The Sudan Handbook

eaRly states on the nile 65

The Rise and Fall of Kush

The situation in Nubia in the few centuries after the Egyptian withdrawal
is unclear. We have hints of an important power base at Qasr Ibrim where
there was an impressive fortified stronghold, but it was at el-Kurru,
twelve kilometres
downstream from the rock massif of Jebel Barkal, that a new state arose
which was destined to dominate the Nile Valley from the confluence
of the two Niles as far as the Mediterranean. Here there was a clear
development of graves, tomb superstructures and funerary customs
from indigenous pit graves to extended mummified burials in elabo-
rately decorated rock-cut tombs crowned by dressed-stone pyramids.
This sequence, documenting the adoption of many aspects of Egyptian
religion and funerary culture appears to have been very rapid, spanning
a period of only 200 years. This was presumably mirrored by an equally
rapid expansion of the state, its leaders rising from local chieftains to
become kings of a vast empire.
Unfortunately we know virtually nothing of how this transformation
was achieved. What does seem clear is that the early Kushite rulers
embraced the Egyptian mythology relating to Jebel Barkal, acquiring the
knowledge to allow them to understand the many Egyptian inscriptions
and reliefs decorating the temples at the mountain’s foot. This material
made it clear that Egypt had claimed its legitimacy to rule Kush by its
control of the southern home of Amun in the jebel itself. It was, therefore,
as champions of the Egyptian state god Amun – by then also a Kushite
god – that the Kushite king Kashta in the mid eighth century bce took
over control of southern Egypt. His successor Piankhi (Piye) went on to
conquer the whole of Egypt and to rule, briefly, the largest empire ever
seen on the Nile, only surpassed by that of Mohammed Ali in the 1820s,
over 2500 years later.
Kushite control of Egypt was brief. Faced with an aggressive Assyria
(against whom Kush fought first in the Levant) Kushite rule in Egypt
was finally broken with the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians in 663
bce. Although forced to retire to the south, the Kushites maintained
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors

(www.riftvalley.net).