Nubia is in Upper Egypt, right next to Aswan, starting from the first waterfall on the Nile River and extending to the sixth waterfall or, according to some people, to the point where the White and Blue Nile branches meet. The people living there are called Nubian. During the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim (1512–1520), administrative organizations were established in Aswan and Ibrim in Lower Nubia, which came under Ottoman rule. In addition, the Ottomans called the people of the region Berber and Berberistan. This study explores the socioeconomic and cultural history of the Nubian region, drawing on John Lewis Burckhardt’s observations of Nubia. This region has been understudied in Turkish historiography, with limited historical information available.

Upper Egypt and Nubia remained relatively unnoticed until the nineteenth century, when the “Egyptian question” emerged. What we mean by the Egyptian question is the transformation of Egypt, which started with Napoleon’s expedition to the Orient, into an area of international strategic competition in the Eastern Mediterranean. After Napoleon’s invasion, Egypt’s relations with the Ottoman Empire were never the same again, and Egypt and its surroundings became a colonial object throughout the 19th century. However, traditionally, for the Ottomans and imperial Europe, Africa was considered to consist only of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. In accordance with that view, an examination of the Ottoman Archives indicates a scarcity of correspondence regarding Upper Egypt and Nubia. In modern Turkish historiography, Cengiz Orhonlu’s book Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Güney Siyaseti: Habeş Eyaleti (Istanbul, 1974) stands out as one of the pioneering studies on the southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire.

The historical significance of Nubia has been a point of contention between Sudan and Egypt, complicated by regional and global developments in the nineteenth century. After Mehmet Ali Pasha’s annexation of Nubia in 1841, the region became a central point of conflict between Egypt and Sudan and attracted European colonial interest because of its unique characteristics.

In the nineteenth century, diverse people, including travelers, scientists, explorers, and missionaries, were drawn to Africa, one of the last largely unexplored geographic areas at the time. Although slavery and related issues dominated Western perceptions of Africa, motives for exploration included trade and the spread of Christianity. In particular, motivations for travel diverged from the search in earlier periods for new and shorter routes to the East. The later motivations focused instead on the acquisition of new knowledge and the establishment of new settlements. In line with that, this article’s introduction contextualizes the rise of European interest in Africa during the nineteenth century, highlighting the dual influence of colonial policies and an awareness of the freedom of black peoples on British political and intellectual elites. The African Association, founded in London in June 1788, epitomized the era’s curiosity, discovery, and sense of adventure. Moreover, travelers’ diaries and notes have emerged as crucial sources for the history of Upper Egypt and Nubia.

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817), a Swiss traveler and explorer, is famous for his trips to the Middle East in the early nineteenth century, including observations of Nubia. His travels between 1809 and 1816, undertaken on behalf of the African Association, aimed to discover Africa’s interior. His book Travels in Nubia (1819) is central to this study, providing invaluable insights into the ethnography, religion, trade, economics, and political geography of this crucial region in the Nile Valley. Western and Ottoman knowledge of Nubia in the nineteenth century was limited. In that context, Burckhardt’s reports provide a detailed and vivid account of the “unknown Nubia.” 

Burckhardt, who has not been studied in detail in Turkey, was the first European to rediscover the ruins of the ancient Nabataean city of Petra in 1812. He fulfilled his duties like a Muslim during his 1815 visit to Mecca, and he collected valuable antiques during his residence in Egypt at various times between 1812 and 1817. The collection was later exhibited at the British Museum. It is important to note that Burckhardt used a Muslim identity during his travels and that he went to holy cities on pilgrimage, which is obligatory for Muslims. However, his most important goal was to carry out a Saharan expedition. He learned about the existence of the caravan route extending to Southern Sahara via Kordofan-Dârfur-Western Sudan via the Nile Valley.

Even though Burckhardt could not complete that goal, what remained of his effort were his letters, travel notes, and recorded experiences for the benefit of future travelers in that region. Moreover, the texts he wrote about his travels are valuable in terms of orientalist and colonialist literature because they contain firsthand material on the physical map and ethnological capital of that region.

Burckhardt’s African adventure can be read as a summary of colonial Europe’s interest in the dark continent. However, he was not a colonial official but a member of an association of romantic enthusiasts in London. His writings represent a map of the traveler, the orientalist, and the modern anthropologist. The corpus he left behind shows his obvious difference from that of his contemporary Europeans. Burckhardt has the qualifications of a professional anthropologist. He was trained for the job. The two-and-a-half years he spent in Bilad al-Sham and the one year he lived in Egypt gave him as much experience for using during his travels in Nubia and Arabia.

In addition, in modern historiography, the increasing recent interest in travelogues or travel notes raises the question of what and how those texts can provide for readers. The first motivation is the appeal of the personal adventure that travelers or writers present when describing the geographies they have experienced and traveled through. However, travelogue is not just a literary genre, and its literary approach alone is insufficient. The traveler acts as a reflector between today’s readers and the society he witnessed through his personality, functions, and affiliations and the period in which he lived. Regardless of personal inclinations or acquired interests, social status also played a decisive role in choosing the geography to visit. The descriptions or concepts in travelogues which form the image of the East in Western thought at every level present another perspective about that place and society to the historian in official documents.