Captivating History - The Kingdom of Kush: A Captivating Guide to an Ancient African Kingdom in Nubia That Once Ruled Egypt

The Kingdom of Kush was completely forgotten once it met its end. The stories of its might didnt survive in the cultures of its successor kingdoms, possibly because Christianization soon followed, which required the people of the Nubian region to turn toward the east and the myths of the Christian messiah. There was no more room for the divine rulers, Amun and Re, or a place for their sons, the kings of Kush. The kingdom continued to exist in the stories of some classical writers, but it was often considered as nothing more than a distant, probably even imaginary, kingdom, where the uncivilized savages lived.

With the renewed interest in the classical arts of Greece and Rome, the Renaissance rediscovered the existence of Kush. Still, it was not explored until Napoleons expedition to Egypt in 1798. Even then, it was seen as a part of Egyptian culture. The discoveries made by the 18 th - and 19 th -century explorers proved there were, in fact, two separate cultures. However, this explanation was greatly influenced by Darwinism. Scholars presented the entirety of Africa as a place where civilized white men ruled over the uncivilized negroes. Kush was no exception to them, and the general opinion was that Egypt ruled over the uncivilized Kushites. Even the rule of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty was observed as nothing more than the less fortunate Kushites imitating the superior Egyptians.

It was not until the early 20 th century that the Kingdom of Kush received its rightful place in history. When the first archaeological survey of Nubia took place between 1907 and 1911, the distinctive cultural aspects of the Kingdom of Kush emerged, and it was finally seen as a separate entity from Egypt. The detailed chronology for the Kingdom of Kush was suggested, and archaeologists from all over the world came to explore the uniqueness of the Middle Nile Region. However, early modern archaeologists were greatly influenced by the Renaissance opinion that the Hamitic civilization ruled over the uncivilized African world, and this opinion was hard to change. Unfortunately, the lack of funding and interest led to the neglect of the excavation sites in Nubia.

The extension of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s threatened to submerge a large portion of the Nubian excavation sites under the water forever. To prevent this from happening, UNESCO organized an archaeological expedition, whose purpose was to preserve everything found between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile. During the UNESCO salvation period, over 1,000 new excavation sites were found, and an enormous amount of archaeological work was completed. This resulted in a change of opinion about the culture of the Middle Nile Region. No longer were scholars indoctrinated by the Renaissance view of the Kushites as uncivilized negroes ruled by superior Egyptians. Finally, pragmatism won, and the real truth about the Kingdom of Kush and its rulers saw the light of day. From the 1960s onward, the understanding and recognition of the Kingdom of Kush began. The history of Kush could finally be written.