Nubian pyramids
Pirámides nubias
- Date
- c. 720 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- El-Kurru, Northern State, Sudan
- Credited to
- Kings of Napata and Meroe (Kush)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Funerary pyramids with a narrow base and very steep sides, built from the reign of King Piye at el-Kurru and later at Nuri and Meroe. Nubia raised more than 200 of them, more than Egypt itself.
Inspired by Egyptian models, but with their own proportions and rituals. Those at Meroe were used until c. 350 CE.
What it led to
- the royal necropolises of Nuri and Meroe
- Kushite dynastic identity
- the continuity of monumental funerary architecture into the 4th century CE