Located just south of ancient Egypt, or within both present-day Egypt and Sudan, the tract of land that follows the Nile River into central Africa has been known by many names. The name given by the early native people of the region remains unknown. The Egyptians called it Ta-sety, meaning "Land of the Bow", which is a reference to the weapon most commonly identified with the inhabitants. They also called it The Southern Lands or Kush. The term Nubia first appeared in the Roman period and is still applied to the region today. The term may have been derived from the Egyptian word nbw, meaning gold, a resource which came from the region in great abundance (Taylor 5).
Ancient Nubia is usually defined as the region between Aswan, at the first cataract of the Nile, and Khartoum, just south of the sixth cataract. The region referred to as Lower Egypt is the northernmost portion and "can be regarded as a homogenous geographical zone" (Save 14). Upper Nubia extends south into Sudan and can be subdivided into several separate areas such as the uninviting Batn el Hajar or "Belly of Rocks", the sands of the Abri-Delgo Reach, or the flat plains of the Dongola Reach (Save 16). As one moves north or south along the Nile, the landscape of Nubia changes frequently and rapidly. The region of Nubia is in "the hottest and most arid region of the world" and civlizations that live and have lived there depend "wholly on the Nile" (Trigger 14).
The land of Nubia has long been a meeting place of different cultures. It has been the only occupied strip of land throughout history connecting the Mediterranean world with the lands of tropical Africa. This condition put the native peoples of this land in close and constant contact with their neighbors for long periods of history, and made Nubia an important route for trade between Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. The importance of Nubia as a link between two sides of the world, that of "the cradle of western civilzations" and that of the shadowy continent out of which came many desirable and exotic commodities", is reflected in the formation of its culture as seen in the archaeological record. Traditions of central Africa are apparent in the material culture and the languages of the ancient Nubians. On the other hand, the influence of Egyptian and other Mediterranean culture is evident in the architecture and art of ancient Nubian culture. Although the people of ancient Nubia were greatly influenced by other civilizations, it should be noted that the Nubians themselves had control and influence over surrounding cultures at certain points in their history (Taylor 5-7). The most prosperous period of Nubian civilization was that of the kingdom of Kush, which endured from about 800 B.C. to about 320 A.D. During this time, the Nubians of the kingdom of Kush would ,at one point, assume rule over all of Nubia as well as Upper and Lower Egypt (Britannica Online: Nubia).
Nubia is of great importance to the archaeological world for many reasons. The region was the site of some of the earliest human development and archaeologists have used the region to better understand the development of sedentism. The material record of the cultures of the region is abundant and the stages of cultural development are largely interpretable in the archaeological account. The excavations of the twentieth century in Nubia have been well organized and have put much emphasis on the salvation of cultural heritage. The "archaeology of Lower Nubia" is "probably the best documented of any comparable area in the world", an important factor for a discipline as ambiguous as archaeology (Taylor 7).