| Chapter 1: | Historical and Cultural Background |
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and daily life in Nubia. Serious gaps in our knowledge of these aspects of the X-Group period still exist, although the situation in Lower Nubia is better than that which presently exists in Upper Nubia. Even so, the evidence of settlement and construction in Lower Nubia remains sparse in this period and is restricted to a relatively small number of sites.
The limited amount of settlement evidence has traditionally been attributed to the barren landscape in Lower Nubia and the associated poverty of the land, making it an inopportune area for habitation. The introduction of the saqia as an effective method of extracting water has been viewed as instrumental to the apparent resettlement of Lower Nubia in the late Meroitic period, promoting what Adams described as a “land rush” (1977, 420). The qadus pots that were used on the saqia are widely found in archaeological sites of this period, including Qustul and Ballana. The use of the saqia enabled yearlong irrigation and the introduction of new types of crops. At Qasr Ibrim, by the late Meroitic period, various types of sorghum and wheat, pearl millet, termis beans, sesame, and peas had appeared (Rowley-Conwy 1989; Edwards 2004, 203; Fuller 2008). Although the saqia and the introduction of new agricultural regimes in Lower Nubia made occupation of the region more practicable and therefore more widespread than in previous periods, settlement remains are still quite limited, not least because of the probable location of such sites in the flood plain. The elevation of the Aswan High Dam has now permanently flooded many such sites.
No corresponding settlement site for the cemetery at Qustul has been discovered, but Rose believed that Gebel Adda and Faras may have been possible locations (1992, 89). Millet, on the other hand, seemed doubtful that his finds could justify this hope at Gebel Adda (Millet 1967, 58). A Meroitic-period settlement at Ballana yielded only Meroitic finds, but the excavations were very hasty; and further excavation may have produced material from a transitional or later period (Williams 1991a, 458; 1991b, 291–293). An inscription on one of the Aezana stelae recorded that the people encountered by Aezana lived in towns of brick and towns of reeds (Emery and Kirwan 1938a, 9). The construction of dwellings from perishable materials that would be unlikely to survive through