Amasis I., his brother and founder of the i8th dynasty, began or added to the temple of Buhon, near Halfa, and in the next reign the Cushite kingdom was crushed out of existence. The first viceroy of the whole region was appointed by Thutmosi I. and entitled "king's son," a title which was afterwards changed to "king's son of Cush" or perhaps "son of the king of Cush," and the southern outpost of the empire was established by Thutmosi III. at Napata. Every king of the i8th dynasty built one or more temples in Nubia or had a shrine cut for him in the rock by his viceroy, and some kings built many temples. The most splendid was that of Soleb dedicated to himself and Ammon by Amenhotep III., who also built a lesser one at Sedenga to the divinity of his queen, Taia ; its name Ha-taia survives to this day in the place name Adai. The series continued under Seti I. and Rameses II.
in the 19th dynasty. The latter is everywhere between the first two cataracts. His new temples and shrines include the two great temples at Abusimbel to himself and Queen Neferteri, also Gerf Husen, Beit el-Weli, Wadi Sabula, Dirr, Ibrim, Faras, Aksha; and like Seti I. he was active in far off Napata. After Rameses II.
only modest stelae or graffiti are found; even these cease at the end of the 2oth dynasty. By the time that Thutmosi III. estab lished his empire, Nubia had no independent vigour left, and even the C-group people had faded away to nothing. The antiquities of Nubia under the New Kingdom, both large and small, are entirely Egyptian. They include at Anibe tombs built with pyram idal roofs like those of Deir el-Medineh. The land between the First and Second Cataracts, i.e., apparently the region named Wawat, was divided into districts like the nomes of Egypt with separate rulers. The first was centred at Dakkeh (Baki), the sec ond at Aniheh (Maam), and the third opposite Halfa (Buhon), the capital in each case apparently at the southern end of its district. Each was presided over by a Horus-divinity, representing the power of Pharaoh and dating back to the 12th dynasty, when strong fortresses existed at each of these places. There were also smaller districts subject to Hathor-goddesses, Bigeh to Hathor of Senemt, and Faras to Hathor of Ibshek, whereas in the old King dom we hear only of a god Dedun of aromatic Nubia. In the shrines built further south in the New Kingdom the gods of the empire naturally take the lead—Amen-re' of Thebes, Harmachis of Heliopolis and Ptah of Memphis.
The chiefs of Libyan mercenaries in Egyptian pay founded princely families at the southern outpost at Napata. The earliest of the Ethiopian-Libyan princes was buried at KurrU with his flint tipped arrows. A few generations later, about 725 B.C., Pankhy, after extending his power over Upper Egypt, triumphed com pletely over Tefnakhte of Sais. With artisans brought from Egypt
Pankhy added to and adorned the temple of Ammon at Napata. The conquest of Egypt by Shabako followed and the throne of the Pharaohs was occupied for about so years by Ethiopians. Under the first two, Shabako and Shebitku, building proceeded in Egypt, but in Nubia their only monuments are pyramids in the ancestral burial place at Kurril The third Pharaoh, Tirhaqa, built more than one temple at Napata and the first and by far the largest pyramid of a new group at Mini; at Sanam opposite Napata he built a temple and the extensive cemetery has many relics of his reign. Even in Lower Nubia, at Buhon and at Ibrim, Tirhaqa's name occurs on temple-constructions and isolated graves have been found of his time. When his nephew, Tandamane, retired from Egypt before Psammetichus I. the line of Ethiopian kings continued to reign at Napata, with a palace also at Meroe, and were buried at Mari. But their borrowed Egyptian culture fell lower and lower. Their sculptures and inscriptions, their glazed amulets and ushabti became ever more barbarous; mummification was abandoned and crouched burial, hand-made pottery (some of it reminiscent of prehistoric black-mouthed ware) became the rule. The pyramids lost their enduring form and sacrificed solidity to height. In Lower Nubia the only records of this time are graffiti of the Greek and Syrian mercenaries of Psammetichus II. B.c.) on the colossus of Abusimbel, which must fall in the reign of Aspalta according to Reisner's chronology. The Per sians are said to have invaded Ethiopia under Cambyses in 522, but they left no mark, and Ethiopians served in the army of Xerxes. According to Dr. Reisner, Meroe became the chief capital of the Ethiopians about 30o B.C.
At length, towards the end of the 3rd century, Ergamenes, a contemporary of Philadelphus who broke the political power of the priests at Napata, and certainly built his pyramid at Meroe, seems to have joined with Philopator (Ptolemy IV.) in adding to the temple of Isis at Philae and founding a new shrine of Thoth at Dakkeh; Azakheramani, succeeding him, built a shrine at De bod and gave aid to the rebel native kings of Thebes, Harmakhis and Ankhmakhis, until they were suppressed by Epiphanes (Ptol emy V.). The Triacontaschoenus between the first two cataracts was now claimed by the Ptolemies, but nothing was done there after Euergetes II., and his activity was probably confined to the Dodecaschoenus, the southern end of which at Dakkeh com manded the route to the gold mines of the Wadi Allagi. The na tives of Nubia, subject to Meroe, were beginning to acquire wealth and culture and had pushed up, chiefly on the west bank, to the frontier of the Dodecaschoenus.