The Nubian pharaohs
Kushite kings rule Egypt for a century as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 88 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Piye marches north from Napata around 744 BCE and takes Egypt, and his successors — Shabaka, Shebitku, Taharqa — rule the whole Nile valley from the Delta to the fourth cataract as pharaohs. They present themselves as restorers of traditional Egyptian religion and revive Old Kingdom artistic styles, and they build extensively at Karnak. Assyrian invasion drives them back south after 671 BCE, and Kush continues at Meroe for another thousand years.