Ancient Civilizations of Africa

Ancient world

Egypt, Nubia, Kush, Carthage, and the kingdoms of North and East Africa.

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about 3800 BC to about 3100 BC Proven

Ta-Seti

The A-Group people lived along the Nile from Kubaniyya, north of the First Cataract, to the Second Cataract, from about 3800 to 3100 BC.^[Source 2] The Egyptians called their land Ta-Seti, the "Land of the Bow."^[Source 3]

They grew rich from trade. They had gold from the eastern desert, carnelian from the western desert, and incense, ivory and ebony from farther south, and they traded them to Egypt for Egyptian goods carried in large storage jars, and for olive oil from the Mediterranean coast.^[Source 4] Incense, copper, gold, shell objects and precious stones went north.^[Source 5]

At Qustul, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago dug a cemetery of large tombs holding evidence of great wealth and pictures of the rulers and their victories.^[Source 6] A-Group rulers used the same royal symbols as the pharaohs of Egypt in their time.^[Source 7] No ruler of Ta-Seti is known by name.

How it ended

Egypt's First Dynasty destroyed the A-Group around 3100 BC.^[Source 8] Northern Nubia then stayed largely empty for centuries, at least in part because of Egyptian armies.^[Source 9] Life in Nubia after 3100 BC was far poorer than in the A-Group's prosperous age.^[Source 10]

military defeat, Egypt's First Dynasty. Destroyed by Egypt's First Dynasty pharaohs around 3100 BC.

Its people

A-Group Nubians. The Nubian people of Ta-Seti, rich from trade, whose rulers used royal symbols. Their own name for themselves is lost.

about 3150 BC to 30 BC Proven

Ancient Egypt

Egypt grew out of the Nile Valley as the Sahara dried and people retreated to the river; farming arrived there about 7000 to 6000 BC. Two related cultures arose, one in the Delta and one upriver to the south, and they became two kingdoms, Lower and Upper Egypt.^[Source 3]

Around 3150 BC the two were joined into one kingdom.^[Source 4]

In the Old Kingdom, 2613 to 2181 BC,^[Source 5] Egypt's kings built the pyramids as their tombs. The step pyramid of Djoser, designed by Imhotep, is the earliest large stone building in Egypt, and the Great Pyramid at Giza rose 481 feet.^[Source 6]

From its first dynasty, Egypt looked south. Its First Dynasty pharaohs destroyed the A-Group of Ta-Seti around 3100 BC.^[Source 7] In the Middle Kingdom, 2040 to 1782 BC,^[Source 8] Senwosret III led armies up the Nile into Kush, and trade from the south grew. Kush was known for its rich gold and its capable warriors.^[Source 9] To guard against the Kingdom of Kerma, Egypt built a string of fortresses south of the Second Cataract. At Semna, about 1878 to 1840 BC, Senwosret III set up a stela proclaiming Egypt's rule over Nubia and calling on the kings after him to hold the border.^[Source 10]

The border did not hold. In the Second Intermediate Period, Egypt lost land upriver to an increasingly powerful Kush.^[Source 11] The tomb biography of Sobeknakht II, governor of Elkab, records a Nubian invasion that reached at least as far as Elkab.^[Source 12] The New Kingdom, about 1570 to 1069 BC, turned south again.^[Source 13] The pharaoh Thutmose I (1496 to 1483 BC) took Kerma.^[Source 14]

Centuries later the tide turned the other way. The Kushite king Piye took Egypt, and a Kushite dynasty ruled it as pharaohs.^[Source 15] That story is told in the record of the Kingdom of Kush.

This record does not yet name Egypt's pharaohs. They will be added as their own records.

How it ended

From 323 BC it was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty.^[Source 16] In 31 BC Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony were defeated at the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra chose death rather than capture, and in 30 BC Egypt became a Roman province, the personal domain of Octavian, who soon became the emperor Augustus.^[Source 17]

military defeat, Rome (Octavian, later the emperor Augustus). Defeat at Actium in 31 BC; Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC.

Its people

Ancient Egyptians. The people of the Nile Valley and Delta who built Ancient Egypt.

about 2450 BC to about 1480 BC Proven

Kingdom of Kerma

The archaeologists who have dug Kerma for decades divide its history into three stages: Early Kerma, about 2450 to 2050 BC, when the city was founded; Middle Kerma, about 2050 to 1750 BC, when walls, palaces and princely tombs were built; and Classic Kerma, about 1750 to 1480 BC, its greatest age.^[Source 3] Matthieu Honegger, who led the Swiss team, places the birth of its kingship around 2000 BC: from then on, Kerma was the center of a kingdom.^[Source 4]

The Egyptians called this kingdom Kush. The Swiss mission writes that "it is accepted that the archaeological site of Kerma is the capital of the Kingdom of Kush,"^[Source 5] and Honegger speaks of the Egyptian conquest of Kush when he describes its fall.^[Source 6] Its city covered more than 30 hectares, dug from 1977 to 2002.^[Source 7] The kingdom dominated Upper Nubia, and in the Classic age its power reached north into Lower Nubia.^[Source 8]

At the heart of the city stands the Western Deffufa, a mudbrick temple about 65 feet (20 meters) high, the religious center of the city.^[Source 9] In the Classic age it was rebuilt to look like an Egyptian temple, and a river port was built south of the city.^[Source 10] When George Reisner dug at Kerma from 1913 to 1916, he took the Deffufa for the house of an Egyptian governor and Kerma for an Egyptian trading post. The Swiss mission calls that reading Egyptocentric.^[Source 11] Charles Bonnet of the University of Geneva began digging in 1976 and found some 30,000 more burials. "I wanted to reconstruct a more accurate history of Sudan," he said.^[Source 12]

Kerma's kings were buried in the Eastern Cemetery. The first royal tomb, from about 2050 to 1950 BC, had over 1,400 cattle skulls laid out before it. In the Classic age, the three greatest royal mounds were each about 90 meters across.^[Source 13] Large numbers of people and animals were sacrificed in the royal graves.^[Source 14] Egyptian statues were buried in the royal mounds beside the sacrificed people of Kerma.^[Source 15]

Kerma was strong enough to strike Egypt itself. The tomb biography of Sobeknakht II, governor of Elkab in Egypt, records a Nubian invasion that reached at least as far as Elkab.^[Source 16] Egyptian texts tie Kerma's king to these wars, and Egyptian goods buried at Kerma trace successive raids into southern Egypt.^[Source 17] Around 1580 BC the Hyksos king ruling northern Egypt proposed an alliance with Kerma, a sign of its weight.^[Source 18] In the Bahariya oasis, the men of the Egyptian king Kamose intercepted a message from that king, Apophis, to the ruler of Kush.^[Source 19]

This record does not yet name Kerma's kings. That research continues.

How it ended

Egypt's New Kingdom turned south. The pharaoh Thutmose I (1496 to 1483 BC) retook the forts of Lower Nubia and took Kerma, and founded a new town about a kilometer to its north, Dukki Gel.^[Source 20] Honegger dates the Egyptian conquest of Kush to about 1500 BC; the last royal grave was built around 1480 BC, four kilometers to the west.^[Source 21] Egypt's hold south of the Third Cataract was not truly felt until Thutmose III (1479 to 1424 BC).^[Source 22] Kush was not finished. From the 8th century BC it rose again, in the Napatan and Meroitic kingdoms of Kush.^[Source 23]

military defeat, Egypt's New Kingdom (the pharaohs Thutmose I and Thutmose III). Kerma taken under Thutmose I (1496-1483 BC); Egyptian rule secured under Thutmose III.

Its people

Kerma Nubians. The people of the Kingdom of Kerma, the first kingdom the Egyptians called Kush.

about 2450 BC to about 1160 BC Proven

Land of Punt

Egypt's records of Punt go back to the early Fifth Dynasty. The Palermo Stone lists goods from Punt, among them myrrh, brought to Egypt under the pharaoh Sahure (2458 to 2446 BC).^[Source 3] Blocks from Sahure's temple at Abusir show an expedition bringing back incense trees.^[Source 4]

In the Middle Kingdom, the voyages became regular. Mentuhotep III sent his official Henu for myrrh in about 2000 BC.^[Source 5] Expeditions followed under Senwosret I, Amenemhat II, Senwosret II, Senwosret III, Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV, sailing from the Red Sea harbor at Wadi Gawasis, called Sawu,^[Source 6] where archaeologists led by Kathryn Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich found wooden steering oars, cedar beams from a seagoing ship, ropes, and a stone tablet telling of voyages to Punt.^[Source 7]

The fullest picture comes from the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. Her expedition sailed no later than year 9 of her joint reign with Thutmose III. The walls show Punt's people living in round, basket-woven houses raised on stilts and reached by ladders, and they name the only two people of Punt known to us: its chief Parahu and his wife Atiya.^[Source 8] From Punt the expedition brought back myrrh, ebony, gold, incense, ivory and live animals.^[Source 9] Phillips warns that the reliefs are royal propaganda: they show Punt's goods as "tribute" to Egypt.^[Source 10]

How it ended

Punt fell in no battle the records know of. The last historical account of a voyage there is from the reign of Ramesses III (1194 to 1163 BC), in the Great Harris Papyrus. After that, Phillips writes, "Punt itself seems to have lost its identity," and later Egyptian texts speak of it mostly as a land of the past.^[Source 11]

lost trade. The last recorded voyage was under Ramesses III; after that, Punt fades from Egypt's records.

Its people

People of Punt. The people of the Land of Punt, Egypt's trading partners, who lived in round houses raised on stilts. Their own name for themselves is not known.

the late 9th century BC to 146 BC Proven

Carthage

Carthage was founded on the Gulf of Tunis, in today's Tunisia, by Phoenicians from the city of Tyre.^[Source 3] Its name, Qart-hadasht, means "New City."^[Source 4] Radiocarbon dating puts its oldest remains in the last quarter of the 9th century BC.^[Source 5]

From the 6th century BC it grew into a great trading power across much of the Mediterranean.^[Source 6] It was governed by two magistrates, the suffetes, elected each year.^[Source 7]

Carthage stood on African land among the Libyan peoples of North Africa, and it ruled and taxed them.^[Source 8] Its armies were filled with Africans: Libyan foot soldiers and Numidian horsemen.^[Source 9] In 241 BC its soldiers mutinied over unpaid wages, and Carthage's Libyan subjects rose with them. The scholar Dexter Hoyos calls it "an insurrection of the downtrodden Libyan subjects of Carthage." Carthage crushed the revolt by 237 BC.^[Source 10]

For more than a century Carthage fought Rome in the Punic Wars: the first from 264 to 241 BC, the second from 218 BC, when its general Hannibal led an army over the Alps into Italy, to his defeat at Zama in 202 BC, and the third from 149 to 146 BC.^[Source 11]

How it ended

Rome destroyed Carthage in 146 BC, at the end of the Third Punic War.^[Source 12] A Roman city was later built on its ruins.^[Source 13] The remains of the first Carthage still stand on the site today, among them the Byrsa hill, the Punic harbors and the burial ground called the tophet.^[Source 14]

military defeat, Rome. Destroyed by Rome in 146 BC at the end of the Third Punic War.

Its people

Carthaginians (Punic people). The people of Carthage, descended from Phoenician settlers, who lived among and ruled the Libyan peoples of North Africa.

about 800 BC to about 400 BC Proven

Kingdom of D'mt

D'mt lay in the northern highlands of what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea: its inscriptions are found across Tigray and in the Akele Guzay region of Eritrea.^[Source 3] It is generally dated to the 8th to 6th centuries BC, and it had broken apart by the 4th or 3rd century BC.^[Source 4] Yeha, in Tigray, was its religious and political center, and D'mt was its own kingdom, independent of Saba across the Red Sea.^[Source 5]

Yeha's landmark is its Great Temple, 14 meters high, built in the South Arabian style and dedicated to Almaqah, the chief god of Saba.^[Source 6] The German Archaeological Institute, which studies it, dates it to the 7th century BC.^[Source 7] Its white limestone was quarried some 80 kilometers away, and the Institute and the Ethiopian Antiquities Authority finished restoring it in 2017.^[Source 8] Beside it stood Grat Beʿal Gebri, a great building of wood and stone 60 by 60 meters, the largest of its kind in East Africa and South Arabia.^[Source 9] Radiocarbon dates place it between the early 8th and the late 6th centuries BC.^[Source 10]

Its rulers called themselves king (mlk) and mukarrib (mkrb), as in the title "mukarrib of D'mt and Saba."^[Source 11] The title mukarrib was taken from the way Saba named its rulers.^[Source 12]

How it ended

Around the middle of the first millennium BC, Yeha's great buildings were destroyed by fire and abandoned.^[Source 13] Centuries later, the Kingdom of Aksum rose on the same highlands.^[Source 14]

Its people

People of D'mt. The highland farmers, builders and traders of the Kingdom of D'mt.

the 8th century BC Proven

Kingdom of Kush

The kings of Kush ruled from Napata, by the holy mountain Gebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile, where they kept a royal cemetery and a great temple of the god Amun.^[Source 3]

In the 8th century BC Egypt was torn by civil war, and Kushite kings marched north into it. Piye told the story on his Great Triumphal Stela, set up in the temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal.^[Source 4] The kings of Kush then ruled Egypt as its 25th Dynasty.^[Source 1]

Under Taharqa, the dynasty's building, art and international trade reached new heights.^[Source 5] Every king of the 25th Dynasty was buried at home, in the royal cemeteries near Gebel Barkal, outside Egypt.^[Source 6]

The Assyrian Empire ended Kushite rule in Egypt. Esarhaddon drove Taharqa out of Lower Egypt, and Ashurbanipal drove him from Upper Egypt and threw back Tantamani's attempt to return.^[Source 7] Psamtik I, Assyria's vassal at Sais, then took all Egypt.^[Source 8]

Kush itself was not conquered. Its kings went on ruling from Napata, and later from Meroë, for centuries more.^[Source 2]

Its rulers, in order

How it ended

It lost Egypt, not its own land. Assyria drove the Kushite pharaohs out, and by the middle of the 7th century BC Psamtik I held Egypt. The kingdom went on at home.^[Source 9]

military defeat, The Assyrian Empire (Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal). Assyria drove Taharqa and then Tantamani out of Egypt. Kush went on ruling at home.

Its people

Kushites (Nubians). The people of the Kingdom of Kush, on the Nile south of Egypt.

Reigned 8th century BC Proven

Kashta

Kashta ruled Kush in the 8th century BC, and Piye followed him as king.^[Source 1] His daughter Amenirdis I became God's Wife of Amun at Thebes, the first of the Kushite line in that high office.^[Source 2]

How the rule ended

He was buried at home, in the royal cemeteries near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 3]

Reigned second half of the 8th century BC Proven

Piye

Piye followed Kashta as king of Kush.^[Source 2] He was the first Napatan king to rule Egypt.^[Source 1]

Egypt was torn by civil war, and Piye marched north into it. His campaign is told in hieroglyphs on his Great Triumphal Stela, a large stone he set up in the temple of Amun at Gebel Barkal.^[Source 3]

How the rule ended

He was buried at El-Kurru, in the royal cemetery near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 4]

Reigned by about 706 BC Proven

Shebitku

An inscription of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Tang-i Var, dated no later than 705 BC, names Shebitku as the ruler of Kush at that time.^[Source 1] Scholars now hold that his reign came before Shabaka's, reversing the order long given in the books, though the new order is still being tested.^[Source 2]

How the rule ended

He was buried at home, in the royal cemeteries near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 3]

Reigned after Shebitku to 690 BC Proven

Shabaka

Shabaka ruled after Shebitku, and Taharqa followed him.^[Source 2] Fifteen years of his reign are recorded in Egypt.^[Source 3]

He had an ancient account of creation, in which the god Ptah makes all things by speaking, carved on a slab of black stone for the temple of Ptah at Memphis. The Shabaka Stone is now in the British Museum.^[Source 1]

How the rule ended

He was buried at home, in the royal cemeteries near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 4]

Reigned 690 BC to 664 BC Proven

Taharqa

Taharqa reigned from 690 to 664 BC.^[Source 3] Before he was king, he commanded the Kushite soldiers in 701 BC, when the Assyrian king Sennacherib came against Jerusalem.^[Source 4]

In the sixth year of his reign he began Temple T at Kawa, in Kush, of sandstone, with architects and builders brought from Memphis. The work took four years.^[Source 5]

Assyria came for Egypt. Esarhaddon drove him out of Lower Egypt, and Ashurbanipal drove him out of Upper Egypt.^[Source 6]

How the rule ended

He was buried at Nuri, in the royal cemetery near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 7]

In the Bible

2 Kings 19:9; Isaiah 37:9. Tirhakah, the Cushite king of Egypt, marching out against Sennacherib ^[Source 1]

Reigned 664 BC to mid-7th century BC Proven

Tantamani

Tantamani followed Taharqa.^[Source 1] After Taharqa's death in 664 BC he marched on Lower Egypt to win it back.^[Source 2] His campaign is told on his Dream Stela.^[Source 3]

Ashurbanipal of Assyria threw him back, and Psamtik I, Assyria's vassal at Sais, defeated him.^[Source 4] After his reign, only a single Kushite king is named on any object in Egypt for the next four hundred years.^[Source 5]

How the rule ended

He was buried at home, in the royal cemeteries near Gebel Barkal.^[Source 6]

202 BC to 46 BC Proven

Kingdom of Numidia

Before the kingdom, two Berber peoples held the land: the Massylii in the east, whose king was Gala, and the Masaesyli in the west, whose king was Syphax.^[Source 2]

In the war between Rome and Carthage, Syphax was captured in 203 BC.^[Source 3] At the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, the Numidian cavalry of Masinissa, son of Gala, helped Rome defeat Hannibal.^[Source 4] Masinissa was then made king of all Numidia, and the lands of both peoples became one kingdom.^[Source 5]

Masinissa reigned from 202 BC until his death in 148 BC, more than fifty years.^[Source 6] He made Cirta his capital and enlarged towns such as Thugga and Hippo Regius.^[Source 7] He brought Carthaginian farming methods to his people and settled many of them as farmers.^[Source 8] His quarrels with Carthage over land were taken up by Rome, and Rome destroyed Carthage in 146 BC, two years after Masinissa died.^[Source 9]

His son Micipsa ruled after him, from 148 to 118 BC.^[Source 10] Micipsa's nephew Jugurtha went to war with Rome in 112 BC. He was betrayed by Bocchus I of Mauretania, handed to the Romans, and died a prisoner in Rome.^[Source 11]

Its rulers, in order

How it ended

In Rome's civil war, King Juba I sided with Pompey. Julius Caesar defeated him at Thapsus in 46 BC, and Juba took his own life.^[Source 12] Caesar annexed Numidia soon after and gave its western part to Bocchus II of Mauretania. The last king of an independent Numidia, Arabio, was killed in 40 BC.^[Source 13]

military defeat, Rome (Julius Caesar). Juba I defeated at Thapsus in 46 BC; eastern Numidia made the province of Africa Nova.

Its people

Numidians. The Berber peoples of Numidia, the Massylii and the Masaesyli, united as one kingdom under Masinissa.

Reigned 202 BC to 148 BC Proven

Masinissa

Masinissa was the son of Gala, king of the Massylii.^[Source 2] His Numidian cavalry was essential to Rome's victory over Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC, and Rome made him king of all Numidia.^[Source 3]

He made Cirta his capital.^[Source 4] He brought Carthaginian farming methods to his people and settled many of them on the land.^[Source 5] He reigned until his death in 148 BC.^[Source 6]

How the rule ended

He died in 148 BC, still king, at about ninety years old.^[Source 7]

by the 2nd century BC to 40 AD Proven

Kingdom of Mauretania

Mauretania was the land of the Mauri, Berber peoples north of the Sahara, in what is now Morocco and Algeria.^[Source 2] Its kings are known from at least the 2nd century BC.^[Source 3]

Its king Bocchus I first sided with Jugurtha of Numidia in his war with Rome. Then he lured Jugurtha into a meeting, captured him and handed him over to the Romans.^[Source 4]

In 25 BC the Roman emperor Augustus made Juba II king of Mauretania. Juba was the son of Juba I, the last great king of Numidia, and had been raised in Rome.^[Source 5] He married Cleopatra Selene II, the daughter of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony.^[Source 6] His capital was Caesarea.^[Source 7] He reigned until his death in 23 AD, and his son Ptolemy followed him.^[Source 8]

Its rulers, in order

How it ended

In 40 AD the Roman emperor Caligula had Ptolemy put to death, and that ended the kingdom of Mauretania.^[Source 9] Aedemon, one of Ptolemy's followers, led a revolt against Rome. The Roman army crushed it.^[Source 10] Rome took the kingdom and split it into two provinces, Mauretania Caesariensis in the east and Mauretania Tingitana in the west.^[Source 11]

colonial conquest, Rome (Caligula, then Claudius). King Ptolemy put to death in 40 AD; the revolt that followed crushed; the kingdom made two Roman provinces.

Its people

Mauri. The people of Mauretania, whose name the Romans gave to the land.

Reigned 25 BC to 23 AD Proven

Juba II

Juba II was the son of Juba I, king of Numidia, who fought Julius Caesar and lost at Thapsus in 46 BC. The boy was taken to Rome and raised there.^[Source 2]

In 25 BC Augustus made him king of Mauretania.^[Source 1] He married Cleopatra Selene II, the daughter of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony.^[Source 3] His capital was Caesarea.^[Source 4]

How the rule ended

He died in 23 AD, still king, and his son Ptolemy followed him.^[Source 5]

Reigned 23 AD to 40 AD Proven

Ptolemy of Mauretania

Ptolemy was the son of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene II.^[Source 1] He followed his father as king in 23 AD and reigned until 40 AD.^[Source 2]

After his death, Aedemon, one of his followers, led a revolt against Rome, and Rome took the kingdom.^[Source 3]

How the rule ended

In 40 AD the Roman emperor Caligula had him put to death. With him ended the kingdom of Mauretania.^[Source 4]

about the 1st century AD to its decline, from the 7th century Proven

Kingdom of Aksum

Aksum grew into a kingdom around the 1st century AD, on the highlands of what is now northern Ethiopia.^[Source 2] Its capital was the city of Aksum. Its port was Adulis, on the Red Sea, which tied it to the trade of the wider world.^[Source 3]

From the late 3rd century AD, Aksum minted its own coins.^[Source 4] The gold coins were written in Greek, and the silver and copper coins in Ge'ez, Aksum's own script.^[Source 5] In the 3rd and 4th centuries, great stone stelae were raised at Aksum to mark the graves of the elite.^[Source 6]

In the 4th century, King Ezana became a Christian. He was converted by Frumentius, a Christian who lived at his court.^[Source 7] On Ezana's coins, the old crescent and disk gave way to the Christian cross.^[Source 8]

Its rulers, in order

How it ended

Aksum's decline had begun by the 7th century. The rise of Islam and of Muslim power in the region cut it off from the trade that had made it rich, and it stopped minting coins.^[Source 9] How and when the kingdom finally ended is not known for certain.^[Source 10]

lost trade. Cut off from Red Sea trade as Muslim power rose in the 7th century; coins no longer minted.

Its people

Aksumites. The people of the Kingdom of Aksum, who wrote in Ge'ez.

Reigned 4th century AD Proven

Ezana

Ezana ruled Aksum in the 4th century AD.^[Source 2] He was converted to Christianity by Frumentius, a Christian who lived at his court.^[Source 3]

After his conversion, the crescent and disk on his coins were replaced with the Christian cross.^[Source 4]