G. The Egyptian Conquest of Nubia and the Viceroyalty of Kush, 1550-1080 B.C.

1. The Egyptian Conquest of Kush

Hostilities between Egypt and Kush were initiated by the Theban pharaoh Kamose (ca. 1555-1550 BC). He had captured a messenger of the Hyksos king (his rival in the Nile Delta) carrying a letter from that ruler inviting the king of Kush to attack Egypt from the south so that he and the Nubian ruler could divide up Kamose's kingdom between them. Under Kamose and his successor Ahmose I (ca. 1550-1525 BC), the Egyptians were able to expell the Hyksos from northern Egypt and to reassert their control over the whole country. Next they siezed Lower Nubia, which had been formerly taken by Kush. Ahmose's son Amenhotep I (ca. 1525-1504 BC) continued the campaign to the south, beyond the Second Cataract, and possibly built the fort at Sai Island, about 70 mi further upriver. Under Thutmose I (ca. 1504-1492 BC), the Egyptians passed beyond the Third Cataract and penetrated the heartland of Kush, while some of his forces cut across the desert to the southeast and approached the Fifth Cataract. Large areas of the Kushite kingdom, however, remained unconquered until the reigns of Thutmose II (ca. 1492-1479 BC) and Hatshepsut, his wife (ca. 1479-1458 BC), who assumed the kingship after his death. Sometime during her reign, or that of her nephew Thutmose III (ca. 1479-1425 BC), it seems that Kerma, the presumed capital, was finally overthrown and burned. This is implied by the carbon dates (about 1480 BC) obtained from the charred planks inset into the mud bricks of the Western Deffufa at Kerma.

The complete conquest of Upper Nubia seems not to have occurred until the later reign of Thutmose III, when the Egyptian frontier was established at the two key points where the trade routes entered the territory of Kush from the far south. These points were at Napata (Gebel Barkal), just below the Fourth Cataract, and at Hagar el-Merwa (Kurgus), just below the Fifth. The Egyptians built a fort at each place.

2. Egyptian Rule of Kush

With the overthrow of the Kushite monarchy, Egypt became the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. From the mid-fifteenth to the twelfth centuries BC, Egypt directly ruled Upper and Lower Nubia through an elaborate administration headed by an official chosen from among the pharaoh's closest confidants. He was called the "Royal Son of Kush and Chief of the Southern Foreign Lands" - or, as it is commonly translated today, "the Viceroy of Kush." The Viceroy's administrative control was vast; it extended from the Upper Egyptian town of Nekhen (about 30 mi [50 km] south of Thebes) to the town of Napata, just below the Fourth Cataract, a river distance of about 700 miles [1200 km].

At this time the Egyptians understood the name "Kush" to designate loosely all of Nubia, but they still called Lower Nubia "Wawat." The Egyptian administrative capital of Wawat lay alternately at the towns of Aniba and Faras. That in Kush lay at Amara. Both Kush and Wawat were required to supply annual revenue. Gathering this revenue was the chief duty of the Viceroy, who had to present it to the king in a great spectacle prior to its being consigned to the palace and the temple of the state god Amun at Karnak. Wawat supplied gold, slaves, cattle, and agricultural produce, while Kush supplied gold, slaves, cattle, ivory, live exotic animals and animal products and skins, valuable woods, aromatic resins and gums, precious stones, etc. Each region had its own Egyptian "deputy" responsible to the Viceroy for collecting the tribute. The Viceroy also controlled a provincial army, whose field officer was called the "Commander of the Archers of Kush." Nubian princes were raised at court and were "Egyptianized"; they were then returned to Nubia as district governors of their own people. The number of such administrative districts is suggested by the three "chiefs of Wawat" and six "chiefs of Kush" represented on the walls of the Theban tomb of the Viceroy Amenhotep Huy, dating to the time of Tutankhamun (ca. 1333-1323 BC). Nubia also continued to supply troops to the Egyptian army in the north. Not only are Nubian troops depicted on the walls of Egyptian temples and tombs, but the diplomatic archive found at Tell el-Amarna also reveals that Pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten regularly stationed Kushite troops in Asia to defend their northern empire.

3. Egyptian and Nubian Cultural and Religious Assimilation

To the Egyptians of earlier periods, Nubia had been an alien land - a place where no Egyptian would wish to live and die. All Egyptians, of course, wished to die and be buried in Egypt. In order to encourage Egyptians to settle in Nubia, it was essential for them to believe that Nubia had always been a part of Egypt. Immediately after the conquest, therefore, the pharaohs commenced building major temples throughout Nubia to the Egyptian gods. Two kings, Amenhotep III and Ramses II even built temples to their own divine aspects at Soleb and Abu Simbel respectively. Egyptian religious traditions concerning Nubia were also revised to emphasize episodes that had to do with Nubia. Rapidly Egyptian temple towns were founded; Egyptians became settlers and took Nubian spouses, and many Nubians of the upper classes adopted Egyptian customs and Egyptian language and writing.

Although little is known of the Nubian gods or religious beliefs prior to the coming of the Egyptians, evidence from Kerma reveals that the Kushites had a well-developed religion and that, like the Egyptians, they probably worshipped the sun. Like the Egyptians, they probably identified the sun as an ancestor or father of their living king, who was also deified like the pharaoh. There is also reason to believe that Egyptian and Kushite cults may have begun to merge even under the Kerma kings, who were evidently strong admirers of the Egyptians and employed many Egyptians at their court. Just as the Greeks of later times identified the Egyptian gods as merely alternate aspects of their own gods, the Kushites and Egyptians may also have come to share the belief that their key gods were merely forms of each other.

4. The Nubian Amun Cult and the Legend of the Nubian Origin of Egyptian Kingship

After their conquest of Kush, the Egyptians established the cult of their supreme god Amun throughout Nubia. This cult, originally of Thebes, had grown dramatically in power and influence as the Theban royal families had extended theirs. Originally simply a local god, he soon became conceptualized as "king of the gods." He was believed to be the god of creation, of fertility, of the Nile flood, of the sun, and of kingship, and he was believed to be the pharaoh's own father, making the king himself divine. Although his true nature was mysterious and "hidden" (which is the meaning of his name), Amun in art was normally represented as a man with blue skin and golden garments and a tall, two-feathered golden crown. In Nubia, however, he increasingly appeared in a new form: as a man with a ram's head, crowned with a sun disk. Scholars now believe that this Nubian form of Amun was derived from a native Nubian god of the pre-conquest era.

Although Karnak was Amun's chief sanctuary in Egypt, the Egyptians established new centers for his worship in Nubia. The most important was at Napata, about 102 miles (170 km) southeast of Kerma by desert road. The Amun temple complex there was built at the foot of a small, isolated, flat-topped sandstone butte, which the Egyptians called "The Pure Mountain." Today this rock is called in Arabic Gebel ("Mount") Barkal. The god was believed to dwell inside it.

Gebel Barkal rises about 320 ft (102 m), above the desert plain and confronts the Nile, about 1.5 mi (2.5 km) distant, with a sheer cliff. The mountain's most distinctive feature is a 243 ft (74 m) pinnacle on the south angle of its cliff. Recent researches there by Timothy Kendall and a team from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have revealed that this colossal monolith was conceived by the ancients as a natxural statue of a rearing cobra ("uraeus"), the symbol of kingship which was affixed to the king's crown. When the mountain was seen from the east in silhouette, it looked like a giant king's head wearing a uraeus diadem, which gave rise to a tradition that this was the place where Amun first brought kingship to earth. The Egyptian pharaohs thus made this remote mountain in Nubia one of the holiest places of their empire, built here a coronation center, and came here to receive their crowns from the god.