Black Pharaohs: Nubian Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt

Catalog description

This course explores the history of northeastern Africa at a time when ancient Egypt was ruled by its neighbor to the south, Nubia. The Nubian pharaohs from the Kingdom of Kush (present-day Sudan) adopted many Egyptian customs, including hieroglyphic writing, in a period referred to as ancient Egypt’s 25th Dynasty (747–656 BC). Study of this period has suffered from racist and colonialist attitudes towards the Black inhabitants of northeast Africa, ancient and modern, feeding into a racialized modern discourse around the identity and origins of the ancient Egyptians as well. In this course students will: examine recent interpretations of the Nubian dynasty using ancient texts in translation, art, architecture, and artifacts; look critically at modern historians’ blind spots and prejudices; and evaluate the social constructs of race and ethnicity in the study of the great African civilizations of antiquity.