markellion's video: The Sudan and its historical relations with the rest of the world part 1

This is just some information to get started with "Man, past and present" By Augustus Henry Keane 1900 http://books.google.com/books?id=DDwLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA75&dq= =onepage&q=&f=false (On Nubia) it was strong enough frequently to invade Egypt in defense of their oppressed Greek and Koptic fellow-Christians. So early as 640 a combined army of Nubas and Bejas, said to have numbered 50,000 men with 1500 elephants, penetrated as far north as Oxyrhynchus (the Arab Bahnosa) where such a surprising store of Greek and other documents was discovered in 1897. Cultured peoples with such glorious records, and traditions going back even to pre-Christian times (Silco and Queen Candace, contemporary of Augustus The encyclopædia Britannica 1910 http://books.google.com/books?id=gT0EAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA415&dq= =onepage&q=&f=false at periods the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when Cyriacus, their then king, marched into Egypt with a large army to redress the grievances of the Copts. There is a record of an embassy sent by a king Zacharias in the 9th century to Bagdad concerning the tribute, while by the close of the l0th century the Nubians seem to have regained almost complete independence.. ..the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krcstos (1342-1372), because the governor of Cairo had thrown the patriarch of Alexandria into prison. The date usually assigned for the overthrow of the Christian kingdom 1351. Only the northern part of the country (as far as the 3rd cataract) came under the rule of Egypt.. M.A. Shaban page 109 http://books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA110 =onepage&q=&f=false The sudden and conspicuous appearance of the Sudan amongst the armies of Ibn Tulun in Egypt calls for an explanation. Some sources like us to believe that he bought as many as 40,000 Negro slaves and made soldieries out of them to build up an empire of his own. Buying such a number of slaves, let alone training them to be an effective fighting force in a completely unfamiliar territory, would certainly have required more time than the few years that preceded their appearance in Egypt and subsequently in Syria and on the Byzantine borders in the early years of Ibn Tuluns rule 868/884. Other sources more accurately inform us that he enlisted these Sudan in his army page 110 http://books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA110 =onepage&q=&f=false "We are here concerned with the Zaghawa, the name of a tribe and its territory which bordered the south of the Sahara and extended west from what is now the western Sudan across Chad, Niger and Northern Nigeria to Upper Vota. Through these regions passed an important trade route that started from Ghana and continued all the way to the Egyptian Oasis and then either to the Nile Valley or to Tripolitania. The good relations with the king of Nubia, who had had his Nubia House in Fustat since the days of Mutasim, provided the solution" page 111 http://books.google.com/books?id=Wkqlp-lHllcC&pg=PA111 =onepage&q=&f=false "For the Zaghawa the Nubian route was a much safer one that would save them from the hazards of the desert. Once this was established, their increasing presence in Egypt was almost a logical consequence and a clear indication of their interest is widening the scope of their trade. Ibn Tulun would have no objection to such an expansion which could only enhance the wealth of his domains. This common interest created the opportunity for military as well as economic co-operation which explains the enlistment of the Sudan in the army of Egypt" Perry Noble http://books.google.com/books?id=vdxBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA164 =onepage&q=&f=false "In the Chad group the Hausa has spread farthest and acquired most usefulness. The vernacular of a numerous people, it offers a valuable medium of communication through vast districts on both sides of the Binwe and the Niger. In extent of use it surpasses all other languages in inner Africa, serving not only as the mother=tongue of millions but as a world speech between tribes of different languages and between Mediterranean and Sudanese Africa. Hausa is remarkable for simplicity, elegance and wealth of vocabulary. It stands among the world's imperial languages, magnificent, rich and sonorous, beautiful and facile in grammatical structure, enjoying a harmony in the forms of its words and a symphonic symmetry that few tongues can equal, and assured of prolonged existence and vast expansion. It is the Latin of Central Sudan."