2691 AM · 1070 BCE · world history
Kingdom of Kush
South of Egypt, in Nubia, rises the kingdom of Kush, with its capitals at Napata and then Meroe.
When Egyptian rule withdraws from Nubia, the local rulers build a kingdom of their own centred on Napata, by the fourth cataract of the Nile. The Kushites honour Amun, build steep-sided pyramids, and in the eighth century BCE take Egypt itself, giving it an entire dynasty of pharaohs. Later, under Assyrian pressure, the capital moves south to Meroe, where iron is smelted, a script of their own is written, and trade runs through the Red Sea. The Meroitic kingdom endures to the fourth century CE, when Aksum crowds it out.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Egyptian royal inscriptions and king lists — Egyptian records of Nubia and the inscriptions of the Kushite pharaohs of the 25th dynasty
Scholarship
- archaeology of the Nile valley — the pyramids of Napata and Meroë, and the Meroitic script
Basis: documents and evidence.