Amunat
| Allegiance | Sirdabi Caliphate |
| Capital | Kneph-Nebhet |
| Demonym | Amunati |
| Official Language | Sirdabi |
| Official Religion | Azadi |
| Currency | fals/dirham/nour |
| Native Heritages | Amunati, Sirdabi |
Amunat is one of the Sirdabi Caliphate's north Idiri provinces, lying directly to the west of Raziya and east of Ifru. A dry and sunny land, the province is dominated by the great River Tamarat, whose seasonal flood waters and the rich silt deposited by them each year have made the surrounding valley among the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Amunat has a proud and extremely long history, having been for millennia one of the greatest kingdoms of the ancient world, with a sophisticated culture that influenced peoples around the Adelantean basin and beyond. It retains much of this cultural cachet even today, along with a faintly exotic reputation for mystery and magic.
Geography & Climate
Amunat is one of the smaller provinces of the Sirdabi Caliphate, consisting almost entirely of the narrow valley of the River Tamarat. To west and east the province is bounded by rugged and extremely arid terrain, but in the lands touched by the Tamarat's annual floodwaters it is a well-watered and bounteous landscape. The floods and the broad channel of the river are in fact essential to Amunat's prosperity, if not in fact its very existence, for there is scarcely any rain that falls in Amunat and what little there is pours down in short-lived tempests more destructive than beneficial. Fortunately the waters of the Tamarat rise faithfully every year, following the dry season that lasts from to Jirguz to Kholabi. Somewhat less fortunately, while the onset of the flood itself is very regular, the degree of flooding is less so, and it is not uncommon for neighborhoods or even whole villages to be inundated every few to several years if they are built too low and close to the riverbank.
For several miles in either direction from the river, the land is flat or gently rolling, and generally covered by fields of grain and shady groves of date palms. Where the land is not cultivated it is often watery marshland and dense papyrus swamp, which offer their own vital sources of food and material. The further one goes from the banks of the Tamarat, the drier the landscape steadily becomes, transitioning from cropland to pasture, and then swiftly to barren desert. The Sundab Hills in the east mark the much-disputed border between Amunat and the neighboring province of Raziya, and have historically been the site of conflict between these two age-old rivals. To the west the border with Ifru is a much friendlier one, marked by the eastern edge of the Citadel Mountains and the northern end of the Red Crown Cliffs . Although the Tamarat river valley ends below the cliffs, Amunat has since ancient times laid claim to the Valley of Tears which lies between them and the Citadel. Although overall quite desolate and isolated, a single productive well supports the town of el-Mizut in the middle of starkly towering escarpments and the barren flatland of the valley.
While Amunat is generally fairly flat except for its limited hinterlands, the terrain does rise gradually from the low marshy land of the Tamarat Delta in the north, to the Numizala Foothills and Piruti Falls in the south. Vast marshlands and papyrus swamps characterize the Delta as well as the Field of Plumes in the south of the province, where a network of old channels now cut off from the main flow of the river has formed a sizeable wetland.
People
The native people of Amunat, the Amunati, make up the vast majority of the province's population. The capital of Kneph-Nebhet has the most diverse ethnic makeup, with a large concentration of Sirdabi as well as smaller numbers of Salawi, Tessouare, and others. But the Amunati still dominate the scene even in the capital, where their influence on local architecture and customs is noticeable. Throughout the rest of the province, Sirdabi and Tessouare are again scattered throughout the towns along the Tamarat, but people of Amunati ancestry predominate.
The Amunati themselves differ between those of the lower Tamarat in the north, and those dwelling along the upper river in the south. Those native to the lower Tamarat tend to be taller, with more aquiline features and coppery skin tones, while those native to the upper Tamarat have darker skin, rounder faces, and often the exceptionally nimble and graceful hands that are said to be the hallmark of the Milombo people of the Izendi Highlands. Although these traits are roughly used to distinguish between the so-called "Red Crown Tamarat" (northern) and "Gold Crown Tamarat" (southern) populations, the two groups intermingle across the province and collectively consider themselves proud Amunati.
Economy
The vast majority of people in Amunat are employed in agriculture within the Tamarat's fertile floodplain, where an immense amount of grain is produced -- not just several varieties of wheat, but also barley as well as smaller grains such as pearl millet and teff. These grains support the local population with plenty to spare, such that Amunat plays a major role as granary for the entire caliphate. Within Amunat itself, some of the harvest is devoted to producing the Amunati's beloved beer, known generally as heqet, although numerous distinct varieties are produced according to local taste. Popular since the most ancient times, heqet continues to be consumed in quantity despite Azadi proscriptions on alcohol consumption, and is particularly popular in the more traditional upper (southern) regions of Amunat.
Besides grain, the leading exports from the province are linens, cotton fabrics, and papyrus paper. Amunat has historically produced some of the finest linen cloth in the region, using fibers from the flax plants that also flourish in the Tamarat Valley. Cotton, too, has been grown in Amunat for time out of mind, and the fibers processed and woven to make excellent cotton and muslin fabric. The production of papyrus paper is an equally ancient industry, and has continued to thrive even though rag paper has largely replaced papyrus in the caliphate as a standard writing surface. Papyrus remains the material of choice for producing magical talismans and spell scrolls, due to its unrivalled virtue as a relatively cheap yet durable matrix for storing magical energies.
Turquoise mined from the Sundab Hills is one of Amunat's more valuable raw materials, though this semiprecious stone is also used to craft jewelry that is then exported as a finished luxury product. Aside from a few small deposits of gold the province has few other mineral resources, so most metal ore must be imported from other parts of the caliphate or through direct trade with Ruvera. Wood, too, is incredibly scarce in Amunat, and is typically brought in from Saramat and the Izendi Highlands.
Religion
The people of Amunat tend to be staunchly traditional, and their practice of religion is no exception. Although most Amunati had converted to the Azadi faith within two hundred years after their incorporation into the caliphate, they have stubbornly clung to some of their time-honored practices of worship. Chief among these is the role played by women in religious services. Amnunati women had served as priestesses and other respected religious leaders for time beyond telling, and so to the natives of Amunat it was only natural that women should continue so, only now as imams, qadis, and other similar positions within the Azadi community. However shocking this may be to the more conservative elements of Azadi itself, the practice continues and is widely approved and embraced by the Amunati.
Amunat is also home to a small yet still thriving community of Kalentians, centered in Kneph-Nebhet. Known as Nebhetic Kalentians, they are considered schismatic from the Kalentoi Church due to their officially unorthodox beliefs. Nevertheless they are among the oldest Kalentian communities in existence, having converted to the faith in the first century after Kalen's death, and were in earlier times much respected by the Church before their credo fell out of favor and was condemned. Nebhetic Kalentians are still widely dispersed across northeastern Idiri, and many come to Kneph-Nebhet for pilgrimage or study.
While followers of the One God are now prevalent in Amunat, there are still some parts of the province that have remained faithful to the oldest formal religion of all. The Children of Dawn and Dusk continue to be worshipped in upper Amunat, particularly among the Gold Crown Amunati, and the town of Hakleth still serves as the guardian of a millennia-old temple to the old gods. It is rumored that Kholabi herself, a still older Child of Night and the mother goddess of ancient Amunat, even has a small and secretive following here.
Cities & Towns
- Kneph-Nebhet, the palm-shaded capital whose great stone monuments have borne witness to millennia of history.
- Dar Mandeb, the former ceremonial center of Amunat and a thriving locus of trade and linen production.
- Hakleth, the one-time capital of Upper Amunat, where old traditions and even older religions are still followed.
- el-Mizut, an isolated valley town whose worn stone towers guard ancient tombs and mysteries.
- Palanit, a pretty town on the lower Tamarat where some of the best heqet is brewed.
- Papyros, a village of the delta marshes where much of the province's papyrus is harvested.