ShmoopTube

00:04

Okay, so by now you know Egypt and Carthage, but how about Nubia? [Nubia waving]

00:09

Or as it was sometimes called: the Kingdom of Kush?

00:13

No worries if it’s not ringing any bells. [Bell ringing]

00:15

Kush is definitely less famous than its northern cousins.

00:18

For much of history, Nubia was kind of like… [Egypt and Nubia studying]

00:21

Egypt Jr.

00:22

Situated south of Egypt on the Nile, the people in Nubia borrowed a lot from Egyptian culture.

00:27

They worshipped many of the same gods, wrote in the same language, and even built pyramids. Egypt and Nubia working together]

00:32

Little pyramids.

00:33

But…still pyramids.

00:35

Kush really came into its own during what’s known as the Meroitic period.

00:39

Named after the capital city of Meroe this was a time when Nubian culture broke [Nubia riding a bike]

00:43

away from Egypt’s and started doing more of… its own thing.

00:48

Meroe began as a tiny little village in modern day Sudan, but it hit the big time when it

00:52

got into the iron business.

00:54

Everybody wanted iron for weapons.

00:57

Since the Nubians had plenty of it, they made a killing and soon became a powerful center [Nubian man with lots of rifles]

01:01

of trade.

01:02

As Meroe came into its own, Nubia did, too, even creating its own language, which…

01:06

sadly, no one is able to translate today. [Translator trying to understand Nubian]

01:08

Not correctly, anyway.

01:10

While Egyptian gods like Amun were still worshipped, some Nubian gods, like the lion-headed war

01:16

god Apedemak, started climbing their way up the pantheon.

01:21

One ancient story that helps to explain the break from Egyptian culture is about a king

01:24

of Meroe named Ergamenes. [Ergamenes looking up at a pyramid]

01:27

Traditionally, priests of Amun had a lot of power, even deciding who was king and how

01:32

long that person could sit on the throne.

01:34

If things were going bad in the land, the priests of Amun could even order the king [King sitting in a throne and a noose appears]

01:37

to kill himself.

01:39

It was thought that the king was directly tied to the fertility of the land, so if there

01:42

was a bad drought… the king had to go.

01:44

The crazy thing is that kings actually did knock themselves off at the priests’ order.

01:50

Until Ergamenes, anyway. [Ergamenes and priest walk together]

01:52

When the priests of Amun tried this on Ergamenes, he was like…

01:55

“Yeah, not so much.”

01:57

Then he rode to the temple with a bunch of soldiers and slaughtered the priests. [Ergamenes stabs the priest]

02:01

Some doubt whether this exact story is true, but most agree that around Ergamenes’ reign

02:04

there was a break with Egyptian culture.

02:07

Egyptian gods got combined with Nubian ones and the Nubian language replaced Egyptian [Nubian language replaces Egyptian]

02:11

hieroglyphs.

02:12

Legends of the wealth of Meroe spread all over the ancient world.

02:15

So, of course, rulers and conquerors tried to come take it from them. [Group of people standing in the desert of Nubia]

02:19

You can’t blame them.

02:20

That’s just what rulers and conquerors did back then.

02:23

The Persians, the Romans, and even Alexander the Great tried to take Meroe down.

02:27

But each time, the kings and queens of Meroe sent them packing.

02:30

Eventually though, some dudes called the Aksumites brought Meroe to its knees [Aksumite soldier takes down Meroe]

02:34

and the heyday of Nubia was over.

02:36

Who knows?

02:37

If it wasn’t for the Aksumites, we might be calling Egypt “Nubia Jr.” instead of

02:41

the other way around.

02:42

Okay, that’s probably not true.

02:44

Those mini-pyramids were never going to pull in the tourists like the jumbo versions… [Tourists taking photo's of mini pyramids]

Full Transcript