The kings of the 12th dynasty experienced trouble on their southern borders from the people of Kush. It was Senusret/Sesostris (III) who led campaigns into that region, made Semna his southern capital and set up his stela with a duplicate proclamation on `Uronarti'. The text of the stela admonished his people to show no fear:
"Stela made in year sixteen - third month of winter when the fortress `Repelling the Iunu' was built ... to desist after being attacked boldens the heart of the enemy. To be aggressive of him causes him to retire. If one is aggressive against him he turns his back; if one retreats he falls into aggression. They are not people one must fear; they are wrteches, broken of heart. My majesty has seen them, there is no untruth. I have captured their wives and I have brought back their inhabitants, ascended to their wells and slain their bulls.
I have pulled up their barley and set the flame in it. As my father lives for me; I speak in truth, without a word of boasting issuing from my mouth.Now as for every son of mine who shall strengthen this boundary which my Majesty LPH has made, he is my son and he is born to my Majesty. Good is a son, the helper of his father, and who strenghens the boundary of him that begat him. Now as for him who shall lose it and shall not fight on behalf of it, he is not my son and he is not born to me.
Now my Majesty has caused the erection of a statue of My Majesty on this frontier in order that you might preserve in it and that you might fight on behalf of it. ..."
Desert life was harsh and resources were limited. It is no wonder that desert dwelling tribes thought of ways to supplement their resources by staging raids against caravans and popluation centers in their surroundings. It is known from Semna dispatches that all movements of strangers were recorded by Egyptian patrols.
"This is a communication to your scribe about the fact that those two guardsmen and the 70 Medjay people who went following that track in month four of Proyet, day four, came to report to me on this day at the time of evening having brought 3 Medjay men, saying, `We found them on the south of the desert edge below the inscription of Shomu, likeweise 3 women.' So said they. Then I questioned these Medjay people saying, `Whence do you come?' Then they said, `We have come from the Well of Yebheyet.'" ....
With such intelligence the king of Egypt could evaluate the condition of his southern border.
The 12th dynasty kings built mighty fortified enclosures in Nubia. A famous one is the fortress at Buhen.
"The forts are badly ruined today, but it does not take too much imagination to reconstruct them. ... The heaviest fortifications were on the land side. The Egyptians held the river, and the forts could be supplied and relieved by water. 
A low wall and ditch served as the outer ring of defense; then came a forewall with bastions, inside which was a narrow passageway. The innermost wall was very high and thick, built of mud brick strengthened with timber insertions, and supported by towerlike projections at intervals. A narrow street ran around the inside of the wall. Within the defenses was the garrison town itself, with a big house for the commandant and smaller ones for the soldiers. There were also storehouses and a treasury, plus a small temple." [Barbara Mertz, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics', NY, 1964, p. 133]When archaeologists ca. 1953 excavated the ancient sites of Qor, a town which extended for considerable distance on the west bank of the Nile, they found four mud (administrative?) brick buildings in the harbor area and evidence of a wavy fortified wall. Tracing the wall they noted semicircular bastions projecting at intervals similar to the `wavy' walls at Mergissa. About 25 miles north of Buhen was Askut, a long and narrow island with a fortress on top of the highest point in the north-west corner. Members of the University of California, Los Angeles, excavated this site in 1968 and found the surrounding brick wall to be seven meters thick (ca. 20 feet). The standard brick size of 32x15x8 centimeters was here also used. During surveys many jar burials possibly of soldiers were found using every nook and cranny possible on this narrow rocky island.
Thutmose I would later reclaim and stabilize this vast region through his selected military leaders. His influence must have pacified most of the local population preferring trade to war.
Along the way down south
Starting from Khartoum a train journey to old Wadi Halfa used to take some 23 hours. But Wadi Halfa since has been swallowed up by the rising waters of the Nile. The new town, 10 miles away, is Mirgissa fortress. Other places which were flooded by Lake Nasser was `Buhen' fort, the village of `Abd-el-Qadr', the Hill of Sheikh Suleiman and the well known `Rock Abusir' above the Second Cataract, now only a small knoll above the water. Continuing on the way down south to the Fourth Cataract, some 500 miles away. After passing through Semna, one would come to the region called the `Belly of Stone', a lifeless wilderness and difficult navigation on the Nile. Continuing on the Nile after the 3rd Cataract one would pass through the `Dongola Reach' a safe stretch of river for the weary travelers. Just beyond the 3rd Cataract stood the amazing structure of Western Deffufa, to distinguish it from a cemetery called Eastern Deffufa, just before one gets to Kerma.
Two scholars interpreted the historical aspects of this region differently.
) the land of Cush) with the Meroitic Qeš which occurs once in Inscription 94/21 (cf. Inscr. II, p.31) and several times in the great stele of Akinizaz; the change of the initial in K'š is well indicated by the late spelling Q(a)š' 3) in the name of a late Ethiopian or Meroitic king as written in Egyptian on the temple of Philae. By this spelling the scribe connects the name with 
qash "reed", as did Rabshakeh's jest in Isaiah. [Meroitic Inscriptions., Vol. II, p. 34, footnote 4.][JEA, Vol. III, 1916, p. 27. Isaiah 36: 2-22.]
=Kry.
=K'š or 
=K's.
=Q(a)š.
Bible Topics