Meroë was a city in Nubia, the country at the southern border of Egypt. Nubia was Egypt’s only true next-door neighbour, stretching from from Aswan, at the first cataract of the Nile, down to modern-day Khartoum. Egypt was shielded to the west by desert, to the east by desert also and the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean to the north.

Because of this, Egypt and Nubia had a unique relationship. They started to develop, culturally speaking, around the same time – 4000 BC – although Egypt then began to advance at a greater rate from around 3000 BC. This was probably due to the vaster tracts of fertile land in Egypt; much of Nubia was hard to farm and couldn’t support a population as large as Egypt’s. However, what Nubia lacked in farmland, she made up for in tradable goods. The country had gold, semi-precious stones, copper and hard stone (such as diorite). She was also beautifully placed to connect the Mediterranean to more southern regions of Africa, and was an important passageway for traded goods..

Egypt and Nubia had a bit of a rollercoaster relationship over the centuries. At times, they traded peacefully; other times, not so much. Egypt annexed parts of the country at times, and built strings of fortresses to protect the resources they needed from Nubia. Other times, particularly during times of Egyptian political weakness, such as during the Second Intermediate Period, Nubia was more powerful.

The pinnacle of the relationship, from the Nubian perspective, was during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, when Nubian kings took the throne of Egypt: the ‘Kushite’ 25th Dynasty. These kings, however, were ousted by Assyrian invasions of Egypt in the mid 7th century BC. The next couple of centuries remain a bit of a mystery as the archaeological record is bare.

The 3rd century BC saw the rise of the civilisation again, Meroë, in particular (whose existence has been attested in the archaeological record since at least 800 BC). Meroë is far down in the south of Nubia, about 200 km northeast of Khartoum. She was an industrial city, a royal residence and, crucially, positioned next to a particularly fertile area of grassland. Her strategic position, both agriculturally and industrially, allowed her to grow in power. The area remained a passageway for trade goods and, when Egypt became part of the Roman Empire, trade continued vehemently (albeit following a number of skirmishes between Rome and Nubia).

Meroë’s industry focused primarily on iron smelting, trading as far afield as India and China. However, they also traded textiles and ceramics, and continued to pass ‘exotic’ goods from further south in Africa through to the Mediterranean. Although heavily industrial, Meroë also boasted grand edifices including several temples, palaces and a lot of pyramid tombs.

Due to her importance in the trade industry and the close relationship shared with Egypt, the culture of Meroë was a real mix-up of African, Egyptian and Greco-Roman influence, Egyptian in particular. Many of their gods were Egyptian in origin, they buried their kings in pyramids (Nubia has more pyramids than Egypt) and the script that developed during the Meroitic period was a derivation of Egyptian hieroglyphs.