B.C. 2460.The next we hear of Nubia is that Amenemhat I (Twelfth Dynasty) conquered the Wauat and Machaiu Nubians, and then raided the Libyans to the west; B.C. 2430.and 30 years later his son, Usertsen I, sent an armed caravan under Ameni into Ethiopia and “enlarged the borders of Egypt between the 1st and 3rd Cataracts.”
B.C. 2366.The Nubians attacked the quarries at Aswan in the following reign (Usertsen II), but were repelled, and in the next generation B.C. 2325.a serious expedition on a large scale was undertaken by the great Usertsen III. This monarch worked through the canal in the 1st Cataract, conquered the “abominable Kash,” and at the 2nd Cataract he set a boundary stone. B.C. 2317.Eight years later he beat the Kash again, and built the great temples and forts of Semna and Kumna, 40 miles south of Halfa, to guard the defile of the Nile. He also issued edicts for the prevention of any natives from descending the Nile in boats or otherwise, except for the purpose of trade.
B.C. 2300.A few years later Amenemhat III cut a Nile gauge in the rock near Semna, and this is visible to this day. The height of the Nile flood is curiously enough, marked as being 26 feet higher than it is now. (This was the monarch who also built the Labyrinth in the Fayum.)
The statues of Sebek Hetep III on Argo Island probably prove that the kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty occupied and garrisoned the present province of Dongola; but for the following 600 years no further records are available (Hyksos period).
During the Eighteenth Dynasty (B.C. 1700 to 1400), Ethiopia was a good deal en évidence. B.C. 1700.Amâsis I invaded Nubia, slaughtered the “Anti of Kenset” somewhere south-east of Halfa, and returned; B.C. 1660.Amenophis I sent punitive expeditions to the Eastern Sudan and took many prisoners; B.C. 1630.Thothmes I had a river fight with the Nubians, killed their king, and fastened his “vile dead body” to the bows of his boat; he proceeded as far as Kerma (Tombos) and probably beyond, and set up a Viceroy as Prince of Kush; B.C. 1628.and two years later he proceeded again thither viâ the canal above-mentioned, clearing it out on his way. B.C. 1610.A few years afterwards, Thothmes II raided Nubia severely, killing all males except “one of the damned sons of the Chief of Kesh,” whom he used as a footstool. B.C. 1600.Under Queen Hatshepset[145] the Nubians paid tribute to Egypt, but revolted against her successor, the great Thothmes III. This monarch, however, seems to have crushed them in an expedition through the 1st Cataract, and to have consolidated the Egyptian conquests in Ethiopia.
B.C. 1590. B.C. 1560. B.C. 1500.Amenhotep II, son of Thothmes III, again overran Nubia on a large scale, and his successor, Amenhotep III, extended the Egyptian frontier to the 4th Cataract and possibly to the Atbara, building a large temple to Ammon at Napata, which lay close to Jebel Barkal (the present Merowe) near the foot of the 4th Cataract.
About this date there was formed a priestly colony at Napata,[146] in close touch with the Egyptian religion, and forming a strong link between the two countries. Civilization appears to have greatly increased in the Napata region, but the Nubians to the north seem to have remained in a barbaric condition, for we find B.C. 1400.Rameses I making an expedition against them, B.C. 1333.and the great Rameses II forcing them to pay tribute. B.C. 1360.The father of the latter, however, Seti I, as well as his son, devoted his chief energies in Nubia to erecting temples and works,[147] and more particularly to digging for gold, minerals, and precious stones in the Eastern Desert. Starting from Kubban, opposite Dakka, Rameses II dug wells in the Wadi Alagi and other regions and worked gold mines with considerable result. The warlike operations in these regions of himself and his successors, B.C. 1300. B.C. 1200.Manephtha and Rameses III, seem to have been chiefly confined to beating the Libyans in the Western Desert.
Meanwhile the hierarchy of Napata was growing in power. The Ethiopians of this region, a plastic race, adopted to a considerable extent the Egyptian civilization, worshipped Egyptian gods in Egyptian shrines, and set up inscriptions in the hieroglyphic character and in the Egyptian, as well as the Nubian, tongue. Napata and the Nile valley both below it and above it, was already half Egyptianised when, on the establishment of the Sheshonk Libyan (Twenty-second) Dynasty in Egypt (B.C. 966), B.C. 966.the descendants of Herhor of Thebes resolved to quit their native country and remove themselves into Ethiopia, where they had reason to expect a welcome. They were probably already connected by marriage with some of the leading chiefs of Napata, and their sacerdotal character gave them a great hold on a peculiarly superstitious people. Retaining their priestly office, they became at once Ethiopian monarchs, and High Priests of the Temple of Ammon, which Amenhotep III had erected at Napata. Napata, under their government, flourished greatly, and acquired a considerable architectural magnificence. Fresh temples were built, in which the worship of Egyptian was combined with that of Ethiopian deities; avenues of sphinxes adorned the approaches to these new shrines; the practice of burying the members of the royal houses in pyramids was reverted to, and the necropolis of Napata recalled the glories of the old necropolis of Memphis.
COLOSSAL RAM OF AMENHOTEP III. FROM JEBEL BARKAL, ORIGINALLY AT AMENHOTEP’S TEMPLE AT SOLIB—Berlin Museum.