Hatshepsut was only the third woman to become pharaoh in 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, and the first to attain the full power of the position. Cleopatra, who also exercised such power, would rule some 14 centuries later.
History has, however, shown us that there was a time Ancient Egypt was ruled by black pharaohs. These pharaohs came from the renowned Kingdom of Kush, which is one of the ancient civilisations that were advanced in terms of organisation, culture and politics. Nubia was the name of a region in the Nile Valley below ancient Egypt. As a result, Egypt is the oldest civilization—not Nubia. The Early Dynastic Period in Egypt had its start around 3100 BCE.
A Nubian queen is a female ruler of the kingdom of Nubia, located along the Nile in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. In modern times, it is also used to describe a woman with African heritage.
The plot is remarkable because it shows that Nubia, despite centuries of trade with Egypt, was not copying Egyptian ways but had created its own, highly distinctive culture. In the early days of Nubia, burials were in small, round tombs. But as the civilization developed, its tombs grew in size.
When Egypt ruled Nubia, the Egyptian pharaoh appointed an official to govern Nubia. Egypt influenced the art and architecture of Nubia and the emerging kingdom of Kush. Nubians worshipped some of the gods sacred to the Egyptians. Young Kushite nobles went to Egypt to study the Egyptian language.
Nubians are descendants of an ancient African civilization as old as Egypt itself, which once presided over an empire and even ruled Egypt. Their historical homeland, often referred to as Nubia, stretches along the Nile covering present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan.
Known for rich deposits of gold, Nubia was also the gateway through which luxury products like incense, ivory, and ebony traveled from their source in sub-Saharan Africa to the civilizations of Egypt and the Mediterranean. Kings of Nubia ultimately conquered and ruled Egypt for about a century.
It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BC until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BC, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years.
The Nubians adopted many Egyptian gods and traditional ceremonies. Many Nubian artifacts were found in tombs of Egyptian pharaohs.
As Egypt became bigger, they wanted to obtain luxury goods such as gold, gemstones, animal skins, and perfumes. They eventually established a trade relationship with Kush. Kush had gold, which the Egyptians needed to trade for more wood. The Egyptians had grain, which Nubians needed to survive.
Scholars have suggested a number of reasons for this decline, including desertification and loss of trade routes. People in the Roman Empire converted to Christianity on a large scale during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., and Christianity also began to make its way into Nubia.
