History of the Ancient Near East · Part 18 · Kingdoms of the Iron Age · B2
Kush: The Black Pharaohs
Part 18 of History of the Ancient Near East: south of Egypt, along the Nile in what is now Sudan, the kingdom of Kush was Egypt’s rival, its subject, and then its ruler. Its kings governed Egypt as pharaohs, built more pyramids than Egypt ever did, and its queens fought Rome in our own time. In addition to, as well as, besides, and be known as, be famous for, be remembered as, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, we go south, up the Nile, past Elephantine, into the land the Egyptians called Kush, and we call Ethiopia.
My father says the Ethiopians are the best archers in the world.
And Homer says the gods go to feast with the “blameless Ethiopians” at the edge of the world.
Not at the edge of the world. Just up the river. And in Philo’s grandfather’s time, their queen fought the Romans and won.
Kush was the kingdom of Nubia, along the Nile south of Egypt, in what is now Sudan. Around 2500–1500 BCE, its capital, Kerma, was the centre of a powerful kingdom, rich from gold, ivory and trade with central Africa. The Egyptians of the New Kingdom conquered it and ruled it for five centuries. Egyptian texts often call it “wretched Kush”: an enemy’s name, not a description.
After Egyptian rule ended, a new kingdom grew up around Napata and the sacred mountain of Jebel Barkal, where its kings worshipped Amun. In the 8th century BCE, the kings of Kush conquered Egypt itself and ruled it as pharaohs for nearly a century: the 25th Dynasty, sometimes called the “Black Pharaohs”.
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