Editing Sudan (section)

=== Kingdom of Kush (c. 1070 BC–350 AD) ===
{{main|Kingdom of Kush|Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt}}
[[File:Sudan Meroe Pyramids 2001.JPG|thumb|[[Nubian pyramids]] in [[Meroë]]]]
[[File:Xerxes detail Ethiopian.jpg|thumb|''Kušiya'' soldier of the [[Achaemenid army]], {{circa|480&nbsp;BCE}}. [[Xerxes I]] tomb relief.]]

The [[Kingdom of Kush]] was an ancient [[Nubia]]n state centred on the confluences of the [[Blue Nile]] and [[White Nile]], and the [[Atbarah River]] and the [[Nile|Nile River]]. It was established after the [[Bronze Age]] collapse and the disintegration of the [[New Kingdom of Egypt]]; it was centred at Napata in its early phase.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Edwards, David N.|title=Nubian Past : an Archaeology of the Sudan.|date=2005|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-48276-6|oclc=437079538}}</ref>

After King [[Kashta]] ("the Kushite") invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the [[Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt]] for nearly a century before being defeated and driven out by the [[Assyria]]ns.<ref name=Kelsey/> At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as [[South Kordofan]] to the Sinai. Pharaoh [[Piye]] attempted to expand the empire into the Near East but was thwarted by the Assyrian king [[Sargon II]].

Between 800 BCE and 100 AD the [[Nubian pyramids]] were built, among them can be named [[El-Kurru]], [[Kashta]], [[Piye]], [[Tantamani]], [[Shabaka]], Pyramids of [[Jebel Barkal|Gebel Barkal]], [[Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah)]], the [[Sedeinga pyramids]], and [[Nuri|Pyramids of Nuri]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Takacs |first1=Sarolta Anna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SPcvCgAAQBAJ&q=%22in+fact%2C+there+are+twice+as+many+Nubian+pyramids%22&pg=PA15 |title=The Ancient World |last2=Cline |first2=Eric H. |date=17 July 2015 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-317-45839-5 |language=en}}</ref>

The Kingdom of Kush is mentioned in the Bible as having saved the Israelites from the wrath of the Assyrians, although disease among the besiegers might have been one of the reasons for the failure to take the city.<ref>{{cite book|author=Roux, Georges |title=Ancient Iraq|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=klZX8B_RzzYC|date= 1992|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-193825-7}}</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2013}}
The war that took place between Pharaoh [[Taharqa]] and the Assyrian king [[Sennacherib]] was a decisive event in western history, with the Nubians being defeated in their attempts to gain a foothold in the [[Near East]] by Assyria. Sennacherib's successor [[Esarhaddon]] went further and invaded Egypt itself to secure his control of the Levant. This succeeded, as he managed to expel Taharqa from Lower Egypt. Taharqa fled back to Upper Egypt and Nubia, where he died two years later. Lower Egypt came under Assyrian vassalage but proved unruly, unsuccessfully rebelling against the Assyrians. Then, the king [[Tantamani]], a successor of Taharqa, made a final determined attempt to regain Lower Egypt from the newly reinstated Assyrian vassal [[Necho I]]. He managed to retake [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]] killing Necho in the process and besieged cities in the Nile Delta. [[Ashurbanipal]], who had succeeded Esarhaddon, sent a large army in Egypt to regain control. He routed Tantamani near Memphis and, pursuing him, [[Sack of Thebes|sacked Thebes]]. Although the Assyrians immediately departed Upper Egypt after these events, weakened, Thebes peacefully submitted itself to Necho's son [[Psamtik I]] less than a decade later. This ended all hopes of a revival of the Nubian Empire, which rather continued in the form of a smaller kingdom centred on [[Napata]]. The city was raided by the Egyptian {{circa}} 590 BC, and sometime soon after to the late-3rd century BC, the Kushite resettled in [[Meroë]].<ref name=Kelsey>{{cite book|chapter=A Cultural History of Kush: Politics, Economy, and Ritual Practice|url=https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/kelsey-assets/kelsey-publications/pdfs/Graffiti-as-Devotion.pdf|title=Graffiti as Devotion along the Nile and Beyond|last1=Emberling|first1=Geoff|last2=Davis|first2=Suzanne|publisher=[[Kelsey Museum of Archaeology]]|date=2019|access-date=3 November 2021|pages=5–6, 10–11|isbn=978-0-9906623-9-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lh4GBNLsCUsC|title=Forgotten Africa: An Introduction to Its Archaeology|last=Connah|first=Graham|publisher=[[Routledge]]|date=2004|access-date=3 November 2021|pages=52–53|isbn=0-415-30590-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Semantic Shift on a Geographical Term|last=Unseth|first=Peter|journal=[[The Bible Translator]]|date=1 July 1998|volume=49|issue=3|pages=323–324|doi=10.1177/026009359804900302|s2cid=131916337}}</ref>