Dan talks with writer, broadcaster and journalist Zeinab Badawi about the ancient African kingdom of Kush and her book on African history.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the ancient kingdom of Kush?
It's hardcore history. So I've been looking for someone to talk with me about the ancient kingdom of Kush for years. The good news is I finally found the perfect person to do that, and I'm having them on the show today.
The bad news is this person has actually written a brand new book that encompasses the entire history of Africa, basically, from the beginning to recent times, from top to bottom, side to side. and I'm going to monopolize the conversation to talk about this one region and this one era.
So I apologize for all the stuff you're not going to get today that's in the book that we could have touched upon, but I've been trying for years to get somebody on this show to talk about this little pet issue of mine. So I'm afraid not only do I monopolize the conversation on the subject, but I dive right into it and don't give any background.
So let me do a little of that real quickly so that we know what we're discussing. The kingdom of Cush is a kingdom that's located, well, it starts in ancient Egyptian times. It's a contemporary, it's really the next door neighbor of the ancient Egyptians. Back to prehistoric times. Their relationship is as close as close can be.
You can see carvings of the troops of some of these pharaohs from the Old Kingdom that are buried with them. And, you know, Old Kingdom pharaohs, you're talking 2300, 2400 BCE, 2200 BCE, really old stuff. Old Kingdom, right? But in their tombs, you can see Kushite soldiers in their armies already buried. and already famous for the weapon that they are known for.
This is the land, the Kushites, or Kush, where they're from, is often called the land of the bow. And in the old kingdom pharaoh tombs, there they are, armed with their bows. Thousands of years later, Herodotus describing the great king of Persia's army and trying to emphasize the exoticness and the far-flung nature of his empire and all the troops that he could call upon.
He talks about a contingent from a place he calls Ethiopia, which is what the Greeks called the region that's now sort of Sudan and that encompasses the Kushite people. And he describes their soldiers similarly. says that they are black-skinned, that they paint their body in war paint from top to bottom.
I think it was one half red and one half white, and that they are carrying their bows that are as long as a man. They had a reputation for shooting at the eyes of their opponent, and one can imagine that that must have been something that earned you a lot of kudos with your You know, fellow warriors. I mean, oh my God, he got the eye, right? He shot at the guy's eye and he got it.
I mean, that's what you're aiming for. And the arrows are supposedly poisonous. That's quite a reputation to have from thousands of years ago. Now, I discovered the Kushites because a person who war-gamed at the shop where I war-gamed had an army that attracted all of our attention. It was a fascinating army that, on the surface, looked like a standard biblical Egyptian army.
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Chapter 2: How did Zeinab Badawi's career lead to her writing a book on African history?
What prompted you to sort of shift gears and say, I really want to get this book out?
Well, Dan, in a way, the book found me. And that is because having enjoyed a long career in broadcasting and making documentary films, I embarked on a project to make 20, 45-minute documentary films about the history of Africa. And I traveled to more than 30 countries in Africa over a period of about seven years.
And I interviewed dozens and dozens and dozens of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and so on. And I made the films, put them out. They're now available on BBC YouTube, free of charge. And I was very troubled by the fact that so much of what these marvelous African scholars had told me had, metaphorically speaking, hit the cutting room floor.
So I thought, you know what, I really want to do justice to what they told me. I want to ventilate their scholarship. And so I thought the only way I could do that was by writing a book, because I wanted to accord them the respect of bringing their vision, their perspectives, their scholarship, their research to the telling of the history of their own continent.
And so that's why I've written the book. And it's a passion, a mission for me. And I see myself as a kind of conduit, a facilitator for these African voices. I thought, let me use my international stage, as it were, to put them center stage and say at last, let us hear Africans telling their own story rather than having it being related by outsiders.
I thought it was fascinating that some of the people you were able to hear from specifically too, and you get the real sense of what you're missing in sort of the international debate on this, to have those voices not a part of the discussion. And a lot of it's connected to, you know, you point out, which of course DNA and all the historians and the anthropologists have pointed out forever,
that humankind all began on that continent.
Is there a sense amongst the people that you spoke to about this who are keeping alive, you know, what starts off when you go far enough back in history into oral conversations, right, and oral remembrances, are they sort of cognizant, are they able to sort of meld the modern day understanding that all humanity comes from that continent and somehow fuse it with their understanding of the early oral histories of the beginnings as they understand them?
Undoubtedly, everybody in Africa knows that there is nobody on Earth today who cannot say that Africa is not their mother continent. The science is settled. It's accepted all over the world. I mean, there are obviously some people who perhaps find it rather unpalatable that all humans originated from Africa. But there we go.
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Chapter 3: What unique perspectives do African historians provide?
And that's what I liked about the African historians that I encountered. They... do, you know, that they are aware of how accounts of great deeds and actions and words of great leaders throughout history have been handed down through the generations. Because, you know, knowledge in Africa is held communally. Knowledge in the West is held by an individual.
But in Africa, you know, knowledge is communal. It's, you know, your great grandmother may be the custodian of certain tables about your people's history. And that's mirrored in countless communities, you know, across regions. And so that's a very important point to make. And what the African historians are saying is we're not supplanting what the Western historians have done.
We're merely supplementing it and saying, if you only look at African history through a Western prism, you will miss something. Because If you just look at Africa through Western values system, you won't understand the African mindset. You will miss something. So in a sense, this diversification of looking at Africa's history, in my opinion, brings you
a better, more rounded, more authentic understanding of African history.
Well, and you bring up the writing part. So let's talk about that for a minute, because there is a writing part. And this is the ulterior motive where I've had you on this program. I've wanted to talk about the Kushites forever. I'm intensely interested in them. But because of the writing, I have the same problem with ancient Egypt.
If you're trying to dramatize a story, you really need sort of narratives from individuals on the ground. And the farther back in history you go, the less of that stuff you have. But the Kushites had a written language.
One of the most exciting things in your book, I thought, was your pointing out that the archaeology in the region has only scratched the surface of what's out there compared to, say, what we know about ancient Egypt. But there's a lot of reasons for that, including war-torn regions, lack of attention, governmental problems, funding problems.
And yet some of that's been overcome, and they're starting to find out more about things like the Kushites. And the Kushites had a written language, and I was surprised to find out that that still hasn't been deciphered. But what that means is it's out there to be deciphered. What do you expect? You know, I was just thinking of somebody had mentioned artificial intelligence.
as a wonderful translation tool. I mean, do you think we're going to get, to sort of get the Rosetta Stone for that at some point? You don't think, is it shaking your head? You don't think so?
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Chapter 4: How is the relationship between ancient Egypt and Kush characterized?
And everybody knows about ancient Egypt, yet nobody knows about the ancient northern Sudanese, you know, the kings and queens of Kush. But I think As the great Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet said, there will come a time when pseudonology will be as famous as Egyptology because it's a story that's just been unearthed. But the harsh climate,
the instability in the country, the lack of resources, means that we haven't really excavated the exciting history that just lies under the sand dunes and elsewhere in northern Sudan. But it's an amazing history and it's one which really touched me.
Of all the countries I visited, of course I would say that because it's the land of my ancestors, but I really think that it's a part of world history which should be better known. And, you know, forgive me for going on about this, Dan, but what I also like about the story of the Kingdom of Kush is it shows you how kingdoms rise and fall.
That today, you know, Sudan may be one of the less developed parts of the world, but In times gone by, it had this, you know, it was a superpower. And also the story of ancient Kut tells you how history is not something that can just be consigned to the past. Of course, history explains our past, but it also explains informs our present and helps shape our future.
And I just give you one very small illustration. The people of ancient northern Sudan, of Kush, considered it an abomination to eat fish. They had all this fish in the River Nile, you know, an amazing source of protein, yet they just wouldn't eat it. And to this day, the consumption of fish in northern Sudan is... far lower than many other places in the world.
It is on average one kilogram per person per year. Compare it to Egypt, another land of the Nile, where the average consumption is 25 kilograms per person per year. And it just shows you how, you know, History just continues. And I saw that in so many ways when I was exploring the culture of the Kushites.
And I also loved the fact that the queens of Kush also had such a powerful role to play in society. They could govern alongside their husbands and their sons as co-regents. And there were some like Amani Renance, who would actually lead their men into battle. She was known as the one-eyed queen because she lost an eye fighting the Romans. in 30 BCE.
And in fact, they were forced to in the end sign a peace treaty with her in 22 BCE. So it's just, you know, I can understand why you're fascinated by it, because it really is, you know, the stuff of Hollywood where fact is stranger than fiction. And I do wish that somebody would try and popularize this amazing chapter in African history.
Let me suggest, you brought up Hollywood, let me suggest that the interest is there, but it's misplaced. If you go on social media and you see the debates that people have over the ethnicity of Cleopatra,
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Chapter 5: What archaeological discoveries have been made about the Kushites?
as we've seen from the social media kind of exchanges. And that is for the reasons I've explained, but it is also because in 641 Common Era, the Arabs conquered Egypt and settled there, and obviously mixed with the Egyptians, and the Egyptians assumed the Arabic language,
And they also assumed Arab ideology, which made them feel that perhaps they were a bit separate from the rest of Africa because they became part of the Arabized north of Africa. So that's another reason why that sometimes there's a bit of a distance between Egyptians today and the rest of the continent.
But I firmly believe that the Arabized north of Africa is as much part of the continent's history and is as much part of Africa as any other part of the continent.
That's something I really got from your book. It was a reminder. You know, you'd mentioned the sort of interesting ethnicity of Egyptian pharaohs, but you see that over and over. You see it with the Roman emperors too, right? I mean, by the time you get to the empire, they're coming from all over the place, right? It's a cosmopolitan sort of a deal.
And you reminded me something that, again, if you just look at a map, you should know, but it escapes you sometimes. how narrow the Red Sea is and how close the Eastern African coast is from a place like Arabia.
And you were pointing out in your book, and again, this was history I did not, I was unaware of, but should have known better, that there would have been cross-Red Sea contact between Eastern Africa and Arabia going back to prehistoric times. Can you talk a little bit about I mean, that that's you know, we think about outsiders coming into Africa and influencing Africa.
We forget that that's going to be a two way street and that traders always have stuff that people want from far flung distances. Talk to me a little about maybe pre Islamic contacts between Eastern Africa and what we would call Western Asia.
Absolutely. So, you know, at its closest point, the Arabian Peninsula is only about 17, less than 20 kilometers from the East African Red Sea coast. And that's in modern day Eritrea today. So right from the get go, you had, you know, an exchange of people between the two. And I
In around 600 BCE, you had people called the Sabaeans who came from what would be modern day Yemen, and they crossed the Red Sea and they settled in what we would call Ethiopia and Eritrea today. And, you know, there was an exchange of ideas and belief and, you know, between the two peoples in terms of how they farmed, how they, you know, executed their animal husbandry. their religion.
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Chapter 6: How did the Kushites influence ancient Egyptian culture?
But then he said, show me the stables. And when he saw that the stable was full of horses that had become so emaciated because of the siege of Hermopolis, because the Kushite soldiers had encircled Hermopolis. And so the people inside, obviously, you know, starving and obviously the horses were practically dying there.
And it's said that on the Stela that Pianki became enraged like a panther and said, nothing that you've done has angered me as much as allowing these horses to practically starve to death because the Kushites adored their horses. And Pianki especially, you know, really just valued his horses to the extent that when he died, he was buried with his four horses.
the horses would have been buried alive with him. And they were dressed, you know, with their tails all beautifully brushed and wearing, you know, silver plumes and decorated. So, you know, Pianky, I think, is a very, very fascinating character because after he conquered Egypt and so on, he just took all his beauty back with him and went back to Cush and never returned to Egypt. So
You know, they are just very, very colourful characters. Teharke was also a very colourful character. He's actually mentioned in the Bible as Teharke of Ethiopia. Ethiopia just means the land of the blacks in ancient Greek. So if ever you see a reference to Ethiopia in the Bible or in ancient Greek writings, it doesn't refer to Ethiopia, the country today.
it really refers to the Kushites, the kingdom of Kush. That's how they were referred to. And Taharqa was, again, you know, an amazing soldier king. And he fought the Egyptians. He fought the Assyrians and really had a great deal of success in his encounters with them, but was ultimately defeated by them.
So I just think that they are such colourful characters and they are, you know, my most famous, my most popular figures in ancient African history, although there are many more colourful There are other colorful characters also.
Oh, your book is filled with them. I feel like I'm cheating you a little bit by focusing on what I want to focus on. When your book is really a catalog from the beginning almost to the end, from the north of the continent to the south to the east, you cover the whole thing, which is amazing, and you do so in such an accessible way. Talk to me a little bit about – I mean, when I think about these –
these Kushite kings, you think about them sort of taking over Egypt's normal geopolitical role. I mean, they're involved, they had their base at Gaza, they're involved in the, in the Levant. And as you said, they, they begin their connections. Although, you know, the ancient Egyptians before that even had connections with,
to Judaism, to the Bible, which will then... I mean, I was looking at one point in Eastern Africa, you have Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all sort of in a melange in that area. Can you talk to me about it? I mean, it's an interesting role when you think about the biblical connection.
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Chapter 7: What role did queens play in the Kingdom of Kush?
Chapter 8: How does the story of the Kushites inform our understanding of history today?
You want to get things like the Ark of the Covenant to a nice, safe place. Absolutely. You talked about, because speaking of color, you were talking about one Axum king who went into war, I wrote it down, quote, in a costume of linen and gold, adorned with jewels and beads, riding on a golden chariot, pulled by four elephants, and then sainted. I love that story.
Can you just tell us a little about that? And I realize that's a later period than what we've been dealing with, but I get taken over by the romance and the color. Yeah.
Yeah, that was King Caleb, who was a very devout Christian king. And he went into southern Yemen in order to help his fellow Christians, because it was said at the time that they were being persecuted by peoples who followed the Jewish religion. So he went in, dressed exactly as you just described, And he was a sort of great Christian king. He had support from the Portuguese.
And he went in and he managed to save the Christians of southern Yemen from the Jews. It was the leader of the Jewish people was Nua Iwas. You'd have to just check that one, the spelling, the pronunciation.
I'm very, very sympathetic.
And then after he had corrected this injustice to the Christians, he then went back to his capital in what would be modern day Ethiopia. And some accounts say that he just carried on in his reign. He was a very kind of magnanimous man. And other accounts say that actually
He retreated and became a monk and just spent the rest of his years, the next 15 years of his life before he died in a monastery. So, you know, that is a very, very interesting story. I have to find you the dates of King Caleb, but it is a bit later, as you say, than Izzanah.
I won't let you go without dealing with one of the sort of hidden parts of history that don't get enough attention, which is this whole subject, really. But but I mean, in your book, you point out several times the importance of women. Well, in all societies, right. Fifty percent of the population.
But but I mean, I remember reading about the Kushite women and how how the discussion was that they tended to be portrayed as rather heavyset because it was a sign of of the wealth and the and the wealth. the ability of that empire to support people who could be fat and happy, as we used to say. And yet, in your book, you talk about the importance of queens and all these.
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