“All Who Are with Him are Defeated”: Execration Texts of the Middle Kingdom on the Nubian Dynasties

Abstract

The paper deals with dynastic lines of Nubian states, which were situated to the south of the 2nd Cataract during the Middle Kingdom. The names of Nubian rulers reached us in special lists — the so-called Execration texts. Carved on small figurines or vessels Execration texts were discovered and published in the previous century. There are four corpuses of texts today, covering almost the entire period of the Middle Kingdom: Helwan, Mirgissa, Berlin, and Brussels. Due to these sources, it was possible to establish a dynastic connection between some of the rulers mentioned in the texts of different corpuses. This made it possible to construct a genealogical line of almost chiefs of Nubian regions known to the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom. An analysis of the names of the rulers, as well as additional information from other sources, made it possible to correct approximate dating of the corpuses Execration texts, which was given by previous researchers. The genealogical lines of the rulers of Nubia, formed with the help of these sources and their connection to the dates of the reign of the Egyptian kings of the XII dynasty made it possible to clarify some details of the political relationship between Egypt of the Middle Kingdom and the Nubian states.