Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt: A Visual History

The 25th Dynasty was a line of Nubian kings from the Kingdom of Kush at Napata who conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC. Piye (Piankhi) took Memphis around 727 BC and his brother Shabaka completed the conquest; Taharqa (690-664) ruled an empire from Khartoum to the Mediterranean, built at Karnak and Kawa, and fought the Assyrians. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal invaded, sacked Thebes in 663 and installed the Saite dynasty; the Kushite kings withdrew south to Napata and later Meroe, where they built pyramids for another thousand years.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite). The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Kushite territory

Timeline of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite)

1. 744 BC
   Kashta controls Upper Egypt
2. 727 BC
   Piye's campaign
3. 715 BC
   Shabaka rules all Egypt
4. 690 BC
   Taharqa
5. 671 BC
   Esarhaddon takes Memphis
6. 663 BC
   Assyrians sack Thebes
7. 656 BC
   Kushites lose Thebes

Piye's conquest

Kush, Egypt's former colony, had reasserted itself around Napata and adopted the cult of Amun of Gebel Barkal. When the Libyan princelings of divided Egypt threatened Thebes, Piye marched north around 727 BC, took Memphis, received the submission of the delta kings and recorded it on a great stele, then went home. Shabaka returned to rule Egypt directly from Memphis.

Taharqa

Taharqa's reign was the height of Kushite Egypt: a colonnade at Karnak, temples in Nubia, revived Old Kingdom art and titles, and a Nile flood so high it was recorded as a miracle. He supported Judah against Assyria (he appears in the Bible as Tirhakah) and drove back Esarhaddon in 674, but Esarhaddon took Memphis in 671 and Ashurbanipal defeated Taharqa again in 667.

Retreat to Kush

Tantamani retook Memphis in 664 but Ashurbanipal's counter-attack sacked Thebes in 663, an event remembered in the Bible and Greek writers. The Kushites withdrew to Napata; Psamtik I of Sais made Thebes accept his daughter as God's Wife of Amun in 656, ending Kushite claims. The Kingdom of Kush flourished at Napata and Meroe until the fourth century AD, keeping Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs and pyramid tombs.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• New Kingdom of Egypt (1,550 BC to 1,069 BC)
• Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 609 BC)
• Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (Saite period) (664 BC to 525 BC)
• Kingdom of Aksum (100 to 940)
• Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC to 539 BC)
• Ancient Carthage (814 BC to 146 BC)

8 surprising things about the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (Kushite)

1. There are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt, mostly built by the Kushite kings after they left Egypt.
2. Piye loved horses and rebuked a defeated prince for letting his stables starve during a siege; kings of the dynasty were buried with their horses.
3. Taharqa is named in the Bible (2 Kings 19:9) as the king of Kush who marched against Sennacherib.
4. The Shabaka Stone, now in the British Museum, preserves an ancient Memphite creation text the king had recopied; it was later used as a millstone.
5. Taharqa's colossal statues stand at Gebel Barkal, and his tomb pyramid at Nuri is the largest in Sudan.
6. The Assyrian sack of Thebes in 663 BC shocked the ancient world; the prophet Nahum cites it as a warning to Nineveh.
7. The Kushite kings shaved their heads and wore a distinctive cap-crown with two uraeus cobras, for Egypt and Kush.
8. The dynasty is sometimes called the 'Ethiopian' dynasty, following the Greek name for all lands south of Egypt.

Sources

• Ancient Egypt: The 25th dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt Wikipedia
• Kingdom of Kush World History Encyclopedia
• Robert G. Morkot, The Black Pharaohs: Egypt's Nubian Rulers (2000) Rubicon Press

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