ABSTRACT

Sinnar, it has been suggested, was the heir to an ancient tradition of state formation in the Nile valley. In the vast region between the Nile and modern Chad, states are apparently a more recent phenomenon, but the evidence is so scanty that our perspective may simply be foreshortened. Within this area, much of it a paradise for nomads but inhospitable to more settled ways of life, only central Dar Fur, in and around the Jabal Marra mountains, appears to have offered a nuclear area favourable to state-forming activity. And even here the external impetus of trade seems to have been a crucial factor in the expansion of the state beyond its original tribal homeland.