Kingdom of Kush Timeline

With the disintegration of the New Kingdom around 1070 BC, Kush became an independent kingdom centered at Napata in modern northern Sudan.

Image source: Napata

The Assyrians expanded from northern Mesopotamia and conquered a vast empire including the whole of the Near East, much of Anatolia, the eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus and early Iron Age Iran. Kush's historical allies, the inhabitants of Canaan, had fallen first to the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC) and then to the resurgent Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BC).

Image source: Neo-Assyrian Empire

An inscription of the 5th century king Amanineteyerike remembered Alara's reign as long and successful. A 7th century inscription claimed that his sister was the grandmother of king Taharqo.

Image source: Alara of Kush

In the 8th century BC, King Kashta ('the Kushite') peacefully became king of Upper Egypt, while his daughter, Amenirdis, was appointed as divine adoratrice of Amun in Thebes.

Image source: Kashta

Because the 25th dynasty ruled over both states in the eighth century BC, from the Rift Valley to the Taurus mountains, historians have closely associated the study of Kush with Egyptology. The monarchs of Kush ruled Egypt for over a century until the Assyrian conquest.

Image source: Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt

During the siege of Hermopolis in the eighth century BC, siege towers were built for the Kushite army led by Piye, in order to enhance the efficiency of Kushite archers and slingers.

Image source: Piye

Early records of bloomery furnaces dated at least to the seventh and sixth centuries BC have been discovered in Kush, showing advanced ironworking technology.

Image source: Bloomery

The monarchs of Kush were dethroned by the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal in the mid-7th century BC, ending Kushite rule over Egypt.

Image source: Assyrian conquest of Egypt

From the second century BC, there was a separate Meroitic writing system. The latter was widely used; so far some 1,278 texts using this version are known (Leclant 2000).

Image source: Meroitic script

The northernmost part of Nubia was occupied from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD, first by the Ptolemaic Kingdom and then by the Roman Empire.

Image source: Roman Egypt

Strabo describes a war with the Romans in the first century BC. 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.

Image source: Kingdom of Kush

Meroitic texts from as early as the 1st century BC hint at conflicts with the Noba, who lived west of the Nile and were governed by their own chiefs and kings. Perhaps it was the increasingly arid climate that forced them to attack the Nile Valley, although they would not manage to break through until the 4th century.

There is evidence of third century AD Kushite Kings at Philae in demotic inscriptions, and Kushite activities led others to note 'a de facto Kushite control of that area (as far north as Philae) for part of the third century AD.'

Image source: Philae temple complex

A bowl from a 4th-century elite burial in el-Hobagi features a Meroitic-Nubian inscription mentioning a 'king', but identifying the interred individual and the polity he ruled over remains problematic.

At Meroe, the last pyramids as well as non-royal burials are dated to the mid-4th century, conventionally thought to be when the kingdom of Kush came to an end. It weakened and disintegrated amid worsening climatic conditions, internal rebellions, and foreign invasions—notably by the Noba people, who introduced the Nubian languages and gave their name to Nubia itself.

Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia eventually converted to Christianity in the 6th century, marking the beginning of medieval Nubia. Kushite civilization had continued for several centuries after the fall of Meroe.

Image source: Nobatia

Long overshadowed by Egypt, archaeological discoveries since the late 20th century have revealed Kush to be an advanced civilization.