Located in the present day Republic of Sudan, ancient Nubia is a region along the Nile River between Aswan in the north and Khartoum in the south where Nubian languages were spoken.This region is marked by six cataracts, or rocky outcroppings, which produce shallow rapids in the Nile (Bard, 2008, p. 53). Analogous to its northern Egyptian neighbor, ancient Nubia was divided into Upper and Lower Nubia; Lower Nubia was between the first and second cataracts and Upper Nubia was between the second and sixth cataracts (Bard, 2008, p. 47).