Desert Politics: State Formation in the Egyptian Eastern Desert and the “Rise of the Blemmyes” is the topic to be addressed by Dr. Julien Cooper (UIC Zhuhai) in the fourth installment of Swansea Ancient World Online Seminars.
Desert Politics: Abstract
In the geopolitics of ancient Northeast Africa, the regions outside the Nile are rarely afforded any level of political complexity. The main historical frame has been to treat these regions as ‘frontier’ theatres of Kush or Egypt whose peoples and resources were subject to foreign exploitation. Using the case study of the Blemmyes and the Eastern Desert in Late Antiquity, this paper aims to demonstrate how these para-Nilotic worlds could exhibit complex and independent political arrangements, even with cases of local autonomy and state formation. Such episodes question our overtly Nile-centric narrative yet also illustrate the possibilities of ‘unknown’ polities outside the Nile corridor.
How to attend
To attend this seminar, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom links. Thank you if you already have. Hope to see you there on Monday, albeit virtually.