NapatanTemplesACaseStudyfromGebelBarkal.doc

Napatan Temples: A Case Study from Gebel Barkal (Authors Note: a computer crash in the last days has resulted in a serious disk error with some corruption of the automatic footnote numbering system. I have not been able to correct this problem easily, so I thought I should send the document off in spite of this flaw. I have tried to indicate in the text which footnotes go with which footnote number . I also send this document without the figures, which are still in preparation. Their omission should not in any way affect ones understanding of the text. Apologies to all!) Gebel Barkal, the Mythological Nubian Origin of Egyptian Kingship, and the Formation of the Napatan State Timothy Kendall Introduction and Abstract. Some months ago I was asked by the conference organizers to present a paper on Napatan temples. In looking over what has already been written on this subject - most recently the fine treatment by Laszlo T?r?k (1997, 299-326) - I felt it would be rather pointless for me to plough this same ground. Of course, since T?r?ks work was prepared, important new discoveries of temples have been made in the Sudan, each with rather extraordinary implications. These are the finds at Doukki Gel/Kerma (Bonnet, Valbelle, and Ahmed 2000), at Soniyat, Hugeir, and Usli (Zurawski 1998; 2001), and at Dangeil (Anderson and Ahmed 2000). Since the excavators of these sites will be reporting on them directly at the conference, it seemed to me that my own task here ought to be nothing more than to report on the recent discoveries and conclusions of my own team in the Napatan temples at Gebel Barkal.  Over the years my expedition has been sponsored officially both by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1986-1997) and by the Sudan Archaeological Mission of the University of Rome (1999-present) in collaboration with the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, Sudan. Our group has worked generally very short seasons within this period, not always annually: March 1