After the conquest of Egypt by Augustus the first prefect appointed or agreed to a native ruler for the Triacontaschoenus, but while the next prefect was engaged in Arabia, an army under the command of the Meroitic crown-prince, Akinirar, in the reign of Teriteqas and Amenirenas-Candace, attacked and captured Philae, Syene and Elephantine, and established itself at Dakkeh (Pselcis). Petronius, however, the third prefect, quickly captured their headquarters, almost annihilating the Meroitic army, and following up the Nile, reached Napata and destroyed it. After a Roman garrison had held Ibrim for several months Augustus decided to limit the possessions of the empire above Syene to the Dodecaschoenus, and soon temple-building began again in this Roman territory all along the west bank, the east bank being more open to attack from the Blemmyes of the desert. The punitive expedition of Petronius had been disastrous for the Mer oites from Napata northward, and two centurions who spied out Ethiopia for Nero found nothing but scattered villages and a very impoverished people. Prosperity returned, and in the reign of Natakamani and his queen Amanitere Candace a temple was built at Amara between the Second and Third Cataract ; the Napata temple was restored and important buildings were erected in the far south at Naga and Ben-naga and Meroe itself, towards the end of the i st century A.D. The Faras cemetery, a type of many others, now becomes full of graves with decorated wheel-made pottery in abundance, vessels of bronze and glass, bead necklaces and trinkets, indicating a large and prosperous community. Many of the objects were imported ; much is childish or in bad taste, but some of the local pottery is handsome in shape and decoration and much, such as the well-preserved barbotine cups, is of archae ological interest. The traditional hand-made wares (except black topped red ware) also recur. A century later the pottery is all wheel-made but less varied and interesting though still quite characteristic. Dating from A.D. 252 is a very long inscription in demotic writing at Philae recording a religious mission sent to the temple by King Teqreramani, whose monuments are amongst the latest found at Meroe. During all this time the Dodeca schoenus remained outside the Meroitic rule, and its antiquities are of Late Roman style and totally distinct from the Meroitic series on the other side of the border line. Soon after this date the Meroitic culture in Lower Nubia was destroyed by the Blem myes of the eastern desert who from time to time laid waste Upper Egypt. About A.D. 285 Diocletian withdrew the garrisons from the Dodecaschoenus and invited the Nobadae from the western desert to settle there, subsidising them as a protection against the Blemmyes. The remnants of Meroitic civilization in the south were wiped out early in the 4th century by Aeizanes the powerful king of Axum. The Blemmyes were now established in the valley of the Dodecaschoenus and as far up the Nile as Ibrim and their king reigned at Talmis (Kalabsheh). In the middle of the next century the Nobadae united with the Blemmyes in fresh outrages on Egypt ; they were compelled by Florus in 452 to keep the peace for a hundred years but were allowed to visit the temple of Philae and borrow the statue of Isis for consulta tion in their own country. About the end of that century Silco,
king of the Nobadae, conquered the Blemmyes from Ibrim to the First Cataract. We next discern at least five peoples in Nubia; the Nobadae in the valley between the two cataracts with capital probably Pachoras ; the Blemmyes in the eastern desert ; the Mak urians (perhaps the old Magabari) south of the Nobadae, with capital perhaps at Dongola; and the kingdom of 'Aiwa (Alodia) with capital 'Aiwa or Saba on the Blue Nile near Khartoum. In A.D. 543 the pagan temple of Philae was definitely closed and the statues then taken to Constantinople. A Christian missionary, Julian, of the Monophysite creed, with Theodore the bishop of Philae, began the conversion of the Nobadae, and after an interval of 18 years the conversion was consolidated by Longinus, another Monophysite, from 569 onwards. At about that time, under a king Eirpanome, the temple of DebOd was converted into a church. In 58o Bishop Longinus accepted the invitation of the king of 'Aiwa and was escorted by the friendly Blemmyes through the deserts to the Blue Nile ; 'Aiwa at once became Christian, al though the intervening Makuria remained stoutly pagan for a time.
Little is known of the history of Christian Nubia. For a cen tury Lower Nubia probably enjoyed peace and prosperity, Makuria and Nobadia uniting in one Christian kingdom ruled from Dongola. In 652 a Muslim army from Egypt under 'Abd allah-ibn Sa'ad captured Dongola, and required all the inhabitants of the kingdom to pay tribute to Egypt. Arabic historians often refer to the dealings of Egypt with Nubia, and the names of many kings are known from literary sources or from monuments, some of them being native as the above Eirpanome and Kudanbes (A.D. 132o), others biblical, as David, Abram, others again Chris as Basil. Mercurius.
The churches in Nubia were singularly small, when not simply adaptations of heathen temples or parts of them, or of tomb grottoes. The more pretentious were built with carved stone columns and lintels, the walls of stone up to the level of the windows and above that of crude brick; others were entirely of crude brick, for which material in the more rainy districts of the south burnt brick was substituted. 1VIany bear the marks of Muslim ruin and progressively inferior repair, with inappropriate re-use of the carved stones. There were two principal types, basilican and domed. The apse was single with altar in front and a sacristy on either side ; the nave was with aisles, the ambo on the north side of the nave, a chamber at the north-west corner and a stairway to the roof at the south-west corner. Painted figures of Christ, saints and angels, and scenes from the Old and New Testaments covered a large part of the walls. Little now remains of them, much having been ruined in the last hundred years, not only by the natives, but by archaeologists clearing away without record all Christian work from the temples. Pottery was, as always in Nubia, the best product of the arts, the most attractive sort being shallow cups of fine thin ware coated with a thick white slip and painted in various designs in sepia.