The royal cemetery of Kush, between the third and fourth cataracts, in use from about 860 to 650 BC, and you can watch a civilisation change its mind about death in the layout of it. The earliest graves are tumuli, round mounds in the old Nubian way; then they flatten and square off; then they become pyramids, and Kush goes on building pyramids for another thousand years after Egypt has stopped. Piye is buried here, the king who conquered Egypt and founded its 25th Dynasty. Tantamani’s tomb has two underground chambers with the paintings still on the walls and the ceiling. And about 120 metres northwest of the pyramids are four rows of graves holding horses, buried standing up in their full harness. George Reisner dug it in 1918 and 1919, Dows Dunham published it, and excavation restarted in 2013 with Sudan’s National Council for Antiquities. Northern State.
Northern State, Sudan
See it on the map
