The Nubian Museum in Aswan is built to tribute the Nubian culture and high light the influence of the Nubian people and Nubia on Egyptian history.
The Nubian culture is as old as the Egyptian culture, it was existing along the Nile banks near the borders with Sudan.
By the construction of the high dam in Aswan, Nubia was destroyed and submerged by water, and all of the local people had to relocate.
However, UNESCO did serious efforts with the Egyptian government to save Nubia treasures and also some of the pharaonic temples, as well.
After an Egyptian initiative, UNESCO started an international appeal for the biggest process of monuments relocation in history;
More than 40 countries contribute in this operation either by sending workers to help in the rescue mission or by funding to help Egypt in saving these monuments.
This campaign was called,” Nubia rescue campaign”, this process took more than 20 years,
and it was capable of relocating 22 monuments and put them in a new location safe from the high water level.
Some of the monuments that have been rescued are:- the Temple of Dabod, the Temple of Calabsha, the Temple of Dendara,
The Temple of Beit Al Waly, the Temple of Amada and of course the famous and beautiful temple of Abu symbol and Philae Temple.
The Nubian museum Building history:-
Mahmoud Al-Hakim succeeded in designing the Museum to be in harmony with the area around it.
As the museum is surrounded by small mountains, huge rocks, and the beautiful sun of Aswan.
The wonderful lines of the museum’s architecture itself are enjoyable to watch.
The museum covers 50,000 squares meters, nestled into the hillside, and includes some gardens and building which is divided into parts or sections.
The museum is considered to be an entrance to the Nubian history
as it helps the visitors to know and see the beautiful history of this beautiful area.
Each monument and ruins has a brief description underneath it, which is written in English and Arabic.
The first attraction of the museum is its garden which contains more than eighty ancient monuments
and historical rocks, some of them were dedicated to Nubia’s gods.
In the garden, you can see some artificial waterfalls and lakes to remind with the Nile River and its flow into Nubia lands.
Many wild plants are planted in this area, it’s about 34,000 meters long.
The area contains a theatre that has regular Nubian shows for visitors.
To see the unique and amazing folkways of the Nubian culture, and also contains a cave that has ancient drawings.
The Nubian Museum is made of two floors:-
The ground floor has the museum’s main gate, reception halls for visitors and exhibition halls.
The first floor has another exhibition hall, culture activities center and informational center.
When you first enter the museum, you need to walk to left direction to reach the starting point of the tour,
at first you can see some antiquities were discovered in Nubia about 3500 B.C.
The most fascinating monuments in this area include; a vessel made of an ostrich egg, bone comb with two giraffes carved on its handle.
In the” group A” area, you can see the relationship between the Nubia people and the people of southern Egypt.
These relationships were mainly based on the trading of wood, ivory and raw material, it’s also obvious that Elephant island was a trading center.
The most important exhibits of the area are: –
A polished quartz cosmetic palette which was used for crushing galena powder as it was used for eye make-up.
there is a beautiful vessel which decorated with a rowing boat, has multiple oars, some ostriches and numbers of the undulating line represent the water.
”Group C” tells the history of the new civilization in Nubia which started after the six pharaonic Dynasty decline or after the pyramids building period ended.
There is no real evidence that confirms the origin of the people who started the Nubian civilization, but the most accepted theory is that they came from the western desert.
The most beautiful displays of group C are:-
Tulip pots, a Meroitic offering table which has Meroitic writing on it, an ancient pot with a handle, statue of Harawa,
a crouching baby lion carved into clay, a statue of King Taharqa, a statue of Amenardis; she was the first Nubian princess to hold the title of Divine wife of Amun.
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