Beyond the ancient Nile’s fertile banks lay a civilisation that rivalled Egypt in power and prestige—the Kingdom of Kush. This ancient empire, centred in modern Sudan, once ruled Egypt, defied Rome, and it's formidable warrior queens left a lasting mark on African history.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes visits the British Museum to explore the story of the Kushites with Dr. Loretta Kilroe, curator of a new exhibition on Ancient Sudan. From royal pyramids to one-eyed battlefield leaders and even Kushite porridge, uncover the hidden legacy of this extraordinary civilization.Loretta's exhibition, Ancient Sudan: Enduring Heritage is touring the UK this year. It opens in Portsmouth on 1st February and in Stirling on 9th August.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight.The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here:https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK
Chapter 1: What is the Kingdom of Kush?
It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. In today's episode we are exploring another of those ancient civilizations all too often overshadowed by more famous names like Egypt, Greece and Rome. We're shining a light on the Kingdom of Kush, its people known as the Kushites. Zentriert im heutigen Sudan, hat das Königreich Kusch eine außergewöhnliche Geschichte.
Von dem regierenden alten Ägypten bis zu dem mächtigen römischen König Augustus, haben seine Leute einen unvergesslichen Marken auf die sudanische und afrikanische Geschichte gelegt, die bis heute lebt. Um mehr über dieses Königreich zu lernen, bin ich nach dem britischen Museum gegangen, um Dr. Loretta Kilrow zu interviewen, Kuratorin für Sudan und Nubien im Museum.
Loretta hat letztlich eine neue Ausstellung über den alten Sudan gegründet, voller erstaunlicher Kuschite-Artefakte. The exhibition will be touring the UK in 2025 and is called Ancient Sudan, Enduring Heritage. We have a brand new documentary showcasing its artifacts out now on the History Hit YouTube channel, so please do check that out after listening to today's episode.
This chat has everything from ancient Kushite porridge to their striking pyramids. Loretta was fantastic and I hope you enjoy it. Loretta, es ist wundervoll, dich auf dem Podcast zu haben. Danke, Tristan.
Absolut. Und je mehr du in das Königreich von Kush und dem alten Sudan schaust, desto mehr faszinierend ist es. Und ich denke, viele Leute werden wirklich in diese tollen Geschichten gefangen.
Und welchen Zeitraum sprechen wir mit dem Königreich von Kush?
So we're looking at about 790 BC to about the 4th century AD. But obviously throughout that there are a lot of changes in political rule, rises and falls, extensions of empire. This isn't a static kingdom that we're looking at.
790 BC, that's quite a specific date in the 8th century. Do we know why you put the beginnings around the beginning of the 8th century BC?
So a lot of archaeologists have studied the rise of Kush. There's been a great interest in the early cemeteries. So in particular we have a cemetery known as El Kourou. This is in central Sudan, so around between the third and the fourth cataract of the river Nile. We found a couple of hundred years ago a large cemetery that had what looked like the remains of pyramids.
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Chapter 2: How did the Kingdom of Kush influence Egypt?
So the 25th Dynasty are Sudanese kings who suddenly turn up in Egyptian and later biblical sources as ruling Egypt. And this is when we start to get dates in, once we start to get these rulers with inscriptions written in hieroglyphics and in den biblischen Geschichten.
Aber das ist interessant. Also das 25. Dynastie, ist das eine der frühesten Beweise, die wir für das Königreich von Kush haben? Haben wir irgendeine Ahnung, was vorher in diesem Bereich kam, was jetzt Sudan ist?
Ja, also wenn wir auf Al-Khuru schauen, können wir Erlebnisse in Gebäuden, Feiern, Superstrukturen sehen. Die Kushiten selbst, als sie anfangen zu schreiben, fangen sie an, ägyptische Hieroglyphen zu benutzen. Und so fangen wir an, History in their own words for the first time. They talk about early ancestors, particularly a king called Alara.
We're not sure if Alara is real, is perhaps semi-mythical, but they all seem to date their reign and their rule back to him. We think that the early ancestors of the 25th Dynasty are rulers, chiefs in this part of the Nile Valley. They ruled a small part of the Nile Valley after the Egyptians withdrew from colonial control of Sudan at the end of the Egyptian New Kingdom.
Right, so Egyptian New Kingdom, so before the first millennium BC, and that's the time of famous names like Ramesses II and Tutankhamun, when Egypt is very much at its zenith. At that time, before the Kingdom of Kush, Sudan was very much part of that great empire further north, I guess down the River Nile.
Absolutely. So for the first time, Sudan is absorbed into Egypt proper. So obviously, Egypt has had a fractious relationship with ancient Sudan for thousands of years. We know there have been a lot of wars, a lot of skirmishes, different kingdoms taking control of different parts of land. There's a huge amount of trade as well.
There's obviously a lot of friendly relations, people moving, bringing with them goods and ideas.
And moving would it generally be in that time? Should we not be thinking roads? Should we be thinking river travel?
So, there's an awful lot of river travel, but you have to bear in mind that the Nile in Sudan is not as smooth as the Nile is in Egypt. There are six cataracts, which are very large areas of rocky rapids in the river that make sailing a bit more difficult than in Egypt.
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Chapter 3: What are the key archaeological sites of Kush?
We have Egyptian statues being dragged back to Kerma and buried in local burials. So this is all something that you have to take into context when we look at later periods like the Kingdom of Kush. So once we get to the New Kingdom... The Egyptians have decided, no, the fortresses aren't enough anymore. We have to control Sudan proper.
So they come in, they colonize Sudan, they destroy Kerma, and they build colonial towns, and they settle Egyptians in these. And for the first time, Sudan is part of Egypt. And this is really important when we're looking at Kush, because people look at Kushite culture, Kushite iconography, Cushite-Objekte und Superstrukturen und Tempels.
Und sie denken, oh, sie sind Ägypten, sie kopieren die Ägypten. Aber sie sind es nicht. Die Ägypten waren in Sudan für 500 Jahre. Und bis jetzt ist die Kultur, die sich in Sudan entwickelt hat, etwas komplett Neues, das sowohl indigenische als auch ägyptische Iconography benutzt, um das, was am Ende die Cushite-Kultur wird.
And we'll explore more and more of that. And I also love what you mentioned there also about them cutting off statues and bringing them back, because I think we'll explore a famous example of that later on. But if we then go to that 25th Dynasty that you highlighted right at the start, does this almost feel like role reversal in a way that, you know, once conquered Sudan and
Then the Egyptians go back after the New Kingdom and then this dynasty rise up from Kush and take over Egypt. So instead of Egypt being the heart of the dynasty's power at that time, in actual fact at that time it was Sudan, it was Kush.
So what we start to see when we look at Kushite textual sources, once they start writing things down, is that the Kushites very clearly think that they are naturally the rulers of Egypt. They are taking control over something that is rightfully theirs. This is partly linked to when you look at religious centers in Egypt and Sudan.
So the very famous religious center in Egypt is Karnak, a very large complex of temples added to by every king in every reign.
Luxor today, Amun.
Yes, exactly. Although we obviously get a lot of reference to different gods on these temples. Beautiful, tall, postal halls, smaller sanctuaries. oft noch mit Farbe auf den Wänden. Aber als die Ägypten in Sudan fuhren, fanden sie diesen großen Berg, einen berghaften Plateau, den Jabal-Barkon. Und sie gaben ihn dem gleichen Namen wie Karnak.
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Chapter 4: What role did pyramids play in Kushite culture?
Und Isis und Hathor, sind sie größtenteils mit Heilung, Kindheit, Magie, all that stuff?
Perhaps praying for their own children as well. And we have these very, very small semi-temples that we see in settlements that have hundreds, thousands of these tiny little pieces. They're cheap, they're disposable, but they're clearly very, very important. And they give us a glimpse into a part of Kush that is outside this elite wealth. und dieser eliten Macht. Und es ist ein bisschen anders.
Also ja, wir sehen viele von diesen ägyptischen und ägyptischen Eiern als Götter, besonders in der frühen Zeit. But they're not just Egyptian at this point. They have become absorbed and hybridized in local Kush pantheons.
That hybridization between Egyptian and Kushite, which is so interesting. I will draw you back into that elite area for a bit longer, I'm afraid, because one of the objects we looked at recently was that figurehead of ISIS, wasn't it? Now, would you mind... explaining what this object is, because it is so extraordinary.
And it tells a great story about ISIS, but also, I guess, larger religious practices associated with ISIS in Kush.
So, the figurehead of ISIS, quite small actually, about the size of a pineapple. You can see this beautiful bronze... Missing Eyes and Missing a Headdress suggesting that it would have originally had more elements to it that have since been lost.
Without those eyes it looks like it's basically staring into your soul.
It's really striking. She's got a beautiful pectoral collar and a really finely detailed wig. The eyes probably would have been a semi-precious or precious stone and then there's obviously a hole in the top of the head as well that would, I would assume, have held a wooden and perhaps golden headdress.
This may have been removed every time it came back to the temple and then perhaps reused, lost, perhaps it was melted down or the stones were reused for something else. So, this quite small figurehead would have been added to the front and the back, so there would have been a pair originally, of a ceremonial bark, so a small boat.
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Chapter 5: How did Kushite religion evolve?
But we have to remember this is such a bias of archaeology. These are the things that survive. And they're the things that archaeologists were interested in excavating. Nobody for hundreds of years wanted to excavate a poor settlement. Now we do. But it's obviously a little bit more difficult to excavate places at the moment.
But they're the things that tell you the diet that people were having, the way ordinary people saw the world, the way that certain vessels meant things to people, certain pots meant things to people instead of just being a jar. We just tend to ignore them and we look at the inscriptions of gods and the pictures of kings and queens and the grand pyramids.
But there's a whole undercurrent of Kush that we're We sometimes struggle to appreciate.
Okay then, let's appreciate it now. How did the everyday Kushites, how did they view the world?
Well, I think, and I will say I'm coming at this from a very biased point of view because I'm a pot specialist, but I think that pottery can really give you an insight into how ordinary people were viewing the world because it's unconscious. People are not making pots to Ja, genau. Pots will show how people are eating and drinking. And that's such a huge part of culture.
They will show by the lipid residue, by analysis of the inside of the pots.
Yes, to some extent, but also the shape of the pots. So particularly in Sudan... Es ist ein sehr anderer Küchen-Trend. Es ist ein sehr anderer Essen-Trend. Und der Fakt, dass diese Dinge von Vater zu Kind übernommen werden... often from mother to daughter, gives us an insight into ordinary people and the things that concerned them. We also have pottery decoration, particularly handmade pottery.
I think it's very, very interesting into telling us about indigenous ways of understanding the world around them. We call it a symbolic worldview. We don't really understand some of it, but they mean something. And that's what my research is on at the moment, trying to understand cushite worldviews based on this indigenous pottery.
And handmade pottery, so that's not industrialized in these great workshops, that's done by someone in the household who is creating the pot for you to use.
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Chapter 6: What language did the Kushites speak?
Chapter 7: How did the Kushites blend their culture with Egyptian influences?
Oft haben Menschen ein paar Teile Topsticks in ihrem Zuhause und eine Sushi-Matte, auch wenn sie keine japanische Angehörigkeit haben. Während wenn wir schauen, was normale Menschen essen, gibt es viel Sorghum und Millet im Süden. Es ist ein anderer Art von Gras. Weh ist sehr populär und üblich in Ägypten und dem Nahen Osten.
But Sorghum and Millet grow much better in the different climate in Sudan. And we're seeing flatbreads being made, flatbreads and porridges being made out of Sorghum and Millet. And we still see that in Sudan today. So you can get Kisra, which is made of this Sorghum flour that is almost like a springy bread. Like Indira in Ethiopia, that people are more familiar with.
And also, like, with drinking-wise, I mean, would there be milk? Would there be pastoral animals like cows and sheep and goats? And I guess also beer. Would there be beer too?
Yeah, so there's always beer. There's millet. Millet beer is very popular. But beer is popular, I mean, in the ancient world everywhere. Partly as well because water is not always safe to drink. And partly because beer is quite easy to make. If you're growing sorghum or millet or wheat, you can make beer. You often make beer out of old bread. And it's very, very nutritious.
Very true indeed. Well, one last thing on the pottery, because you hinted at also the decorations and we have looked at one particular really striking pot. So kind of to introduce that, what types of decorations were usually shown on Kushite Pottery?
Like we've talked about the wheel-made and the handmade pottery, you're getting two completely different symbolic repertoires on these. So the crocodile pot that we have in the exhibition is part of the wheel-made repertoire. This is what we looked at, the crocodile pot, yeah. So this is quite a bulbous jar with a small neck and slightly flared rim.
And around the top there is a painted register showing two quite large crocodiles. looking quite happy in red and black no teeth shown which i would guess is done on purpose to neutralize them but a little turned up snout these really big eyes And then, just so you don't forget how dangerous they are, these very, very large claws.
It's quite interesting in this part that the top is the only bit that's decorated. Usually wheel-made pots are decorated around the body. So I would suggest that this is probably meant to be put in a pot stand, maybe even half buried in the ground, so that you could see the top. But the fact that it's decorated means it's meant to be seen. This is not a kitchen object. You are supposed to see this.
And it will add to an individual's reputation. So it shows how wealthy somebody is and how much power they have.
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