The Kingdom of Kush: The Napatan and Meroitic Empires

"The Kingdom of Kush, lying to the south of Egypt, upstream of the first Nile cataract, flourished for a thousand years. During the eighth and seventh centuries BC its rulers controlled Egypt as pharaohs of the Twenty Fifth Dynasty. Extensive remains of pyramids, settlements and temples can still be seen. Yet, the early development and much of the later history of the kingdom is obscure, and the Kushites have always been overshadowed in the popular imagination and in academic studies by their more famous northern neighbour." "In part, this is due to our inability to understand their language, which remains undeciphered. Also, although there has been considerable archaeological work devoted to Kushite material culture, it has been concentrated in the area flooded by the succession of dams at Aswan, leaving much of their kingdom - which extended deep into central Sudan - largely unexplored." "This book attempts to draw together all the information on this fascinating people and their history. Derek Welsby has been directing fieldwork in the area since 1982, and he uses both the ancient classical sources and modern data from archaeological excavations to illustrate all aspects of Kushite life and to show how the kingdom interacted over the centuries with Egypt - Pharaonic, Ptolemaic and Roman."