Blemmyes

[6] The evidence suggests that only a minority of "the pan-grave people" lived in the Nile Valley, where they existed in small enclave communities among the Egyptians and C-group populations, being periodically used as desert scouts, warriors or mine workers.

After 600 BC, the Napatan, C-group dynasty lost control over Egypt as well as the then-rather desolate Lower Nubia.

The main explanation for the hiatus of sedentary population in Lower Nubia has been the drying up of this part of the world,[7] making river valley agriculture difficult.

Due to climatic change, the level of the Nile had been lowered to a degree which could only be compensated for at the beginning of the first century AD, when the saqiyah waterwheel was developed.

[10] The people referred to in Greek texts as Blemmyes may have their earliest mention as Egyptian Bwrꜣhꜣyw in the Kushite enthronement stela of Anlamani from Kawa from the late seventh century BC.

[3][13] Eratosthenes described the Blemmyes as living with the Megabaroi in the land between the Nile and the Red Sea north of Meroë.

[citation needed] In 250, the Roman Emperor Decius put in much effort to defeat an invading army of Blemmyes.

[14] The Roman general Marcus Aurelius Probus took some time to defeat the usurpers with his allies but could not prevent the occupation of Thebais by the Blemmyes.

[18][19][20][21] Nubiologist Gerald M. Browne and linguist Klaus Wedekind have both attempted to demonstrate that the language of an ostracon found in Saqqara is an ancestor of Beja, and were both of the opinion that it represented a fragment of Psalm 30.

The former edifice was a huge local architectural masterpiece, where a solar, lion-like divinity named Mandulis was worshipped.

[28] Letters from Gebelein from the early sixth century suggest that some portion of the Blemmye population had converted to Christianity.

Some historians are skeptical: László Török writes that "the term should not be interpreted narrowly, it is doubtful that there ever existed one centralised Blemmyan kingdom; more likely there were several tribal 'states' developing towards some sort of hierarchical unity".