Kush rules Egypt

Piye, a king of Kush in Nubia, led a campaign into Egypt, and his successors completed the takeover and ruled as the 25th Dynasty. Kushite kings also built pyramids in present-day Sudan.

Sources date Piye's reign start between about 753 and 744 BCE, and one places his main campaign near 727 BCE.

Context

Kush was the Nile kingdom south of Egypt, centered on Napata near Mount Barkal. Piye acted after Tefnakhte, a Libyan chieftain based in the Delta, began to extend his power up the Nile and threatened Thebes, the home of the god Amun. Piye's forces defeated Tefnakhte's river fleet and land army, took Hermopolis and Memphis, and received the submission of Delta rulers. A stela at Mount Barkal records the campaign in his own words.

Piye returned to Napata rather than governing Egypt directly. His successors Shabaka and Shebitku completed the takeover, and later Egyptian tradition counts Shabaka as the dynasty's first king. The Kushite kings presented themselves as restorers of traditional Egyptian religion and temple building.

Kushite rule ended after Assyrian invasions: Taharqa lost Lower Egypt in 667 BCE and died in 664 BCE. The kings were buried in steep-sided pyramids in Sudan, and Nubia has more pyramids than Egypt, over 200 by National Geographic's count.

Historians use the Kushite period to argue that ancient Egypt cannot be studied apart from the rest of Africa. The Kushite kings also restored older temples and revived artistic styles from the Old Kingdom, and their rule is often counted as one of the last periods of native rule before Assyrian and Persian domination. Kush itself outlasted the 25th Dynasty by roughly a thousand years, later centering on Meroe.