57. Architectural Element with an Archer

This stone slab bears an incised representation of an archer, who is holding a bow with an arrow seen across the center. The archer’s face is abstractly but expertly outlined, including a distinctive hairstyle or headgear with a cropped crest or cap, attested in other representations of Nubians. Similar plaques from the site, with parallels in Meroitic culture, were painted with red, green and white pigments representing various Egyptian symbols (for example the ankh sign of life). This fragment was part of a door jamb or wall inset in a rectangular funerary chapel, within a cluster of features that included a royal tumulus, several other Post-Meroitic chapels, and pits with sacrificed camels and horses. The bow had religious resonances in Meroitic and Post-Meroitic societies as an attribute of the Nubian lion-headed war god Apedemak, which would make the archer theme suitable for a cultic building. If the plaque was part of a doorjamb, placement of the archer motif near a tomb door may have had an apotropaic, or protective, function. Moreover, the royal context of this work demonstrates that archery continued to carry social prestige in Post-Meroitic Nubia. Scan the brown QR code below to see a representation of the archer god and an example of how the Egyptian ankh symbol was used in Meroitic culture.