Sudanic Statecraft? Political Organization in the Early Napatan Period

Abstract

The Piankhy Victory Stela contains several anomalies that have caused interpretive problems for Egyptologists. These difficulties stem from the assumption, inspired by the Egyptian appearance of their monuments, that the early 25^th Dynasty kings were attempting to rule in the same way as traditional Egyptian kings. This paper argues that by utilizing the segmentary state model as an interpretive framework, a concept derived from African anthropology that has already been shown to have much utility for the study of later periods of Sudanese history, many of these apparent contradictions can be resolved.

DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v07i2_howley