hand, has a
lot of strength when you try to stretch them but almost has none when you try to crumple it up. But
when you input pieces of straw in a block of mud and let it dry hard, the resultant mud-brick resists both
squeezing and tearing and makes an excellent building material.
This idea was greatly adopted by Egyptian architects and they built up their walls and buildings to
considerable heights using this particular method of mud-brick construction.

THE ANIBA FORTRESS

THE WATCHTOWER
Owing to discoveries by archeologist using a model from Abydos, gave us a better insight into how the
tower in Aniba was. The cutaway section allows a look into a cone-shaped mud-brick building, crowned
with a wood supported platform. For this particular tower, as it was with most, the entrance was moved
to the upper floor which was only accessible via a pull-up ladder only. The major reason for this was for
safety.

It was a building with three floors and had identical arrangements for all its interior rooms. The tower
was mostly garrisoned by as many as eight men.
THE WATCHTOWER

Defensive structure
The Nubian fortresses used same uniform building principles, and those situated at the Nile bank had a
rectangular layout just like the Aniba fortress. Their ramparts were also surrounded by ditches with
different width and depth that were protected by separate walls that were parallel to the curtains. The
ditch defenses weren’t visible to an attacker unless he had reached the top of the glacis. It had a double
row of loopholes which produced a nasty surprise for any assailant that reached that far.
GATES
It’s no doubt that for any military architect of any Era or time, that the gate is important for them
knowing that gates can be vulnerable if not the most vulnerable feature within any fortress, this could
weaken the wall by creating an artificial gap. This always makes military architects and cultures develop a
very elaborate gateway solution, which ensures the protection of the entrance.

The Egyptian architects of Nubia developed complex entrance solutions to meet some requirement:

1. To make the gate impregnable for any enemy

2. To allow easy access to the fortresses for their own people, material and pack mules.

The Nubian fortress entrance seemed like a weak spot for the area, but in the real sense, it developed
into their strongest part of their fortification.
The gatehouse design can be compared in strength to the Donjons of medieval castles. They were usually
strong enough to endure even when everything collapses.

CONCLUSION
Aniba fortress was a defense system of the first cataract border region. The wall was mainly seen as a
link between two fortifications. On the north was a small fortification that was located opposite the
southern end of Elephantine, and on the south was a fortress called the fortress of Senmet, even though
its remains have not been discovered yet.

The fortress of Aniba (also known as miam) dates back to the early 12th dynasty and was regarded as one
of the oldest military installations known in the whole of Lower Nubia. The fortress is situated on the
west bank of the Nile River. The Aniba fortress was basically established to gain control over one of the
most fertile plains of the Nubian Nile valley. History puts it that not less than 6 building periods are
attested at the site, which moved from a fortified fortress into a town of 8 hectares.

We also see around the Nile region that people lived there and besides, an A-Group cemetery and
C-group cemetery and settlements were discovered.