Alodia: Map & History

History

The name Alodia might be of considerable antiquity, perhaps appearing first as Alut on the Kushite stela of king Nastasen from the late 4th century BC. It appeared again as Alwa on a list of Kushite towns by the Roman author Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), said to be located south of Meroë. Another town named Alwa is mentioned in a 4th-century Aksumite inscription on the Ezana Stone, with the location of the town near the confluence of the Nile and the Atbara rivers.

By the early 4th century the Kingdom of Kush, which used to control much of Sudan's riverbanks, was in decline, and Nubians (speakers of Nubian languages) began to settle in the Nile Valley.

Economy

Alodia was in the savannah belt, giving it an economic advantage over its northern neighbor Makuria. According to al-Aswani the "provisions of the country of Alwa and their king" came from Kersa, which has been identified with the Gezira. North of the confluence of the two Niles agriculture was limited to farms along the river watered by devices like the shadoof or the more sophisticated sakia. In contrast, the farmers of the Gezira profited from sufficient rainfall to make rainfall cultivation the economic mainstay.

Archaeological records have provided insight into the types of food grown and consumed in Alodia. At Soba, the primary cereal was sorghum, although barley and millet were also known to be consumed.

Culture

While Alodia was polyethnic, and hence polylingual, it was essentially a Nubian state whose majority spoke a Nubian language. Based on a few inscriptions found in Alodian territory it has been suggested that the Alodians spoke a dialect distinct from Old Nobiin of northern Nubia, dubbed as Alwan-Nubian. This assumption rests primarily on the script used in these inscriptions, which, while also being based on the Greek alphabet, differs from that employed in Makuria by making no use of Coptic diacritics and instead having special characters based on Meroitic hieroglyphs. However, ultimately the classification of this language and its relationship to Old Nobiin has yet to be specified. It appears to have become extinct by the 19th century, when it had been replaced by Arabic.

Geography

Alodia was located in Nubia, a region which, in the Middle Ages, extended from Aswan in southern Egypt to an undetermined point south of the confluence of the White and Blue Nile rivers. The heartland of the kingdom was the Gezira, a fertile plain bounded by the White Nile in the west and the Blue Nile in the east. In contrast to the White Nile Valley, the Blue Nile Valley is rich in known Alodian archaeological sites, among them Soba. In the mid-19th century the right shore of the Blue Nile between Soba and the Rahad was reportedly still associated with the name of the kingdom.