History

Kush and the Ptolemies

During the reign of Kushite Pharaoh Nastasen and after the death of Alexander the Great in 356 B.C., the Macedonian military general Ptolemy crowned himself king of Egypt in 305 B.C. and founded of the Ptolemaic dynasty that continued until 30 B.C.

ŠMattew Scott Ptolemy's temple at Dakha.

The political relations between the Ptolemies and the Kushites are obscure. However, defined borders between the two kingdoms were reported in ancient records of the period. The Ptolemaic Empire extended south to a portion of Lower Nubia known as the Dodekaschoinos that extended from Philae to Maharrqa. The Ptolemies also controlled the gold mines of Wadi el Allaqi ¹.

Meroitic (note: Greek influence). Source: Wildung, Dietrich. *Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile*.

During the reign of Arkamani, Ptolemy IV built a new temple at Dakka, while Arkamani, in cooperation, built a small entrance hall to the temple². The Kushite king Arkamani also constructed a temple at Philae with its entrance hall built by Ptolemy³. The later Kushite pharaoh, Arnekhamani, built an entrance hall to a temple, to which the Ptolemy made additions⁴.

The Dakka Temple is located about 90 Kilometers south of Aswan(southern Egypt). Nubian king Arkamanani and Ptolemy IV cooperated in building this temple, in dedication to Thoth (God of wisdom, science, time, and writing). Work on this temple is though to have started in about 222 B.C. Inside the temple are well preserved relieves of Nubian king making various offerings to god Thoth and goddesses Anuket, Sekhmet, Isis, and Tefnut.

However, during the reign of Ptolemy IV, animosity has started to grow between the Kushites and Egypt, coinciding with a revolt in Upper Egypt. Kush may have supported this revolt, which may explain the animosity that Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy V had towards the Kushites⁵. Ptolemy V, for example, had erased the name of Arkamani from the Philae inscriptions. Ptolemy IV has fought battles south of the Dedekaschoinos; Potolemaic Egypt seemed to have lost parts of its territories.

Archeological evidence indicates that many of the Egyptian fortresses that had been occupied in previous times of the Ptolemaic rulers were occupied by Kushites. Surveys show that Kushite pottery and weapons are found as far north as Qasr Ibrim⁶.

^{1 Derek A. Welsby, The Kingdom of Kush: The Napatan and
Meroitic Empires (Marcus Wiener, 1998).}
^{2 Virginia Maxwell, Mary Fitzpatrick, Siona Jenkins, and
Anthony Sattin, Egypt (Lonely Planet, 2006) 327.}
^{3 Francis Ll. Griffith, Meroitic Inscriptions, Part
II.: Napata to Philae and Miscellaneous, (Office of the Egypt
exploration fund, 1912).}
^{4 John D. Fage, and Roland A. Oliver, The Cambridge
History of Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1982) 226-8.}
^{5 Anthony J. Arkel, A History of the Sudan: From the
Earliest Times to 1821 (London: Athlone Press, 1961).}
^{6 M. Horton, "Africa in Egypt: New Evidence from Qasr
Ibrim", in Davies (ed.), (1991).} Back