centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. It was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the Nile River Valley. Having also been referred to as Nubia, and as "Ethiopia" in ancient Greek and Greco-Roman records, the Kushites left their mark on various aspects of the ancient world and their legacy is still readily discernible from the various archaeological field sites scattered throughout modern Sudan
Origins
The Egyptians took control of Kush in ca. 1520 BC, but their grip on the area would decline over the next 500 years, until the Kushites became independent. The Kushites buried their monarchs along with all their courtiers in mass graves. Archaeologists refer to these practices as the "Pan-grave culture".[6] The Kushites also built burial mounds and pyramids, and shared some of the same gods worshiped in Egypt, especially Ammon and Isis. Curiously, during Egypt's expansion into Kushite territory during the New Kingdom, upon discovering the site at Gebel-Barkal the Egyptians believed they'd found the remnants of an ancient Egyptian kingship and culture as well as the origin of Ammon and the Hedjet (or "white crown").
25th Dynasty of Egypt
.In Ancient Egypt, Libyan princes had taken control of the delta under Shoshenq I in 945 BC, founding the so-called Libyan or Bubastite dynasty that would rule for some 200 years. Sheshonq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions. However, Libyan control began to erode as a rival dynasty in the delta arose in Leontopolis, and Kushites threatened from the south. Around 727 BC the Kushite king Piye invaded northward, seizing control of Thebes and eventually the Delta.[8]. His dynasty, the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt, continued until about 653 BC. The 25th dynasty was based at Napata, in what is now The Sudan. Alara is universally regarded as the founder of the 25th Kushite dynasty by his successors. The power of the 25th Dynasty reached a climax under the pharaohs Piye and Taharka.
Pharaoh Taharka spent half his time as ruler of Egypt restoring its earlier cultural achievements while also fending off Assyrian power in the east. In 674, he defeated an invading Assyrian army under the leadership of Esarhaddon. Three years later, he would be defeated in three battles that would force Kush out of Egypt altogether. Why the Kushites chose to enter Egypt at this crucial point of foreign domination is subject to debate. Archaeologist Timmothy Kendall offers his own hypotheses, connecting it to a claim of legitimacy associated with Gebel Barkal.[9] Kendall cites the stele of Pharaoh Piye, which states that "Amun of Napata granted me to be ruler of every foreign country," and "Amun in Thebes granted me to be ruler of the Black Land (Kmt)". Noteworthy is that according to Kendall, "foreign lands" in this regard seems to include Lower Egypt while Kmt seems to refer to a united Upper Egypt and Nubia.[10]
[edit] Move to Meroë
It is clear from various[which?] historical records that Aspelta's successors moved their capital to Meroë, considerably farther south than Napata.[citation needed]
Other historians[which?] believe it was the attraction of iron working that drove the Kushites to move their capital south to Meroë where, unlike at Napata, there were large forests that could fire the blast furnaces. The arrival of Greek merchants throughout the region also meant that Kush was no longer dependent on trade along the Nile. Instead, it could export its goods to the Red Sea and the Greek trading colonies there. The Kushites used the animal-driven water wheel to increase productivity and create a surplus. Particularly during the Napatan-Meroitic Kingdom.[11]
In about 300 B.C. the move to Meroë was made more complete when the monarchs began to be buried there, instead of at Napata. One theory is that this represents the monarchs breaking away from the power of the priests at Napata. Diodorus Siculus tells a story about a Meroitic ruler named Ergamenes who was ordered by the priests to kill himself, but broke tradition and had the priests executed instead. Ergamenes may refer to Arrakkamani, the first ruler to be buried at Meroë or to a similar name such as Arqamani,[12] who ruled many years after the royal cemetery was opened at Meroë. Another theory is that the capital had always been based at Meroë. During this same period, Kushite authority may have extended some 1,500 km along the Nile River valley from the Egyptian frontier in the north to areas far south of modern Khartoum and probably also substantial territories to the east and west.[13]
Kushite civilisation continued for several centuries. In the Napatan Period Egyptian hieroglyphs were used: at this time writing seems to have been restricted to the court and temples.[14] From the second century BC there was a separate Meroitic writing system.[14] This was an alphabetic script with 23 signs used in a hieroglyphic form (mainly on monumental art) and in a cursive form.[14] The latter was widely used; so far some 1278 texts using this version are known (Leclant 2000). The script was deciphered by Griffith, but the language behind it is still a problem, with only a few words understood by modern scholars.[14] It is not as yet possible to connect the Meroitic language with other known languages.[14]
Strabo describes a war with the Romans in the first century B.C. After the initial victories of Candace Amanirenas against Roman Egypt, the Kushites were defeated and Napata sacked.[15] The Kushites succeeded in negotiating a peace treaty on favourable terms.
The kingdom of Kush began to fade as a power by the first or second century AD, sapped by the war with the Roman province of Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries.[16]
[edit] In the Bible
The name given this civilization comes from the Old Testament where Cush (Hebrew: כוש) was one of the sons of Ham (Genesis 10:6) who settled in Northeast Africa. In the Bible and at different times in the ancient world, a large region covering northern Sudan, modern day southern Egypt, and parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia was known as "Cush". The Hebrew Bible refers to "Cush" on a number of occasions, though various English translations translate this as "Nubian", "Ethiopia", "Sudan", and "Cushite" (Unseth 1999). Moses' wife, Tzipporah, is described as a Kushite in the book of Numbers 12:1. Some contend that this Cush was in southern Arabia. See Biblical Cush for a full discussion. All of this is complicated by the fact that the Septuagint translated "Cush" as "Aethiopia", leading to the misleading conclusion that "Cush" should be
equated with the borders of present day "Ethiopia
In fiction
Kush is a kingdom in the world of Conan the Barbarian – "the first of the great black kingdoms of the grasslands south of Stygia"[17]. The author Robert E. Howard liked history and aimed to convey the feel of places and people using names of countries, titles, items that associate with certain cultures.
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