- From PBS - Around 800 BC, Kush, a little-known subject state of Egypt, rose up and conquered the Egyptians, enthroned its own Pharaohs, and ruled over the empire of King Tut for nearly 100 years. This unlikely chapter of history has been buried by the Egyptians and belittled by early archaeologists, who refused to believe that dark skinned Africans could have risen so high. But now, in the heart of Sudan, archeologists Geoff Emberling and Tim Kendall are bringing the truth about the Black Pharaohs to life. In a royal tomb beneath an ancient Kush pyramid and at the soaring heights of a mountain sacred to both Kushites and Egyptians, they are finding indisputable evidence of an advanced African society with powerful armies, vast reach, and spiritually-driven imperial aspirations that rival the Egyptians.
- Many centuries, the pharaohs of mighty Egypt treated its southern neighbor Nubia, mostly in present Sudan, as a virtual colony, providing goods (especially much gold but also furs, animals etc.) and black tribal mercenaries or slaves. At its most remarkable rock formation, Jebel Barkal near Napata, with a huge phallic 'spike', believed the birthplace of the solar main deity Amun, they established a grand temple complex, which helped convert and culturally assimilate the tribal Nubians, who were united under a vassal king of Kush with capital at Napata. As Egypt's 24th dynasty crumbled under internal strife and incursions from Libyan tribes and the shadow of expanding Assyria, the high priests (if the Libyan dynasty) who controlled the Upper Egypt from Thebes appealed to the Kushite army to reunite the country, but its king Piye installed himself as Pharaoh, succeeded by his brother and two sons over nearly a century before the Assyrians and the 26th dynasty threw them back into Nubia. Around Napata they kept building pyramids, long outdated in Egypt, in many respects continuing to copy Egyptian practices after losing the Nile realm, fading into insignificance with a new capital at Meroe.—KGF Vissers
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