I think
we all have at least heard the name of an ancient empire called the Kushites,
but I also think that virtually none of my friends could say when or where that
empire was located in t geography or history… And I was the same.
So, in
brief, the Kushites were a civilization from the middle Nile regions (ie modern
Northern Sudan/Southern Egypt and they were contemporaries of the mid/later
Roman empire (ie from about 500BCE to about 500AD). In earlier days, the this
area in Sudan was made a vassal state of the dominant Egyptian empire but as
the Egyptian “new Kingdom” collapsed, the Kushites came into their own and even
invaded significant parts of the old Egyptian empire.
But the
Kushites had taken many of the Egyptian practices and influences into their own
culture and they are reflected in many of the remaining artifacts from the
empire… Which is why I bring it all up in the first place… While in Sudan I
visited a couple of Meroitic archeological sites with Kushite burial pyramids.
The pyramids are much smaller than the classic Giza pyramids in Egypt, but they
are also much steeper…
Anyway, enough
of the basic history stuff that I don’t think even I will remember in a couple
of years, and here are a few pictures J
