Free Republic

In 701 B.C.E., an African king marched into Syria-Palestine to defend Judah against the invasion of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Second Kings 19:9 mentions "Tirhakah, king of Cush," coming to the help of Hezekiah, who was up against the Assyrian superpower. Though the Cushites are mentioned only briefly in the biblical text, a number of scholars have argued that their involvement in the conflict against Assyria was decisive in the survival of Jerusalem at this critical historical juncture...The 25th Dynasty of Egypt, which lasted for about a hundred years, from the mid-eighth century to the mid-seventh century B.C.E., was Cushite...

...Through their shared history, Egyptians and Nubians also came to worship the same chief god, Amun, who was closely allied with kingship and played an important role as the two civilizations vied for supremacy. During its Middle and New Kingdoms, which spanned the second millennium B.C., Egypt pushed its way into Nubia, ultimately conquering and making it a colonial province. The Egyptians were drawn by the land's rich store of natural resources, including ebony, ivory, animal skins, and, most importantly, gold. As they expanded their control of Nubia, the Egyptians built a number of temples to Amun, the largest of...

It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the 'age of the black pharaohs'. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta's successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural...

Archaeologists have discovered a monumental statue of an ancient black Egyptian pharaoh of the Nubian 25th Dynasty in Dangeil, Sudan, about 350 kilometres northeast of the capital, Khartoum. The granite statue of the warrior pharaoh Taharqa weighs one ton, according to its discoverer, Dr Caroline Rocheleau of the North Carolina Museum of Art... The statues of two other Nubian pharaohs were also discovered... Taharqa was ruler of both Egypt and Nubia (Kush) during the 25th Dynasty, which was based in Nubia, which had a long history of pyramid building, apparently independent of Egypt. His reign is dated from 690 BC...