Kingdom of Kush

Origins

Kush grew up in Nubia, the stretch of the Nile valley south of Egypt. After centuries of Egyptian domination, Upper Nubia regained its independence as Egypt's New Kingdom broke apart. The Metropolitan Museum dates the unification of Upper Nubia to King Alara around 785 BCE; by about 760 BCE his successor Kashta controlled Nubia from the first to the sixth cataract. Early Kushite kings ruled from Napata, near the sacred mountain of Jebel Barkal, and made Amun their principal god while reshaping Egyptian artistic forms in their own style.

The 25th Dynasty

In the 8th century BCE King Piye marched north and took control of Egypt, and his successors, among them Shabaqo and Taharqo, ruled Egypt and Nubia together as the 25th Dynasty. Kushite rule over Egypt ended in the 7th century BCE when Assyrian armies invaded and drove Taharqo back to Napata; his successor Tanutamani's attempt to retake Egypt did not last. The Kushite kingdom itself continued in the south, and its kings were buried beneath steep-sided pyramids near Napata for centuries.

Meroë

Around the 3rd century BCE royal burials moved from the Napata region to Meroë, between the fifth and sixth cataracts, which became the capital. UNESCO describes the island of Meroë as the heartland of Kush, with a town and cemeteries of royal pyramids, along with the religious centres of Musawwarat es-Sufra and Naqa. Meroë sat where caravan routes met the Nile, and its workshops produced textiles, pottery, bronze, iron and gold jewellery, while it imported goods from Egypt and the Hellenistic world.

The Meroitic script

Kush developed its own writing. According to Claude Rilly and Alex de Voogt, a cursive script partly inspired by Egyptian Demotic appeared first, and a hieroglyphic form, using Egyptian-derived signs with new sound values, was added later for royal and religious texts. The British Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith worked out the values of the signs, so Meroitic can be read aloud, but most of its vocabulary is still not understood beyond names, titles, gods and places.

The kandakes

The Meroitic title kandake (Latinized as "Candace") first referred to the king's mother but came to be held by women who reigned in their own right. Queen Amanirenas led Kushite forces against Roman Egypt in the war of 27–22 BCE, which ended in a negotiated settlement. Queen Amanishakheto was shown on her funerary monument in the smiting pose traditionally reserved for kings, and Queen Amanitore ruled jointly with King Natakamani in the 1st century CE.

Decline

Kush's power faded in the 4th century CE as the rising kingdom of Aksum took over Red Sea trade. A victory inscription of the Aksumite king Ezana records a campaign into Meroitic territory around 350 CE, and that date is conventionally used for the kingdom's end.