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Sudan
Cush
Northern Sudan's earliest historical record comes from Egyptian
sources, which described the land upstream from the first cataract,
called Cush, as "wretched." For more than 2,000 years after the
Old Kingdom (ca. 2700-2180 B.C.), Egyptian political and economic
activities determined the course of the central Nile region's
history. Even during intermediate periods when Egyptian political
power in Cush waned, Egypt exerted a profound cultural and religious
influence on the Cushite people.
Over the centuries, trade developed. Egyptian caravans carried
grain to Cush and returned to Aswan with ivory, incense, hides,
and carnelian (a stone prized both as jewelry and for arrowheads)
for shipment downriver. Egyptian traders particularly valued gold
and slaves, who served as domestic servants, concubines, and soldiers
in the pharaoh's army. Egyptian military expeditions penetrated
Cush periodically during the Old Kingdom. Yet there was no attempt
to establish a permanent presence in the area until the Middle
Kingdom (ca. 2100-1720 B.C.), when Egypt constructed a network
of forts along the Nile as far south as Samnah, in southern Egypt,
to guard the flow of gold from mines in Wawat.
Around 1720 B.C., Asian nomads called Hyksos invaded Egypt, ended
the Middle Kingdom, severed links with Cush, and destroyed the
forts along the Nile River. To fill the vacuum left by the Egyptian
withdrawal, a culturally distinct indigenous kingdom emerged at
Karmah, near present-day Dunqulah. After Egyptian power revived
during the New Kingdom (ca. 1570-1100 B.C.), the pharaoh Ahmose
I incorporated Cush as an Egyptian province governed by a viceroy.
Although Egypt's administrative control of Cush extended only
down to the fourth cataract, Egyptian sources list tributary districts
reaching to the Red Sea and upstream to the confluence of the
Blue Nile and White Nile rivers. Egyptian authorities ensured
the loyalty of local chiefs by drafting their children to serve
as pages at the pharaoh's court. Egypt also expected tribute in
gold and slaves from local chiefs.
Once Egypt had established political control over Cush, officials
and priests joined military personnel, merchants, and artisans
and settled in the region. The Coptic language, spoken in Egypt,
became widely used in everyday activities. The Cushite elite adopted
Egyptian gods and built temples like that dedicated to the sun
god Amon at Napata, near present-day Kuraymah. The temples remained
centers of official religious worship until the coming of Christianity
to the region in the sixth century. When Egyptian influence declined
or succumbed to foreign domination, the Cushite elite regarded
themselves as champions of genuine Egyptian cultural and religious
values.
By the eleventh century B.C., the authority of the New Kingdom
dynasties had diminished, allowing divided rule in Egypt, and
ending Egyptian control of Cush. There is no information about
the region's activities over the next 300 years. In the eighth
century B.C., however, Cush reemerged as an independent kingdom
ruled from Napata by an aggressive line of monarchs who gradually
extended their influence into Egypt. About 750 B.C., a Cushite
king called Kashta conquered Upper Egypt and became ruler of Thebes
until approximately 740 B.C. His successor, Painkhy, subdued the
delta, reunited Egypt under the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and founded
a line of kings who ruled Cush and Thebes for about a hundred
years. The dynasty's intervention in the area of modern Syria
caused a confrontation between Egypt and Assyria. When the Assyrians
in retaliation invaded Egypt, Taharqa (688-663 B.C.), the last
Cushite pharaoh, withdrew and returned the dynasty to Napata,
where it continued to rule Cush and extended its dominions to
the south and east.
Data as of June 1991
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