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Kingdom of Kush

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Kingdom of Kush
1070 BC–AD 350
CapitalKerma; Napata; later Meroe
Common languagesMeroitic, Nubian
Religion
Ancient Egyptian religion
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
History 
• Established
1070 BC
• Capital moved to Napata
780 BC
• Capital moved to Meroe
591 BC
• Disestablished
AD 350
Population
• Egyptian phase[1]
100,000
• Meroite phase[1]
1,150,000
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Egyptian Empire
Nobatia
Makuria
Aksumite Empire

The Kingdom of Kush or Cush was an ancient African state 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 Kingdom of Kush was established c. 1070 BC.[2] The first cultures arose in Sudan before the time of a unified Egypt. The earliest signs of which show a continuity in developing Nile valley cultures comes from the Khartoum Neolithic, where we see the beginnings of food production in the region.[3] As these centers evolved, local societies began to amalgamate into confederations, depending on different strategies distinct from earlier semi-nomadic lifestyles.[4] One such polity, called the "A-group" emerged in lower Sudan around 3800 BCE, and were contemporaneous with the pre-dynastic Naqada people of upper Egypt, sharing an almost identical culture.[5] After the demise of the A-group, archaeological evidence attesting to permanent settlements is scant. The culture called the "C-group", who founded the Kingdom of Kush began to appear consistently in Egyptian accounts and the archaeological record. It is through Egyptian, Hebrew, and Greco-Roman records that most of our knowledge of Kush comes.

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 had found the remnants of an ancient Egyptian kingship and culture as well as the origin of Ammon and the Hedjet (or "white crown").[7]

25th Dynasty of Egypt

Main article: Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt
Maximum extent of Kush in 700 BC.

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]

Move to Meroë

Aspelta moved the capital to Meroë, considerably farther south than Napata, possibly in 591 BC. [11]

Historians 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.[12]

In about 300 BC 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 the first ruler to be buried at Meroë with a similar name such as Arqamani,[13] 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.[14]

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.[15] From the 2nd century BC there was a separate Meroitic writing system.[15] This was an alphabetic script with 23 signs used in a hieroglyphic form (mainly on monumental art) and in a cursive form.[15] 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.[15] It is not as yet possible to connect the Meroitic language with other known languages.[15]

Strabo describes a war with the Romans in the 1st century BC. After the initial victories of Kandake (or "Candace") Amanirenas against Roman Egypt, the Kushites were defeated and Napata sacked.[16] Remarkably, the destruction of the capital of Napata was not a crippling blow to the Kushites and did not frighten Candace enough to prevent her from again engaging in combat with the Roman military. Indeed,it seems that Petronius's attack might have had a revitalizing influence on the kingdom. Just three years later, in 22 BCE, a large Kushite force moved northward with intention of attacking Qasr Ibrim. Alerted to the advanced, Petronius again marched south and managed to reach Qasr Ibrim and bolster it's defences before the invading Kushites arrived. Although the ancient sources give no description of the ensuing battle, we know that at some point the Kushites sent ambassadors to negotiate a peace settlement with Petronius. By the end of the second campaign, however, Petronius was in no mood to deal further with the Kushites.[17] The Kushites succeeded in negotiating a peace treaty on favourable terms.[16]

The kingdom of Kush began to fade as a power by the 1st or 2nd century AD, sapped by the war with the Roman province of Egypt and the decline of its traditional industries.[18]

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 Sudan, modern day southern Egypt, and parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somaliland was known as "Cush". Cush also referred to areas in Asia. 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). THis is due to the fact that the Greeks referred to all dark skinned people as Cushites. 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 African Kingdoms of the grasslands south of Stygia".[19] 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.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Stearns, Peter N., ed. (2001). "(II.B.4.) East Africa, c. 2000–332 B.C.E.". [[Encyclopedia of World History|The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged]] (6th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 32. ISBN 9780395652374. {{cite book}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  2. ^ Morkot, Roger G. "On the Priestly Origin of the Napatan Kings: The Adaptation, Demise and Resurrection of Ideas in Writing Nubian History" in O'Connor, David and Andrew Reid, eds. Ancient Egypt in Africa (Encounters with Ancient Egypt) (University College London Institute of Archaeology Publications) Left Coast Press (1 Aug 2003) ISBN 978-1598742053 p.151
  3. ^ Trigger B., Kemp B. "Ancient Egypt: a social history", pp. 41
  4. ^ "Early Chiefdoms in Sudan: Nubian, Punite, and Libyan". Ancient Sudan.
  5. ^ http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/nubian.html
  6. ^ Pan Grave Culture - By K. Kris Hirst
  7. ^ H. Kushite Resurgence: The Nubian Conquest of Egypt: 1080-650 BCE. - Nubianet
  8. ^ Shaw (2002) p. 345
  9. ^ Kendall, T.K., 2002. Napatan Temples: a Case Study from Gebel Barkal. The Mythological Nubian Origin of Egyptian Kingship and the Formation of the Napatan State. Tenth International Conference of Nubian Studies. Rome, September 9–14, 2002.
  10. ^ Ibid
  11. ^ Festus Ugboaja Ohaegbulam (1 October 1990). Towards an understanding of the African experience from historical and contemporary perspectives. University Press of America. p. 66. ISBN 9780819179418. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
  12. ^ William Y. Adams, Nubia: Corridor to Africa (Princeton University Press, 1977) 346-7, and William Y. Adams,
  13. ^ Fage, J. D.: Roland Anthony Oliver (1979) The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-21592-7 p. 228 [1]
  14. ^ Edwards, page 141
  15. ^ a b c d e Meroitic script
  16. ^ a b Arthur E. Robinson, "The Arab Dynasty of Dar For (Darfur): Part II", Journal of the Royal African Society (Lond). XXVIII: 55-67 (October, 1928)
  17. ^ At empire's edge: exploring Rome's Egyptian frontier By Robert B. Jackson p. 149
  18. ^ The Story of Africa| BBC World Service
  19. ^ Black Colossus, Chapter III

Sources

  • Edwards, David N. (2004). The Nubian Past. London: Routledge. pp. 348 Pages. ISBN 0-41536-987-8.
  • Leclant, Jean (2004). The empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe. London: UNESCO. pp. 1912 Pages. ISBN 1-57958-245-1.
  • Oliver, Roland (1978). The Cambridge history of Africa. Vol. 2, From c. 500 BC to AD 1050. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 858 Pages. ISBN 0-52121-592-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  • Oliver, Roland (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa Volume 3 1050 – c. 1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 816 Pages. ISBN 0-52120-981-1.
  • Shillington, Kevin (2004). Encyclopedia of African History, Vol. 1. London: Routledge. pp. 1912 Pages. ISBN 1-57958-245-1.
  • Török, László (1998). The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization. Leiden: BRILL. pp. 589 Pages. ISBN 9-00410-448-8.

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