Egypt - Kushite Period

  General Description   Towards the end of the preceding Thebes-Libyan period, the northern reaches of the Nile River were invaded by Amun-worshipping Kushites from the south who had built up a strong state based in Napata, in the Sudan, at the foot of Gebel Barkal mountain. ^[1] The first Kushite ruler of Egypt, Piye, was crowned in Napata; ^[2] this remained the capital of the Kushite Empire until c. 716 BCE, when the entire Nile Valley up to the delta was acquired under Shabaka, ^[3] who then moved the capital and royal residence from Napata to Memphis in order to emphasize the foreign dynasty’s respect for traditional Egyptian customs. ^{[4] [5]} Kushite rule of Egypt (the Twenty-fifth Dynasty) occurred within an extremely complex political climate that has been the cause of much debate among historians. The Twenty-third Dynasty of the preceding Thebes-Libyan Period survived throughout this period, only to be toppled by the first ruler of the Saite Kingdom, Psamtek I (r. 664-610; Twenty-sixth Dynasty). The Egyptologist Jeremy Pope concludes that the ’Double Kingdom’ (Kushite and Libyo-Egyptian) had some form of ’nominal unity’ across a large territory. ^[6]
Population and political organization
Scholars debate the extent to which there was a centralized bureaucracy in Egypt under Kushite rule. In Lower Nubia, the Kushite king may have exercised power through ’invisible elites’ such as merchants, pastoralists, and local potentates - ’a striking contrast with the bureaucratic formalization of Upper Egypt’. ^[7] Archaeologist Robert Morkot has argued that the Twenty-fifth Dynasty kept the Egyptian administrative system largely unchanged, making only relatively minor alterations such as appointing new individuals or families to official positions. ^[8] However, Jeremy Pope believes that we cannot use New Kingdom analogies to draw conclusions about Kushite governing principles, and that ’central authority and administration had disappeared’ in this period. ^[9] The Egyptian position of vizier probably continued but was ’deprived of effective power’. ^[10]
What is not in doubt is that the Kushite king was a powerful military ruler and, in the Libyan tradition, likely made marriage alliances with the elite throughout Egypt. ^[11] In general, Kushite rule drew its power from military capacity and the day-to-day workings of local government were left in the hands of the Egyptian dynasts. ^[12] Nubians and Egyptians also shared a common set of religious practices. King Piye, who successfully invaded Egypt, boasted of his divine legitimacy on a stele: ’Amon of Napata has made me sovereign over every people’, ^[3] and established an official cult of Amun around 780-760 BCE; his sister became priestess. ^[13] The existing powerful religious offices in Upper Egypt were also important for Kushite rule: the position of God’s Wife (or Divine Adoratrice) at Thebes was maintained due to its political utility, and Kushite royals were installed as high priests. ^[12] In earlier times, the high priest at Thebes had exercised both civil and military authority, but the Kushites maintained their own Kushite military commanders, while civil authority was given initially to Kushite governors and later to ’Theban bureaucrats’. ^[14] The end of Kushite rule in Egypt and the beginning of the Saite Dynasty furnishes a rare example of a peaceful transition, involving the adoption of the Saite princess Nitocris by the last Kushite Divine Adoratrice of Amun, Amenirdis II, in 656 BC. ^[15]
Kushite-period Memphis, where the chief royal residence was based, ^[5] is thought to have had a population of perhaps 65,000; the first capital, Napata, about 43,000. The Kushite Empire spanned roughly 600,000-700,000 square kilometres, but it is difficult to find reliable estimates for its population.

[1]: (Leclant 1981, 285) J. Leclant. 1981. ’The Empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe’, in General History of Africa, Vol II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa, edited by G. Mokhtar, 278-97. Paris: UNESCO.

[2]: (Török 1997, 154) László Török. 1997. The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization Handbook of Oriental Studies, No. 31. Leiden: Brill.

[3]: (Leclant 1981, 280) J. Leclant. 1981. ’The Empire of Kush: Napata and Meroe’, in General History of Africa, Vol II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa, edited by G. Mokhtar, 278-97. Paris: UNESCO.

[4]: (Török 1997, 167) László Török. 1997. The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization Handbook of Oriental Studies, No. 31. Leiden: Brill.

[5]: (Taylor 2000, 349) John Taylor. 2000. ’The Third Intermediate Period (1069-664 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 324-63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[6]: (Pope 2014, 280) Jeremy Pope. 2014. The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo. Leiden: Brill.

[7]: (Pope 2014, 191) Jeremy Pope. 2014. The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo. Leiden: Brill.

[8]: (Morkot 2013, 963) Robert G. Morkot. 2014. ’Thebes under the Kushites’, in Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis: Thebes, Karakhamun (TT 223), and Karabasken (TT 391) in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, edited by Elena Pischikova, 5-22. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

[9]: (Pope 2014, 203) Jeremy Pope. 2014. The Double Kingdom Under Taharqo. Leiden: Brill.

[10]: (Taylor 2000, 348) John Taylor. 2000. ’The Third Intermediate Period (1069-664 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 324-63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[11]: (Morkot 2013, 961) Robert G. Morkot. 2014. ’Thebes under the Kushites’, in Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis: Thebes, Karakhamun (TT 223), and Karabasken (TT 391) in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, edited by Elena Pischikova, 5-22. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

[12]: (O’Connor 1983, 243) David O’Connor. 1983. ’Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c. 2686-1552 BC’, in Ancient Egypt: A Social History, edited by Bruce G. Trigger, Barry J. Kemp, David O’Connor and Alan B. Lloyd, 183-278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[13]: (Török 1997, 144) László Török. 1997. The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization Handbook of Oriental Studies, No. 31. Leiden: Brill.

[14]: (O’Connor 1983, 208) David O’Connor. 1983. ’Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period c. 2686-1552 BC’, in Ancient Egypt: A Social History, edited by Bruce G. Trigger, Barry J. Kemp, David O’Connor and Alan B. Lloyd, 183-278. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[15]: (Morkot 2013) Robert G. Morkot. 2014. ’Thebes under the Kushites’, in Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis: Thebes, Karakhamun (TT 223), and Karabasken (TT 391) in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, edited by Elena Pischikova, 5-22. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.