Cush

(Kush), in antiquity, a country between the First and Sixth cataracts of the Nile and southward and eastward along the White Nile and Blue Nile, between the Red Sea and the Libyan Desert (in what is now the Sudan and part of Egypt). The indigenous population of Cush consisted of disunified Semitic-Hamitic and Cushitic tribes, which were related to the ancient Egyptians and which in the fourth and third millennia B.C. were primarily engaged in stock raising. Negroid elements from the south penetrated into these tribes, particularly beginning in the second millennium B.C.

During the Old Kingdom (third millennium B.C.), the Egyptian pharaohs sent both trading and plundering expeditions to Cush for slaves, livestock, ebony, ivory, and other valuables. The first Egyptian trading posts were established in northern Cush.

The settlement of Kerma arose in the beginning of the second millennium B.C., in the vicinity of the Third Cataract of the Nile. Excavations there have revealed the presence of primitive forms of a state organization in Cush. By the 16th-15th century B.C., the territory of Cush up to the Fourth Cataract was conquered by Egypt. The country was ruled by an Egyptian vicegerent known as imperial son of Cush. Egyptian influence facilitated the spread of Egyptian culture and the decline of primitive communal social relations. By the 11th century B.C., Cush was freed from Egyptian rule. Circa the eighth century B.C., a state with its center at Napata (the Napata State) arose on the territory of Cush. In the second half of the eighth century B.C., its ruler, Piankhy, conquered Egypt, thereby laying the foundation for the Twenty-fifth (Ethiopian) Dynasty in Egypt. In the second half of the sixth century B.C., the capital was moved to Meroe (the beginning of the Meroite Kingdom). The Meroite Kingdom lasted until the fourth century B.C. In classical times, the name Cush was replaced by Nilean Ethiopia, and in the tenth century the territory became known as Nubia.