Kush Glossary
Plain definitions for real historical terms used across this site. Every term also gets explained the first time it appears on the page where it's used. They're all collected together here too, added as more of the site gets written.
- Kush
- An ancient civilization that ruled the Nile Valley in what is now Sudan for over a thousand years. For about 100 years, Kushite kings also ruled Egypt directly.
- Read the full Kush pageWhy Sudan Has More Pyramids Than Egypt
- Kushites
- The people who built and ruled ancient Kush. They spoke their own language, worshipped their own gods alongside Egyptian ones, and were governed by kings and independently ruling queens called Kandakes.
- Read the full Kush page
- Meroëmeh-ROH-ee
- Kush's later capital city, home to the largest of the kingdom's three royal pyramid fields and a UNESCO World Heritage Site today.
- Meroë: The City Behind the Pyramids
- Kandakekan-DAH-kay
- The title given to Kush's ruling queens, who governed with the same authority as kings. Several Kandakes ruled independently, with no king at all. The English name Candace comes from this title.
- Read the full Kandake pageRich vs. Poor in Ancient Kush
- Nubia
- The region along the Nile River in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, home to several ancient civilizations over thousands of years. Kush is the best documented and longest lasting of them.
- What Does Nubian or Kushite Ancestry Mean?
- Meroiticmer-oh-IT-ik
- Kush's own language and writing system, developed and used across the kingdom, especially in its later centuries when Meroë was the capital. Reading and writing it required years of training.
- Read the full Meroitic pageRich vs. Poor in Ancient Kush
- Apedemaka-PEH-deh-mak
- A lion-headed war god worshipped across Kush, distinctly Kushite rather than borrowed from Egypt. His main temple stood at Naqa, south of Meroë.
- Read the full Apedemak pageMeroë: The City Behind the Pyramids
- Double Kingdom
- The term historians use for how the 25th Dynasty actually governed Kush and Egypt: as one connected realm with two centers of power, not a conqueror ruling a separate conquered territory.
- Read the full Double Kingdom pageThe Black Pharaohs: When Kush Ruled Egypt
- Uraeus
- The rearing cobra worn on a king's crown across the ancient Nile Valley, standing for royal protection and authority. Kushite kings wore two at once instead of Egypt's traditional one.
- Read the full Uraeus pageTaharqa
- God's Wife of Amun
- A powerful religious office at Thebes, effectively Egypt's high priestess role, held by Kushite royal daughters starting with Amenirdis I. A real seat of authority, not a symbolic title.
- Read the full God's Wife of Amun pagePiye
- Ptah
- Memphis's own creator god and the patron of craftsmen across the Nile Valley, worshipped by Kushite kings alongside their own gods.
- Read the full Ptah pageShabaka
- Stela
- An upright stone slab carved with text or images, used across the ancient Nile Valley to record achievements, laws, boundaries, or memorials.
- Read the full Stela pagePiye
- Ancient DNA
- Genetic material recovered directly from human remains, rather than from living people, used to study population history. Often shortened to aDNA.
- Read the full Ancient DNA pageWere Ancient Egyptians and Nubians Genetically and Culturally Mixed?