Meroë
Kush moves south, smelts iron on an industrial scale and writes in its own script.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 649 years
- Known to
- ± 50 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
After Assyrian and later Egyptian pressure, the Kushite capital shifts to Meroë, which flourishes from around 300 BCE with extensive ironworking — the slag heaps are enormous — agriculture supported by reservoirs, and trade with Rome, Arabia and India. It develops Meroitic, an alphabetic script of its own that is readable but whose language remains largely undeciphered. Its rulers included several reigning queens titled kandake.