Kulb

21.06611111111130.661944444444Koordinaten: 21 ° 4 ' N, 30 ° 40 ' E

Kulb is a village on the Nile in northern Sudan in an environment that has been inhabited since the time of the Christian empire of Makuria today. Until the 15th century the area was remote, while Islam spread to the south, a retreat for Christians in Nubia. The dome Church of Kulb West is the only known example of a central Christian building in Lower Nubia.

Location

Kulb is located about 130 kilometers southwest of Wadi Halfa and just north of the Dal Cataract, which is located between the 2nd and 3rd cataract. The two districts, which are on the left ( west ) and right bank of the Nile opposite are called Kulb West and accordingly Kulb East. In between, about one kilometer long island is Kulubnarti ("Island of Kulb "). The landscape around Kulb is called butn el- Hajar ( "belly of the stones "). Because of this, up to 400 meters from the plane towering, rugged and barren rocky area, the asphalt road between Abri and Wadi Halfa runs north from East Kulb at a greater distance to the east of the river.

History

In ancient Egyptian times Kulb was the southernmost point, penetrated to the metal miners of the pharaohs kingdom in search of copper ore and gold. During the 4th and 5th Dynasty, the Egyptians built in northern Wadi Allaqi from large amounts of copper. Rock inscriptions have Kulb out as an area for prospectors and nominate two officials: an " overseer of the metal detector " ( LMY -r smntyw ) and a " scribe of the metal detector " (SS smntyw ). They were obviously responsible for the collection of gold; show their titles that the search for raw materials in Nubia was organized as a state enterprise.

From the Roman period the granite mountains of butn el- Hajar separated the more culturally Come under Egyptian influence from the southern Upper Nubia Nubia.

The island has been inhabited since Kulubnarti about 1100 AD and was used until the demise of the Christian empire of Makuria as a refuge for Christians in Nubia. The fortress of Kulb may already existed before this time and was inhabited until the present day.

History of Research

The first sketches of the domed church made ​​at the beginning of the 20th century, the English Egyptologist Somers Clarke. He published in 1912 in the band Christian Antiquities in the Nile Valley. In March 1964 examined the exact measurements and Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Erich Dinkier, Peter Grossmann and other members of the German Archaeological Institute during a short journey through Nubia the church. 1969 and 1979 led William Yewdale Adams on behalf of the University of Kentucky extensive excavations on the island and on the adjacent mainland by. In January / February 1967 Erich Dinkier and Peter Grossmann came to an exploratory in the southern area of the butn el- Hajar. This was followed in the years 1968 and 1969, two excavation campaigns in Kulb and on the two northern islands Sunnarti and Turmuki. In Kulb the perimeter wall of the fortress and were exposed within lying remains of buildings. The domed church was excavated under the direction of James Knudstad early 1968. The period of the archaeological finds in the area of ​​research extends from the prehistoric culture of the A group to the Islamic period.

Domed church

The unusual central structure has already been recognized by Somers Clarke and Ugo Monneret de Villard in the 1930's as unique. He covered a rectangular area of ​​about 14 × 8.5 meters. In contrast to most of the Nubian churches, the building had in the middle of the long sides also built rectangular niches. The two inputs were each then west in the longitudinal walls. Behind the U-shaped altar area ( vestibule ) to the east joined a narrow handling of the two lateral apses adjoining rooms, which are arranged symmetrically to enter each by a door from Naos were. Along the west wall there was also a division into three approximately equal-sized rooms. In the southern side room held a triple-flight staircase with two quarter pedestals around a pillar around on the roof. In the 1960s, the central part of the north wall and the southern half of the apse stood upright to the base of the vault, the western outer wall was completely collapsed. You must have been just as closed as the east wall.

The entire building was made ​​of mud brick with only one layer of rough stones at ground level. In the alcoves of the north and south sides, and in the east wall there were paired slit window at the top. Another slot opening connecting the northwestern side room with the naos. In the southeast corner, there were remains of wall paintings.

About the naos arched with an inner diameter of 7.3 meters, the largest circular dome of Nubia. The only comparison with Kulb allows handed in a poor state church, which was built in the courtyard of the temple Bait al - Wali and is dated to the 8th century. This temple of Kalabsha was added in the course of the UNESCO rescue operation in the 1960s to New Kalabsha near Aswan. The Lehmziegelkirche had two domes, the larger had a base diameter of nearly six meters. The following largest dome of today flooded by Lake Nubia nave domed church of Tamit measured 3.3 meters and the monastery church of ar - Ramal 3.1 meters. Up to this diameter, the churches were usually überkuppelt. A comparison with Tamit offers Also, because there - for Nubia unusual - in the roof structure emerges the idea of ​​a central space with cross arms.

The dome made ​​in the design of a Nubian vault was built on a construction of eight equal arcs that transformed the square central space in an octagon. This corresponds to the principle of the Middle Byzantine Eight supports construction. With this construction, some churches are on the Greek Islands and the church of Dayr al - Quseir ( " mule monastery" ) a few kilometers south of Cairo related. In Nubia, there were only a few acquisitions to Aswan. No other church in Nubia is comparable to that of the supporting structure of the dome of the Church of Kulb. The dome shape of the later converted " Cross-shaped church " in Old Dongola is speculative.

The Eckangleichung to a horizontal, cylindrical attachment ( drummer ) was performed on spherical pendentives. In a large dome structure is graphically reconstructed. Far more often than with pendentives such " inner circle domes " in Nubia were transferred with squinches. Drummers there were - with the exception of the Church of Kaw River - as little as central domes were increased by quadratic intermediate links, to which the domes built up directly.

Adams dates the church by ceramic finds in the 12th and 13th centuries. Peter Grossmann joins the basis of style to compare.