The Nubian kingdom that once conquered Egypt and ruled it for a century
For centuries Kush was written off as Egypt's shadow to the south. Then its kings marched north, founded the Twenty-fifth Dynasty and governed Egypt for over a hundred years. Excavations since the late 20th century show a civilisation with its own script, master archers and unusually prominent women.
Kush sat along the Nile in Nubia, covering parts of today's northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Complex societies arose there early. Between 2450 and 1450 BC the city-state of Kerma controlled the valley from the first to the fourth cataract, a territory comparable in size to Egypt. Egyptians were the first to call it Kush, probably adapting a local name, Kasu, and the two neighbours alternated between fighting, trading and borrowing from each other.
Egypt ruled much of Nubia during its New Kingdom, 1550 to 1070 BC. When Egypt fell apart in the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Kushites built a new kingdom centred on Napata, near modern Karima. They worshipped Amun and sometimes married into Egyptian royalty, yet remained distinct in language, culture and ethnicity; Egyptian artists marked them out by clothing, looks and even how they travelled.
The tables turned in the 8th century BC. King Kashta became ruler of Upper Egypt without a fight, and his daughter Amenirdis took the post of divine adoratrice of Amun at Thebes. Piye, who followed him, invaded Lower Egypt. Kushite pharaohs held power until the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal removed them in the mid-7th century BC. The capital then moved to Meroe, and Greeks began calling the realm Aethiopia.
Kush remained a regional power into the 4th century AD. Harsher climate, revolts and invaders, especially the Noba, whose name became Nubia, wore it down. Aksumites seized Meroe and its gold, and the kingdom broke into Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia. The Aksumite ruler Ezana even styled himself King of Ethiopia.
Source: Kingdom of Kush
