The Kingdom of Kush was the great Nubian power of the middle Nile, centered first at Napata and later at Meroë. It twice built an empire: its kings conquered and ruled Egypt as the 25th Dynasty around 744–656 BCE, and after losing Egypt it flourished for centuries as an African state of iron, pyramids, ruling queens, and its own Meroitic script — a writing system that can be sounded out but whose language is still poorly understood — before declining around the fourth century CE.
Travel up the Nile into what is now Sudan and you reach a desert dotted with pyramids. There are more of them here than in all of Egypt. They are smaller and steeper than the giants at Giza, and they were built by a different people, the kings and queens of Kush, over roughly a thousand years. For one dramatic stretch, around 744 to 656 BCE, the rulers buried under such pyramids did something no Egyptian expected: they marched north, conquered Egypt, and ruled it as pharaohs. Then they were driven home and built something stranger and longer-lasting of their own.