Where does Nubia fit in the Context of Nile Valley Civilization and the Ancient World?
Very little was known of ancient Nubia and the evolution of urban, literate society in sub-Saharan Africa until relatively recently. This was partly due to two factors: first, until the second half of the twentieth century relatively little archaeological work had been done in Nubia, and it was still a land of which most people were completely ignorant. A serious problem was that the first archaeologists in Nubia were, on the one hand, primarily Egyptologists, so that they had an Egyptocentered world view and could only understand Nubia through the biased words and images of the ancient Egyptians. On the other hand, many of these scholars were also racists and held views typical of the nineteenth century: that all dark-skinned African peoples were inferior and thus could never have created anything very important. To them Africa was and forever would be the “Dark Continent.” In their minds all evidence of high culture in Nubia and Sudan was simply the creation of foreigners – Egyptians
