Talk:Dotawo

Deletion proposal

I hereby suggest to delete this entry. According to recent reinterpretations, Dotawo was merely the Old Nubian name for Makuria and did not just describe some petty kingdom in Lower Nubia during the late Christian period.

"Modern scholars have typically considered Dotawo (...) to be subordinate to the kings of Makuria ruling from Dongola (...). Dotawo would thus be a later or alternative name for Nobadia, the once independent smaller kingdom in northern Nubia. These conclusions have been based on reports by Arab historians that the kings at Dongola rulver over many lesser kings. Equally compelling are apparent contradictions between the kings from the Qasr Ibrim protocols, on the one hand, and those known from Arab historians, on the other. However, these contradictions are an illusion based on out-of-date readings of the Old Nubian documents and a misunderstanding of earlier scholarship. The kingdom of Dotawo (..) was another name for the kingdom of Makurial, the kingdom ruled from Dongola at least until it was sacked in the 1360's." Giovanno Ruffini's: "Medieval Nubia. A social and economic history", p. 9

Roland Werner writes on page 145 in his "Das Christentum in Nubien" ("Christianity in Nubia"), that "since the 12th century at the latest, the name Dotawo refers to the united realm Makuria-Nobadia, and after the shift of the capital to Daw in winter 1365/6 the rest of Christian Nubia"

This interpretation is also suggested by a graffito from Kordofan, which mentions a king named Siti, who was described as "king of Dotawo" in other sources, one of them discovered in a church near Dongola.(See "A King of Makuria in Kordofan" by Gregorz Ochala)

Therefore, this entry doesn't really have any purpose other than offering information that a) is dated and b) could just be added to the Makuria entry. Perhaps there can be an automatized referral to Makuria when someone is looking for Dotawo? LeGabrie (talk) 22:23, 13 February 2018 (UTC)