Northeast African people documented in late antiquity
For the legendary beings, see Headless men.
Location of the Blemmyes in Late Antiquity
The Blemmyes (Ancient Greek: Βλέμμυες or Βλέμυες, Blémues[blé.my.es], Latin: Blemmyae) were an Eastern Desert people who appeared in written sources from the 7th century BC until the 8th century AD.[1] By the late 4th century, they had occupied Lower Nubia and established a kingdom. From inscriptions in the temple of Isis at Philae, a considerable amount is known about the structure of the Blemmyan state.[2]
The Blemmyes are usually identified as one of the components of the archaeological X-Group culture that flourished in Late Antiquity.[1] Their identification with the Beja people who have inhabited the same region since the Middle Ages is generally accepted.[3][4]
Modern Beja people, believed to be the descendants of the ancient Blemmyes.
^ abVassilios Christides (1980), "Ethnic Movements in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan: Blemmyes-Beja in Late Antique and Early Arab Egypt until 707 A. D.", Listy filologické, 103 (3): 129–143, JSTOR 23464092.
^Derek Welsby (2002), The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia: Pagans, Christians and Muslims Along the Middle Nile, British Museum, pp. 16–17.
^Jitse H.F. Dijkstra (2013), "Blemmyes", The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Wiley, pp. 1145–1146.
^Jitse H.F. Dijkstra (2018), "Blemmyes", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, p. 253.
Queen of the Palmyrene Empire, Zenobia, with the help of the Blemmyes themselves. The Blemmyes were said to have joined forces with the Palmyrans against...
origins of the name "Blemmyes", and the question is considered unsettled. In antiquity, the actual tribe known as the Blemmyes were said to be named...
ascribed an uncivilized nature to the Blemmyes. Both Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela associated the Blemmyes with mythical figures such as satyrs and...
ancient Cushitic language related to the Cushitic Beja language and that the Blemmyes were a subdivision of the Medjay. Rilly (2019) mentions historical records...
beings known as the Blemmyes, who are indeed said to have no head, and have their facial features on the chest. Cannibalism Blemmyes (legendary creatures)...
as the Early Holocene. Based on onomastic evidence, the Medjay and the Blemmyes of northern Nubia are believed to have spoken Cushitic languages related...
Phonen was king of Blemmyes, known from a letter which was found in Qasr Ibrim, Lower Nubia, in 1976. The papyrus letter comes perhaps from some royal...
praefectus Aegypti as their new emperor.: 23 He enjoyed successes against the Blemmyes attacking the Thebaid, but by August 262 Alexandria was devastated and...
Lower Nubia and some cities in Upper Egypt. Rilly (2019) states: "The Blemmyes are another Cushitic speaking tribe, or more likely a subdivision of the...
Ibrim. The letter was written in bad Greek directed by the king of the Blemmyes, Phonen, and his son, the phylarch Breytek, to Aburni Nakase and his sons...
languages and gave their name to Nubia itself. Because the Noba and the Blemmyes were at war with the Kushites the Aksumites took advantage of this, capturing...
northern or Lower Nubia north of Kerma (such as the C-Group culture and the Blemmyes) spoke Cushitic languages before the spread of Eastern Sudanic languages...
man is depicted interacting with a monkey. The headless men, known as Blemmyes, were portrayed in medieval maps and books as threatening. In Islamic culture...
successfully defeated the Blemmyes to the North, and an inscription by Silko at the Temple of Kalabsha claims to have driven the Blemmyes into the Eastern Desert...
Mazices raided again in 410 and 434. About 445, the Mazices harried some Blemmyes retreating from a raid on an Egyptian oasis. In 491, they raided Cyrenaica...
earlier accounts provided by Herodotos. Baudolino meets eunuchs, unicorns, Blemmyes, skiapods and pygmies. At one point, he falls in love with a female satyr-like...
Cushitic-speaking pastoral nomads native to northeast Africa, referred to as Blemmyes in ancient texts. The geographer Abu Nasr Mutahhar al-Maqdisi wrote in...
year or in 300/301, he makes agreements with the Meroitic Nubians and the Blemmyes. He agrees to pay subsidies to both peoples, and he cedes the Dodecashoenos...
successful in defeating the Blemmyes, and an inscription by Silko, "Basiliskos" of the Nobatae, claims to have driven the Blemmyes into the Eastern Desert...
the Kushite resettled in Meroë. On the turn of the fifth century the Blemmyes established a short-lived state in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, probably...
singular Afer – a Latin name for the inhabitants of the Africa Province Blemmyes – a nomadic Beja tribal kingdom (at least 600 BCE – 3rd century CE) Ichthyophagi...
raiding nomads. The Kushites too appear to have found nomads like the Blemmyes to be a problem. The conditions were ripe for a deal. During negotiations...
surmised by Europeans to be the result of some kind of simian crossbreeding. Blemmyes (or akephaloi) – Legendary race of people with no heads and facial features...
poems, but not originating in comics or other sequential art. History of Blemmyes and nomads in southern Egypt and Nubia, Saudi Aramco World, May/June 1998...
Burgundians. The Tervingian Goths and Taifali fight the Vandals and Gepids. The Blemmyes invade the Kingdom of Kush. King Bahram II fights against a coalition consisting...
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