What happened to the lost Kingdom of Kush? - Geoff Emberling
Along the Nile River,
in what is now northern Sudan,
lay the ancient civilization of Kush.
Though they were once conquered
by a powerful neighbor,
the kings and queens of Kush would
go on to successfully challenge
two of the most dominant empires
in history.
From 1500 to 1100 BCE,
Egypt controlled Kush,
introducing many Egyptian
cultural and religious practices.
The civilization of Kush was more than
a thousand years old at that time.
Its early capital city at Kerma had
impressive temples, palaces, and houses,
including a massive mudbrick temple
structure that had a chapel deep inside,
reached by a long staircase at the center.
Rich gold mines helped the Kushites build
a flourishing commercial network,
making bronze weapons and tools
and trading materials like incense,
animal skins, ivory, and ebony wood
from sub-Saharan Africa.
The tide started to change for Kush
as Egypt descended into civil war.
By 750 BCE, Egypt was divided into local
kingdoms with fluctuating alliances.
The Kushite king Piankhy
saw an opportunity.
He led his navy,
flanked by horsemen and archers,
up the Nile to the gateway city
of Khemenu.
As Piankhy’s army constructed
siege ramps and battle towers,
the city’s ruler sent his wives
and daughters to negotiate—
not with Piankhy,
but with the women of his royal household,
later known as kandake,
who were extremely influential in military
affairs and political succession.
At the end of a long siege,
Piankhy entered the conquered city
and bitterly criticized
the conditions in its stables.
From there, Piankhy
and the Kushite forces
conquered the Egyptian capital of Memphis.
Piankhy installed his sister, Amunirdis,
as priestess of the great god Amun,
in the Egyptian city of Thebes,
and left other Kushite officials there
before returning to live in Kush.
His successors extended control
all the way to the Nile Delta.
This was a high point
for the Empire of Kush:
trade thrived, and they built
magnificent temples,
palaces, and pyramid tombs
all along the Nile.
But the Assyrian army was approaching
Egypt in its annual campaigns.
When the Assyrians began to encroach
on trade routes near Jerusalem,
the Kushite king Taharqo
moved to stop them.
The Assyrians defeated him with the help
of some rebelling Egyptian princes,
and drove him out of Egypt
in the 7th century BCE.
The Kushites continued to rule
in their homeland for nearly 1,000 years
that were prosperous and innovative.
They moved their capital farther
south to the city of Meroe,
where they built temples
to a new god called Apedemak.
They built new cities in the savannah
south of the Sahara Desert,
some of which contained huge
reservoirs for water.
When the Roman Empire conquered
Egypt in 31 BCE,
Kushite armies again traveled north,
led by Queen Amanirenas.
She led them to success in battle
against the Romans,
capturing the bronze head of a statue
of the Roman emperor Augustus,
and bringing it back to Kush.
They buried it under the doorway
of a temple in the capital,
so that worshippers would step
on it as they crossed the threshold.
After brokering peace with the Romans,
Kush continued to prosper.
Over time, however, groups of people
called the Noba raided from the west,
and trade routes were disrupted
by the rising kingdom of Aksum.
Around 350 CE, the Aksumite king
sacked Meroe,
effectively bringing Kushite rule
to an end.
Since then, some have argued
that Kush’s history has been overlooked
by generations of European and American
scholars
who promoted the idea that Egypt was part
of the origin of Western civilization,
while Kush, as an African culture,
was excluded.
Today, there’s still much
to learn about Kush—
including a writing system
we haven’t deciphered fully.
