Black Pharaoh

Black Pharaoh

The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXV, alternatively 25th Dynasty or Dynasty 25), also known as the Nubian Dynasty, the Kushite Empire, the Black Pharaohs, or the Napatans, after their capital Napata, was the last dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt that occurred after the Nubian invasion. The 25th dynasty was a line of pharaohs who originated in the Kingdom of Kush, located in present-day northern Sudan and Upper Egypt. Most of this dynasty's kings saw Napata as their spiritual homeland. They reigned in part or all of Ancient Egypt for nearly a century, from 744 to 656 BC.The 25th dynasty was highly Egyptianized, using the Egyptian language and writing system as their medium of record and exhibiting an unusual devotion to Egypt's religious, artistic, and literary traditions. Earlier scholars have ascribed the origins of the dynasty to immigrants from Egypt, particularly the Egyptian Amun priests. The third intermediate-period Egyptian stimulus view is still maintained by prominent scholars, especially that excavations from el-Kurru cemetery, the key site to the origin of the Napata state, show sudden Egyptian arrivals and influence during the 3rd intermediate period, concurrent with the Egyptianization process.The 25th Dynasty's reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and Kush created the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They assimilated into society by reaffirming Ancient Egyptian religious traditions, temples, and artistic forms, while introducing some unique aspects of Kushite culture. It was during the 25th dynasty that the Nile valley saw the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in what is now Northern Sudan) since the Middle Kingdom.After the emperors Sargon II and Sennacherib defeated attempts by the Nubian kings to gain a foothold in the Near East, their successors Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal invaded, defeated, and drove out the Nubians, in the Assyrian conquest of Egypt. War with Assyria resulted in the end of Kushite power in Northern Egypt and the conquest of Egypt by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. They were succeeded by the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, initially a puppet dynasty installed by and vassals of the Assyrians, the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Achaemenid Empire invaded them. The fall of the 25th Dynasty also marks the beginning of the Late Period of ancient Egypt. The traditional representation of the dynasty as "Black Pharaohs" has attracted criticism from scholars, specifically because the term suggests other dynasties did not share similar southern origins. They also argue that the term overlooks the biological affinities between ancient Nubians and Egyptians that have been found in a range of cited biological anthropological studies.

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