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Pan-Grave People and Culture

The Middle Bronze Age in Nubia was roughly coeval with the Middle Kingdom and the Second  Intermediate  Period  in  Egypt  (c.2061-1569  BCE).  The  various  cultural affiliations, the developmental phases, and the sub-phases  of the Nubian peoples that lived in this era have only been broadly  defined;  they  are  still  undergoing  the  process  of  redefinition.  Of  particular interest, however, is a population belonging to the Lower  Nubian tradition—but also found in the deserts bordering the Nile River and  in  other  parts  of  Egypt—that  was  designated  by  early  archaeologists  as  the  Pan-Grave  culture.  The  name  was  derived  from  their  shallow  round  or  oval  graves  (0.5-2  meters  in  depth  [1.5-6 feet]), which resembled European baking or cooking pans.

The Pan-Grave burials can be associated with the Med-jay, the fierce Nubian bowmen mentioned  in  ancient  Egyptian  texts;  the  term is also found in the toponym Mgy, and both may derive from  the  Egyptian  term  for  "the  one  who  moves  about,"  testifying  to  their nomadism. The Medjay were attested to have been employed  as mercenaries, as an expeditionary force in Egypt, at least as early  as the Old Kingdom. They have also been associated with a group  of mercenaries resident at Gebelein during the First Intermediate Period. The fortresses built in the Second Cataract region seem, at  least  in  part,  to  have  been  needed  to  protect  the  area  from  incursions by this group. The Fort at Serra was named "repelling  the  Medjay,"  and  the  Semna  dispatches  recorded  efforts  to  keep  these peoples within their desert boundaries.

Pan-Grave People and Culture
Pan-Grave People and Culture
Drawing of a stela from Gebelein
depicting a Nubian bownwn in
traditional costume with
his Egyptian wife and family.
The stela is now in the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston
.
The confines of the Pan-Grave peoples in the desert margins has been borne out archaeologically. Cemeteries of this population  were  often  found  to  be  on  the  perimeter  of  Nubian  C-Group  or  even Egyptian cemeteries that were positioned closer to the Nile.  Whereas the Pan-Grave ceramic assemblage included incised and  black-top  pottery,  these  ceramics  differed  considerably  from  Nubian  C-Group  ceramics  made  at  that  time. For  example,  Pan- Grave black-topped "luxury wares" were very finely finished with  bodies having a distinct, level black rim; the incised wares were  often of similar exceptional quality. The Pan-Grave burial customs  and  material  culture  were  similar  to  those  of  the  Nubian  Kerma  culture  of  that  time.  The  oval  tumulus  graves  of  the  Pan-Grave  people resembled those of the Kerma culture, as did their practice  of decorating the graves with the painted skulls of horned cattle, sheep, or goats.

Daggers and axes have been frequently included in Pan-Grave burials, attesting to an owner's  possible  role  as  a  mercenary.  Distinctive Pan-Grave costume included sets of armlets or sashes  made of rectangular mother-of-pearl plaques that were bored at both ends for stringing. Other elements  of costume included beaded leather kilts, leather sandals, bead and  shell necklaces, and wire torques.

The range of the Pan-Grave people has been established as north to Middle Egypt and south to the Third Cataract of the Nile. Attestations of their presence as far south as Khartoum, however, may have resulted from some misidentification of ceramic types. As for the Pan-Grave peoples who migrated into Egyptian territory and were employed as  military guards and bowmen, Janine Bourriau (1991) has suggested that this group was acculturated  into  Egypt  throughout  the course of the Middle Kingdom. For example, a gradual evolution has been noted in some of the Pan- Grave cemeteries in Egypt, in which a segregated area with burials that follow a strictly Lower Nubian tradition give way to tombs  found within Egyptian necropoli. This evidence substantiates  Egyp-tianization. Bourriau has also suggested that the Pan-Grave mercenary soldiers  for the  Egyptian army were replaced, during  the Second  Intermediate Period, by recruits from the Kerma culture. In fact, early excavators had actually confused the Kerma burials in Egyptian cemeteries with those of the true Pan-Grave people who had also been buried there.

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