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The Black Pharaohs: Egypt's Nubian Rulers

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Robert Morkot's contribution on Nubia in "Centuries of Darkness" by Peter James prompted me to buy this book. His chapter on the origins of the Kushite kingdom interested me primarily because, quite apart from the chronological controversy, I knew very little about the civilisations of the African kingdoms to the south of Egypt and only a passing familiarity with the pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt.

In an introduction to the Notes section of his book, Professor Morkot states that there are still relatively few general accounts of the 25th dynasty and much of the detailed argument and discussion has appeared as articles in academic journals or proceedings of Nubian and Meroitic conferences. He goes on to point out that most books published on Nubia have tended to discuss the 25th Dynasty in the context of monuments in the Sudan and treat the Egyptian monuments and to some extent the events and policies as tangential. This book, then, sets out to address this gap in the record.

The book can be divided into the following sections:
* Chapters I to III review the geography and European rediscovery of Nubia first by wealthy travellers, and then by archaeologists from about the middle of the 19th century onwards. These are important chapters because they clearly lay out the most significant hypotheses put forward by the earlier archaeologists who tended to base their assumptions on preconceived notions of the superiority of the Egyptian kingdoms over those of the their southern neighbours, resulting in misconceptions which influenced the study of the kingdoms of Nubia and Meroe up to fairly recent times.
* Chapters IV to VIII deal with Nubia and the Egyptians in Nubia during the period of the Old Kingdom, 1st Intermediate Period, Middle Kingdom, 2nd Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom which ended about 1069BC. These chapters primarily discuss the role of the Egyptian state in Nubia - with the exception of Chapter V which reviews the rise of the Kushite kingdom of Kerma during the 2nd Intermediate period.
* Chapters IX and X deals with the 3rd Intermediate period; Chapter IX with the Libyan Dynasties up to the first appearance of the Kushite Kings in Thebes around 750BC, at a time when little is known about what was happening in Lower and Upper Nubia, the areas along the Nile above the 1st Cataract at what is now Aswan; and Chapter X with the emergence of the Assyrian empire and appearance of their armies in western Asia and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
* Chapters XI and XII describe records and monuments of Alara and Kashta, the founding kings of the Kushite Dynasty of Napata.
* Chapters XIII to XXI describe records and monuments of the four Kushite pharaohs who ruled over the whole of Egypt - Piye, Shabaqo, Shebitqo, Taharqo. The Egyptian and Nubian records are now supplemented by those of Assyria, Babylonia, western Asia, and Biblical sources. There are complete descriptions of Piye's campaign into the Delta and subseqent re-unification of Egypt, and the incursions of the Assyrians into western Asia and finally into Egypt itself with the campaigns of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal in 674BC, 671BC, 669BC and 667BC.
* Chapter XXII, the final chapter, covers the reign of the Tanwetamani, the last recognised Kushite pharaoh of Egypt and the unification of Egypt under Psamtik I, the first king of the 26th Saite Dynasty.

I found the book to be eminently readable and most interesting, although there often seemed to be frequent repetitions about artefacts and events, which didn't detract from the reading so much as to make me wonder how the book was put together. Professor Morkot is also quite fond of the word "doubtless" - which is a warning flag - since what follows is his interpretation of events without much evidence to back up the statements. Notwithstanding this, I now have a clear idea of the difficulties of developing a coherent picture of the Kushite kingdoms, and I think Professor Morkot has succeeded in being fairly even-handed with the more egregious controversies, including those various hypotheses concerning the geneaology of Kushite royalty and the Kushite succession. The chronological topic in "Centuries of Darkness" plays only a minor role in this book as it is primarily an issue with respect to the period before the accession of kings Alara and Kashta.

Invariably, owing to space limitations if nothing else, I needed some references to hand to help fill in the gaps and my lapses of memory when I was reading this book. These included
* Ian Shaw's "Oxford History of Ancient Egypt" for the periods up to the end of the 3rd Intermediate period
* Several websites which provided more information about the pharaohs of the confusing period of the 3rd Intermediate period, and detailed maps for those inevitable places which do not appear on any map.
* George Roux's "Ancient Iraq" when it came to the accounts of the emergence of the Assyrian empire into western Asia.
The book has many interesting illustrations, the maps were helpful for understanding the geography of the Nile up to Khartoum, the notes on each chapter are extensive and helpful, and for further reading there is a useful bibliography of works of about 170 notable scholars and archeologists of the past 100 years.

This book has certainly enhanced my knowledge of this subject, and I recommend it to those persons who want a good overview of the Nubian civilisations up to the end of the 25th Dynasty. It has also renewed my interest in the 3rd Intermediate Period, and Kenneth Kitchen's book on that subject is one of the next books on my reading list.