The ancient Egyptians knew Ethiopia and its people under a variety of names. The earliest mention of the country, so far as present records go, is con¬tained in an inscription on what is known as the Palermo Stone* and dates from the early part of the third millennium 8.C. Here the region immediately south of Egypt is designated "the land of the Nehsyuw" ("Nehsyw" or "Nehesi"), accord¬ing to the transliterations of different Egyptologists. In the opinion of many scholars the word Nehsyuw meant, in Egyp¬tian, "black"; hence the "land of Nehsyuw" was the Egyptian equivalent of the "land of the blacks." During the same pe-riod, the Egyptians also referred to this region as Khent ("the borderland") and as Ta-Sti, ("land of the bow"), and the peo-ide were called the Steu or "bowmen." Budge thinks that the uorthern section of Ethiopia was also anciently designated, as ,kt present, by a form of the word Nubia, being derived from !he Egyptian word nub, meaning "gold"; hence, in his opin-'on, the district bore a designation equivalent to the "land of ?;old."
ln the second millennium B.C„ following hard on waves of northward migrations and a series of attacks upon Egypt by Ythiopians out of the southern regions, the word Kush as a designation of Ethiopia made its appearance in Egyptian records and continued to be the chief name applied to the hinds of the south until the collapse of Egyptian civilization. During the period of the New Empire, which saw Egypt's development into the greatest cultural and political power of the early ancient world, the term Kush became one of the most widely used and familiar expressions in Egyptian geo-graphical and historical literature. The exact boundaries of the territory included by the Egyptians under this famous term are not very clear; in the opinion of some scholars, the appel¬lation was applied chiefly to the northern part of the country, while others think that it was used as a designation for the southern lands as far south as the Blue Nile. Although this celebrated term was formerly thought to be of Egyptian or perhaps Hebrew origin, the recent discovery of the equivalent Qevs (Kesh) in Ethiopian inscriptions points to the possibility of a southern or Ethiopian derivation. Almost as common in Egyptian literature were the terms Punt and Ta Ta-Neter, ap¬plied by the Egyptians to that part of Greater Ethiopia extend¬ing roughly from the headwaters of the Atbara and the Blue Nile eastward to the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf, and the southern reaches of the Red Sea.
Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Wednesday, September 17th 2014 at 2:57PM
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