The Warrior Couple

UNESCO World Heritage Site "Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe"
Period: Kushite Kingdom (Meroe), first quarter of the first century AD
Location: Naqa, Naḥr an Nīl State, Sudan (النقعة, ولاية نهر النيل, جمهورية السودان)

The temple to Apedemak of Tolkte (an-Naq'a/النقعة) is a mixture of traditional Egyptian and local elements.

The pylon itself echoes those of the Egyptian temples, though some of the elements in the reliefs of King Natakamani (left) and Queen Amanitore (right) are decidedly Kushite.

The king is shown in the process of slaying a multitude of prisoners with his mace, while a lion (the animal of the god Apedemak) is devouring another enemy. Above him hovers a falcon crowned with the pjent, the double-crown of Upper and Lower Egypt to which the Kushites had not had any actual claim for over half a millenium.

Opposite him, Amanitore, wearing a ureaus crown with a sitting, winged lion (or falcon?) is engaged in a slaughter of her own, though she uses a sword that strongly resembles the gladius of the Roman Republic. She, too, is accompanied by a lion, who has just seized a prisoner with his paws. Amanitore is shown with the full forms more typical of African than of Egyptian art.

It is unknown who the prisoners are: they may be members of desert tribes who kept harassing the Meroitic sites, or they are merely symbolic, and a part of the imagery expected on such pylons.

Meroë had, some 20 years before the temple was built, engaged in a fierce war with Rome, whose historians were impressed by their female military leaders: Strabo describes their Queen Candace (actually a title, not a proper name) as "a masculine sort of woman, and blind in one eye".

Indeed, Meroë had taken advantage of a perceived weakness in Roman Egypt and attacked while its governor was on an eastern campaign. They sacked Syene (Aswan), Elephantine, and Philae, and made off with plunder and prisoners. Roman reprisals, however, penetrated as far as Napata, which was razed to the ground. A retaliatory Nubian attack against Premnis (Qasr Ibrim) came to nothing, but subsequently, a treaty which gave excellent terms to the Nubians was forged.

As for Apedemak, he was a lion-headed warrior deity, who occasionally has a serpentine body. He was a god of destruction and war, but also of protection, fecundity, and abundance.