Napatan Tomb Decorations. Loans from Private Theban Burials in the Royal Kushite Necropolises

Abstract

This paper deals with the funerary architecture of the royal necropolises of the Napata Kingdom where an evident influence comes from the Theban elitist models of the Asasif. These decorative loans were randomly chosen and in use in Nubia following a specific local taste in relation to the layout of the tombs, their figurative and epigraphical decorations. They show an independent, adaptive and selective emulation, as well as a personal mingling of Egyptian models, sometimes reinterpreting them, shaping new patterns in visual art and creating an indigenous textual program within the burial chambers. Egyptian religion had a key role in the provision of textual corpuses even in periods of conflict, when a continuous trade of religious equipment and scriptural material were brought to Napata through an international market system managed by religious institutions.