(Intro): Aspelta, King of Kush (ca. 600-580 BC)

Aspelta is one of the best known kings of Kush. Although his exact dates are not known, he probably came to throne about 600 BC and died about twenty years later. He is thought to have been a great grandson of Taharqa, the last important Kushite ruler of Egypt (690-664 BC). Aspelta left many inscriptions, and he seems to have been the last of the Kushite kings actively to make plans to re-conquer Egypt. His scheme must have been discovered prematurely, for Kush was invaded in 593 BC by an army of the Egyptian king, Psammeticus II (ca. 594-588 BC). Aspelta's armies were defeated; the holy city of Napata was attacked and burned; and Aspelta fled to his southern capital Meroe, which henceforth became the chief royal residence of Kush. Aspelta is known to have constructed temples there, and fragments of his statues have been found as far south as Khartoum. His pyramid tomb at Nuri was the finest built during the Napatan period. (Intro. Fig.): Colossal statue of Aspelta, from Gebel Barkal, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

(Part I): Aspelta's Kingdom

From his brother Anlamani (ca. 620-600 BC), Aspelta inherited a kingdom extending probably from Aswan, Egypt, to modern Khartoum, Sudan, approximately 500 miles (830 km) north to south. Barely sixty-four years before, his ancestor Taharqa had ruled an empire twice this size, which included all of Egypt, but the Assyrians had driven him out and back into Nubia where he died. For generations afterwards Taharqa's successors in Kush continued to use the title of the pharaoh: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt," which in their minds meant "King of Kush and Egypt." Like the Egyptian kings, they also claimed to be the true sons of the god Amun (who was the supreme god of both Egypt and Nubia), and they had themselves buried in pyramids.

(Part I, fig. 1): View of the inscription on the base of Aspelta's statue in Boston, providing his royal titles and his official names (carved within oval borders or 'cartouches'). The two columns of text are read from right to left, top to bottom: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mer-ka-Re, beloved of Amun of Napata. Son of Re (i.e. the sun god), Aspelta, who is given all life, stability, and dominion forever." (Mer-ka-Re was Aspelta's "throne name" and was that of an ancient Egyptian king of Dynasty 9 [ca. 2100 BC] famed for his wisdom and justice).

(Part II): Aspelta's Statue

Little was known of Taharqa's successors in Kush until 1916, when George A. Reisner and an archaeological team from Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, began to excavate the temples at Gebel Barkal, the site of ancient Napata. There they found a cache of ten large broken granite statues representing, sometimes in multiple image, Taharqa and four of his five successors and a queen. One of the finest statues, standing 11 ft. (3.3 m) tall, represented Aspelta. In the early sixth century BC, the statues had stood inside the great Amun temple at Gebel Barkal, but at some point they had been deliberately overthrown, their bodies broken, their heads split from their necks, their crowns fragmented, and their faces marred. All the statues had been buried in a pit outside the great temple.

(Part II, fig. 1): Cache of broken statues, shown as they were discovered at Gebel Barkal in 1916. They represented the kings of Kush from Taharqa to Aspelta.

(Part II, fig. 2): Colossal statues of Aspelta (right) and his brother Anlamani (ca. 620-600 BC) (left) as exhibitied in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

(Part III): Aspelta's Crown and Dress

Aspelta's statue is hardly different from Egyptian statues of much earlier times. Only his necklace (now worn off) and crown are unique to Kushite kings. The necklace was a cord wound about the neck so that the two ends fell forward, across the breast. The cord ends were hung with ram's head terminals, symbols of the god Amun of Gebel Barkal. The crown was cap-shaped and had two cobras (called uraei) rising over the king's forehead, rather than the normal one uraeus worn by Egyptian kings. The four tall plumes rising from the crown identified the king as the reincarnation of the god Shu-Onuris, who in myth had saved Egypt. The surface of the crown, necklace, kilt, bracelets, and armlets were left rough so as to be plastered and gilded.

(Part III, fig. 1): Detail of the statue of Aspelta in Boston, showing crown.

(Part III, fig. 2): The Kushite "cap-crown" and royal necklace as shown on a statuette of King Shabaqo (ca. 712-698 BC) in the National Museum, Athens.

(Part III, fig. 3): Gold ram-head pendant from the necklace of a Kushite king. Egypt, Dynasty 25, ca. 716-661 BC. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

(Part III, fig. 4): Bronze object with the heads of the god Shu-Onuris and his sister, the lion-headed goddess Tefnut. The kings of Kush identified with Shu-Onuris, just as their sisters identified with Tefnut. In mythology these gods had come from Nubia and were believed to be the protectors of Egypt.

(Part IV): Aspelta's Coronation

We know Aspelta from many documents and monuments. This is odd, since the Kushite kings normally left very few. One inscription details the events of the king's coronation at Gebel Barkal after the death of his brother Anlamani. According to the story, the army gathered at the great temple and asked the priests to ask the god Amun to select a new king. When all the eligible princes went before the god, Amun selected Aspelta, who, as is clear from the text, was not the obvious choice. The text appears to be pure propaganda, designed to justify Aspelta's rule. In later times someone in anger erased his names from the text, but not well enough so that it cannot still be read.

(Part IV, fig. 1): View of the upper part of Aspelta's coronation stela, found at Gebel Barkal in 1862, and now exhibited in the Nubian Museum, Aswan. Aspelta is shown kneeling in front of the god Amun, who puts his hand on the king's head to indicate that he is his choice to be ruler. The king's mother Nasalsa looks on from the right and holds a pair of sacred rattles ("sistra").

(Part V): Aspelta's Early Reign.

Aspelta had early political problems, for an inscription dated to "year 2" of his reign, is an edict sentencing to death several priests for committing a crime that could only be described indirectly. It had to do with these priests' "putting into the god's mouth words that he did not say" and "ordering the death of an innocent man." Presumably the priests had manipulated the god's oracle so that it seemed to order the king's own removal and death (a custom reported to have occurred from time to time). Rather than obeying the "divine order," Aspelta had probably simply denied its authenticity and had the priests executed. As if to atone for this "sin" against the priesthood, another monument, dated "year 3," announced great endowments to be given to the god in perpetuity by Aspelta's mother and sister.

(Part V, fig. 1): View of the top part of Aspelta's Year 2 stela, found at Gebel Barkal in 1862, and now exhibited in the Nubian Museum, Aswan. Here the king was shown before the god Amun and his family. Note that the king's name and image were at one time erased, indicating that his memory was in bad standing. At a later time, his image was restored, indicating that history had rehabilitated him.

(Part VI): Aspelta's Rivalry with Egypt

In the 660's BC the Assyrians warred with Egypt over control of Palestine and eventually overran Egypt, driving the Kushite kings back into Nubia. Assisting the Assyrians were the princes of the northern Egyptian city of Sais. Eventually the Saites were able to establish themselves as the new pharaohs, and they established a military garrison at Aswan, Egypt's border with Kush. For decades, the two rival dynasties each seriously claimed the kingship of Egypt. The Saites governed from their capital in the Nile Delta but were doubtless presented by Kushite propagandists as traitors and usurpers. The Saites, for their part, probably presented the Kushites, in faraway Napata, as foreigners and interlopers. Despite the tension, there was no confrontation, as far as we know, until Aspelta came to the throne.

(Part VI, fig. 1): Assyrian soldiers leading Nubian troops captive after the capture of Memphis, 667 BC. From a wall relief in the palace at Nineveh, Iraq. British Museum, London.

(Part VI, fig. 2): Statue of Psammeticus II (594-588 BC), the Egyptian king who invaded Nubia during the reign of Aspelta.

(Part VII): Aspelta's Palace

In 1920, George Reisner and his team started excavating the remains of the palace at Gebel Barkal, built largely of mud brick, and found that it had been built over and over again on the same spot. Under the eroded latest levels he found another that had been destroyed by fire. It had been so badly destroyed that the later builders simply filled in its rooms with earth and used them as foundations for the next level. Inscriptions buried in the fill indicated that the burned palace had belonged to Aspelta and his brother Anlamani. New excavations undertaken in 1996 and '97 by Timothy Kendall of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, revealed finely carved and painted fallen columns and fragments of wall paintings.

(Part VII, fig. 1): View of the palace at Gebel Barkal, photographed from the top of the mountain in 1989. This structure was built and rebuilt at least five times on the same spot. The middle level, destroyed by fire, had been built by Aspelta and his brother Anlamani.

(Part VII, fig. 2): View of the palace at Gebel Barkal, after excavations by G.A. Reisner and his Boston team in 1920. In the foreground are the remains of Aspelta's throne room.

(Part VII, fig. 3): Timothy Kendall and Susanne Gansicke expose one of the ram-head column capitals from the debris of Aspelta's palace at Gebel Barkal, 1989. These columns belonged to a room in which Aspelta performed rituals associated with bringing in the New Year and the Nile inundation.

(Part IX): Aspelta's War with Egypt

In a small chapel at Kawa (near Kerma) Aspelta appears before the god Amun who says to him: "Oh my beloved son, Aspelta, I will give you success on the day of battle." What battle might he have been anticipating? Another inscription found near Aswan bears a text of the Egyptian king Psammeticus II (594-588 B.C.), who states that the Kushites were preparing to attack him. Immediately he sent his own army south for a pre-emptive strike. At a place thought to be near great bend in the river, the Egyptians met the Kushite army, defeated it and took 4200 prisoners. Another fragmentary text found at Sais reports that the Egyptian army proceeded to a place called "the Cliff", destroyed the buildings there, including the "palace of the king," which was "set on fire." Although the Kushite "king" is never mentioned by name, there seems little reason to doubt that it was Aspelta, that "the Cliff" was Gebel Barkal, and that the burned palace was the one found at Gebel Barkal.

(Part IX, fig. 1): Drawings of the relief carved on the wall of Aspelta's chapel in the temple of Amun at Kawa, showing the king standing before the god Amun in his two guises: one, with human head and the other, with ram's head. The rams' horns on the king's crown indicate that he is the god's son.

(Part X): Egyptian Vengeance

The composition of the Egyptian army that invaded Kush in 593 BC is indicated by a series of graffiti still visible on the legs of the colossi of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, which the troops marked as they passed by the temple on their way back home. These scrawls reveal that Psammeticus II had an army composed of Egyptians as well as Greeks. The graffiti are among the earliest known Greek inscriptions. With the return of his victorious army to Egypt, Psammeticus, now secure on his throne, ordered all the visible monuments of the Kushite kings in Egypt to be defaced or destroyed, or to have their names cut off and his own inserted where theirs had been.

(Part X, fig. 1): The leg of one of the colossi at Abu Simbel, showing the graffiti of the Greek troops in the Egyptian army that invaded Kush in 593 BC (They appear about half-way up the leg).

(Part X, fig. 2): Image of a Kushite king of Dynasty 25 vandalized by followers of King Psammeticus II (Dynasty 26), after his triumphant victory against Kush in 593 BC. From Edfu, Egypt.

(Part X, fig.3): Relief blocks bearing inscriptions of Kushite kings of Dynasty 25, from Karnak, Egypt. The names of the kings have been erased and reinscribed with the name of Psammeticus II.

(Part XI): Aspelta's Later Years

After the destruction of Napata, Aspelta seems to have fled to Mero‘, his southern capital, which was beyond the reach of his foe. Of the remainder of his reign, little is known, except that he continued to rule for some years. He built a large temple on the outskirts of Mero‘. A granite sphinx of his was found near Khartoum, and the lower legs of a large statue of his was found up the Blue Nile. Several tombs at Meroe were furnished with objects inscribed for Aspelta, and one nearby was the grave of a Queen Mernua, who may have been one of his wives. Nastasen, a later king of Kush, recorded in his own stela that treasures donated by Aspelta for the Amun temple at Kawa, and still preserved in his day (about 350 BC), had recently been looted by desert nomads.

(Part XI, fig.1): Sphinx of Aspelta holding an offering table. Found near Khartoum and now in the Sudan National Museum, Khartoum.

(Part XI, fig. 2): Silver-gilt mummy trappings of Queen Mernua, possibly a wife of Aspelta, from Meroe, South Cemetery. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

(Part XII): Aspelta's Pyramid

Aspelta's pyramid was built at Nuri, about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of Gebel Barkal. This pyramid field was founded by Taharqa (690-664 BC), who was probably Aspelta's great-grandfather. Aspelta was the fourth of nineteen kings to be buried here, and his pyramid is the most perfectly preserved on the site. It measures 27.5 m. (90 ft.) square and stands nearly to its original height of about 26 m (86 ft.). Like all the royal tombs of Kush, it consisted of a solid pyramid with a small temple ("chapel") built against the east face (in which the spirit of the dead king was worshipped and tended by priests). A tomb was cut in the rock below it. The tomb, consisting of three interconnecting chambers, was reached by a long stairway that was concealed after burial. Like the Barkal temples, the Nuri pyramids were excavated by George Reisner and his team in 1917.

(Part XII, fig. 1): Reisner's camp at the Nuri pyramids in 1917. Laid out on the ground are the more than 1000 shawabti figures found in Taharqa's pyramid (which is directly above the peak of the tent roof). Aspelta's pyramid is the tallest, immediately to the right.

(Part XII, fig. 2): Aspelta's pyramid (right) as it appears today. Nuri, Sudan.

(Part XII, fig. 3): Computer generated reconstruction of Aspelta's pyramid, chapel, and subterranean tomb. Note that after the king's burial, the long stairway would have been filled in and the entrance concealed.

(Part XIII): Aspelta's Tomb Treasure

Due to the collapse of the roof in the first two chambers of Aspelta's tomb, George Reisner, in 1917, found many precious objects under the rubble; these had been protected from the tomb robbers who plundered all the other tombs on the site. Reisner found twenty-two magnificent calcite perfume jars, fifteen gold or silver-gilt cylinders, numerous loose beads of gold and semi-precious stones, and hundreds of pieces of gold foil. In the second chamber he found several gold and silver vessels, a decayed wooden box containing three silver and three gold tweezers, and an elaborate bead collar of gold and amethyst. Lying in the third chamber was the king's fully carved and inscribed granite sarcophagus, over twelve tons in weight. A pair of large inlay eyes and many inlays of semi-precious cut stone for a wooden coffin, suggested that thieves had removed the king's coffins and mummy and had stripped them for precious objects. The floors of the burial chamber were strewn with about 300 faience magical servant figures, called shawabtis.

(Part XIII, fig. 1): Calcite perfume jars as found in Aspelta's tomb, 1917.

(Part XIII, fig. 2): Calcite jars and gold objects from Aspelta's tomb. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

(Part XIII, fig. 3): The twelve ton granite sarcophagus of King Aspelta, from his tomb at Nuri. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

(Part XIII, fig. 4): View of the interior of Aspelta's tomb, as reconstructed by computer graphics artist William Riseman for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

(Part XIII, fig. 5): Photograph of the floor of Aspelta's tomb in 1917, showing it strewn with shawabti figures.

(Part XIII, fig. 6): A selection of the more than 300 shawabtis found in Aspelta's tomb. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

(Part XIV): Aspelta's Nose

Since its discovery, the statue of Aspelta in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, had always lacked its nose. In 1970, during the Museum's centennial, a Museum promotional poster had been issued with the caption: "If you find King Aspelta's nose, call 267-9377·." No one, of course, ever seriously imagined that the nose would be found, for it was thought to have been destroyed by the Egyptians in 593 BC. When the broken statues were brought back to Boston in 1923, they were accompanied by boxes of hundreds of small fragments of worked granite that the excavators had picked up at Gebel Barkal through four years of excavating. These were stored in drawers in the Museum basement. In 1994, Associate Curator Timothy Kendall noticed a fragment that looked like a nearly twice-lifesize nose in black granite. Realizing that the stone was identical to the Aspelta statue, he took it and a ladder to the statue, climbed up in front of the king's face, and the stone snapped right into place. This allowed for a full restoration of the king's face.

(Fig. XIV, fig. 1): Promotional poster of the Museum of Fine Arts, 1970, "advertising" the statue of Aspelta and its lost nose.

(Fig. XIV, fig. 2): It was in a drawer like this, filled with worked stone fragments from Gebel Barkal, that Aspelta's nose was actually found.

(Fig. XIV, fig. 3): The face of Aspelta, as found, without nose.

(Fig. XIV, fig. 4): The face of Aspelta, with nose fragment reattached.

(Fig. XIV, fig. 5): The face of Aspelta with nose fully restored.

(Part XV): Aspelta Remembered

Since the opening of the Museum of Fine Arts' Nubia gallery in May, 1992, Aspelta has been getting much popular notice. His pyramid tomb is featured in a scale model in the gallery, and the king's many precious gold, silver, and calcite vessels - and his pair of solid gold tweezers - may be seen there as well. Unfortunately, his great sarcophagus still remains in storage until a suitable gallery space can be found for it. In the meantime, people may visit a full-scale plaster replica of the sarcophagus, set within a full-scale reconstruction of the king's decorated burial chamber, at the Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists, 300 Walnut St., Boston, MA .

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