Because of cataracts, people could not travel through Nubia by river. Nubians developed trade routes over land.

The Nile’s River cataracts and marshy delta kept invaders out of Egypt. How did the Nile River help relations among Egyptian villages? The river allowed trade and travel among the villages. Where does the Nile River flow?

How did trade develop in various places along the Nile? The river was a natural highway for boats to sail to other African and Southwest Asian countries for trading. How were the lives of the peasants ruled by the seasons? During the flood season they build roads, temples and other building.

Why didn’t the Nubians use the Nile to trade? Because they could not travel through it by river.

Answer: The Nubians became famous as traders because they developed trade along land. They traveled to central Africa, Egypt, all the way to southwest Asia, and traded highvalue items. Such things like ebony wood, ivory, ostrich feathers, skins, anything really.

The extra water would then spill over the banks onto the dry desert land of Egypt. Once the floods subsided, thick black silt, or mud, would be left behind on the ground. The silt created rich, fertile soil for planting crops — vital in this land of so little rain.

Shanakhdakheto or Shanakdakhete was a Queen of the Kingdom of Kush, when the polity was centered at Meroë. She is the earliest known ruling African queen of ancient Nubia, and reigned from about 170 to 150 BC, although the period 170–160 BC is also mentioned.

When Queen Amanirenas received the news of the impending Roman attack, she had to think swiftly and strategically because Kush was much smaller than the Roman Empire, which meant that it had a smaller army. So, she decided to take the battle to the Romans by launching a surprise attack.

Rome’s client state Strabo describes a war with the Romans in the 1st century BC. After the initial victories of Kandake (or “Candace”) Amanirenas against Roman Egypt, the Kushites of northern Nubia were defeated and Napata sacked.

Amanirenas is one of the most famous kandakes, because of her role leading Kushite armies against the Romans in a war that lasted five years, from 27 BC to 22 BC. She is usually considered to be the queen referred to as “Candace” in Strabo’s account of the Meroitic war against the Roman Empire.

Amanitore

The origin of the name Nubia is obscure. Some have linked it to nwb, the ancient Egyptian word for gold. Others connect it with the term Noubades, the Greek name for people who moved into northern Nubia sometime in the 4th century AD.

“Kandaka” means queen of the old Nubian civilization. It was used as an all-encompassing name for a revolutionary woman and became the name for the women who returned for the massive protests in Sudan earlier this year.