ABSTRACT
The name of ‘Nubia’ has long been used to describe Egypt’s southern neighbour. Various forms of the name are known, in many languages, since it first appears in classical sources. In the medieval period – known mainly through Arabic sources – Nubia was a large and often ill-defined region covering much of the modern Middle Nile Basin. More recently it has had a more restricted meaning, limited to riverine areas of northern Sudan and southern Egypt, where Nubian languages were still spoken. Historically, other names have also been applied to this region and its inhabitants, ‘Kush’ being a widely used term in the Ancient World, as well as ‘Aithiopia’. To the Arabs, this was all part of a larger ‘al-Bilad as-Sudan’.
