A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [60]
Often it’s incredibly hot on site. Even in the middle of winter it can be very hot, but sometimes, early in the morning, it’s very cold, 4 or 5 degrees centigrade. You’ve got a very strong wind to contend with. But by 11 o’clock it can be 35 or 40 degrees. It changes very dramatically.
The temple that Taharqo built at Kawa in the heart of Kush is purely Egyptian in design – it was actually built by Egyptian workmen and architects sent by Taharqo from his capital at Memphis in Lower Egypt, but it was built in the heart of Kush. But the Egyptian influences are just a veneer over Kushite culture. The indigenous African culture continued right the way through the Kushite period.
It used to be considered that the Kushites were slavishly borrowing things from Egypt and just copying Egyptian models, but now we see that they are picking and choosing. They’re choosing the things that are enhancing their view of the world, the status of their ruler, and so on, and they’re retaining many of their local cultural elements as well. You see this particularly in their religion. Not only do you get the Egyptian gods like Amun, but you also get the major local Kushite gods such as Apedemake, sometimes being worshipped in the same temples.
As originally placed in the temple, Taharqo’s sphinx would have been seen only by the ruler and his closest circle, which would have included priests and officials from both Egypt and Kush. Coming upon it in an inner sanctuary, Kushites would have been reassured by its black African features, while Egyptians would have immediately felt at home with its peculiarly Egyptian iconography.
Taharqo’s sphinx is a more sophisticated piece of political imagery than just a mix of north and south; it also combines the present with the long-distant past. The form of the lion’s mane and his ears closely resemble elements found on ancient Egyptian sphinxes as far back as the 12th Dynasty, about a thousand years before this sphinx was made. The message is clear: this black pharaoh, Taharqo, stands in a long line of great Egyptian rulers, who have held dominion over all the lands of the Nile.
Taharqo was eager to expand Egypt beyond Sinai and its north-east border. This aggressive policy led to conflict with the Assyrian king, Sennacherib (whose stone reliefs were described in Chapter 21). Around 700 BC the Kushites allied themselves with Hezekiah, King of Judah, and fought alongside him.
But this challenge to the Assyrian war-machine ultimately led to Taharqo’s downfall. Ten years later, the Assyrians came looking for him, seeking the colossal wealth of Egypt, and although he repelled them that time, they soon returned. In 671 BC they forced Taharqo to flee south to his native Kush. He lost his wife and his son to the enemy and, after more attacks from the Assyrians, he was finally expelled.
In the long history of Egypt, Kushite rule was a brief interlude of not even 150 years. Yet it reminds us that the border between what is now Egypt and Sudan is a constant faultline, both geographic and political, that has frequently divided the peoples of the Nile Valley and frequently been fought over. We’ll see that faultline again later in this history (Chapters 35 and 94), because both the Roman and the British empires bloodily revisited this contested boundary between Egypt and Kush. Geography has determined that this will always be a frontier, because it’s here that the first cataract breaks up the Nile into small, rocky channels that are very hard to navigate, making contact between north and south highly problematic. For Africans, the Nile has never been just an Egyptian river, and it’s claimed as fiercely by the Sudanese now as it was in the time of Taharqo. The Sudanese-born political commentator Zeinab Badawi sees this as the cause of friction between two peoples who are really very similar:
I wouldn’t say that there are any huge ideological differences between the Sudanese