Meroitic Kush

Information on Kush following their expulsion from Egypt is scarce. Apparently the Kushite kings briefly reestablished their court at Napata. Around the turn of the sixth century bc, King Aspelta moved the capital to Meroë, a city southwest of Napata near the fifth cataract in modern-day Sudan. The forests neighboring Meroë allowed for more extensive ironworking (see Edwards, The Nubian Past, 173–74). Meroë also provided the Kushites with access to trade routes on the Red Sea, which permitted them to bypass trade via the Nile.

Although Meroë was now the official capital, Kushite officials and kings continued to be buried at Napata until the third century bc, when Meroë became the official royal burial site (see Welsby, “Kush,” 782). The shift in burial site has traditionally marked the emergence of a third phase: Meroitic Kush, which the Romans called Ethiopia.

The Meroitic Kushite kingdom lasted over 700 years. They developed their own alphabetic writing system distinct, Meroitic, which is distinct from Egyptian hieroglyphics. Edwards notes that the language underlying Meroitic has still managed to elude complete translation, as it has no known relatives (see Edwards, The Nubian Past, 176–79). Meroitic Kush traded extensively with Greece and Rome, resulting in a flourishing economy. At its height, the Meroitic kingdom of Kush encompassed almost 930 miles of the Nile River—from the Egyptian frontier in Lower Nubia through what is now modern Khartoum (the capital of Sudan) and including territories east and west of the Nile.