Qustul (Arabic: قسطل, romanized: Qusṭul) is an archaeological cemetery located on the eastern bank of the Nile in Lower Nubia, just opposite of Ballana near the Sudan frontier.

In one of these graves was found an incense burner believed by Bruce Williams of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago depicting images assigned to the Pharaoh including a shape of the White Crown of Upper Egypt.

[12] Frank Yurco (1996) stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and A-Group Nubia.

He further elaborated that: "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vititates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".

It has been suggested by Bruce Williams that the elite A-Group Cemetery L at Qustul in Lower Nubia represents Nubian rules who conquered and unified Egypt, founding the early pharaonic state, but most scholars do not agree with this hypothesis.

He also wrote that: "Arguments made by Bruce Williams for the Nubian origins of ancient Egyptian kingship, based on his analysis of the Qustul material, have not been widely accepted, and are difficult to reconcile with growing evidence for the emergence of local elites within Egypt during the Naqada III period.

Gatto added that the "Whatever the claim, the (for some scholars) inconceivable idea of a primary role for Nubia in the rise of the Egyptian monarchy has been reconsidered after more recent finds in Upper Egypt dating back to the Naqada I period the early manifestations of elite iconography."