Rosetta (Rasheed)

Depending on the number of days in your tour, some of our tours include opportunities to visit Nubian villages and towns, giving you a chance to learn about Nubian traditions and culture.

From about 7,000 BC, communities evolved from African Nile Valley civilisations to form the Nubian, Ancient Egyptian and Kushite civilizations.

We visit the town of Daraw, and we may visit other Nubian communities such as Al Kobanaya which is near Kom Ombo and where we also see the burial site of a Middle Paleolithic person, probably a young man 20-25 years old, whose skeleton is now in the Nubian Museum in Aswan.

There are several Nubian communities near Aswan.
Elephantine Island is still a favorite that has not been corrupted by tourism. West Sohail is popular and has boutique hotels but is no longer authentic, however East Sohail is still off beaten track and is also known for the Famine Stella (a hieroglyphic inscription that describes seven years drought and famine during the reign of the 3rd dynasty pharaoh Djoser) so this is our preference to visit. There are also more villages south of the Old Aswan dam and north of the High dam, such as Hessa Island.  

Nubian civilization is one of the oldest in the Nile River valley. Nubians are a distinct ethno-linguistic group indigenous to southern Egypt and northern Sudan, but Nubians in Egypt who were displaced by the construction of Old Aswan Dam and then the High Dam in the 20th Century near Aswan now mostly live north of Lake Nasser.

Construction of the High Dam in the 1960s resulted in 44 Nubian villages being submerged by the lake that was created, and many thousands of people were displaced from their homes and ancestral lands and resettled into a desert area near Kom Ombo, 70 km (43.5 miles) north of the dam. This resulted in many moving to other cities and countries, fragmenting the community.

Although Nubians are historically and culturally distinct from other Egyptians, they have long been interconnected with Egypt. Nubian pharaohs from the Kingdom of Kush ruled Ancient Egypt in the 7th Century BC.

The languages referred to as Nubian, Kenzi/Mattokki and Fadicca, became less used as the people interacted with more non-Nubian communities. Fortunately some aspects of Nubian culture and traditions survived through the older generations and are being encouraged by some younger Nubians through a variety of projects that are distinct from the more clichéd tourist experiences of the culture, including through film making and the making of a Nubian dictionary.

Article about Nubian filmmaker Hafsa Amberkab who is reclaiming the power of narrative by connecting younger generations to their language and culture, includes a music sample https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210922-a-revival-of-egypts-nubian-culture