The pyramids in Sudan were built over a period of hundreds of years by a civilization known as the Nubians.

The pyramids in Sudan were built over a period of hundreds of years by a civilization known as the Nubians.

The pyramids in Sudan were built over a period of hundreds of years by a civilization known as the Nubians. The Nubians were initially conquered by the Egyptians and for centuries lived under Egyptian administration.

After the Egyptian dynasties fell into disarray, Nubia broke free and became its own empire, even conquering the Egyptians for a time. Throughout their history, the two societies maintained extensive trade and cultural ties, leading to the Sudan pyramids.

“When discussing the civilizations of the Nile Valley, many histories focus almost exclusively on the role of Egypt. But this approach ignores the emergence further south on the Nile of the kingdom known to the Egyptians as Kush, in the region called Nubia – the area now covered by southern Egypt and Northern Sudan.

Nubia is a region along the Nile River located in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. One of the earliest civilizations of ancient Northeastern Africa, with a history that can be traced from at least 2000 B.C. onward through Nubian monuments and artifacts as well as written records from Egypt and Rome, it was home to one of the African empires.

The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).

Historically, the people of Nubia spoke at least two varieties of the Nubian language group, a subfamily which includes Nobiin (the descendant of Old Nubian), Kenuzi-Dongola, Midob and several related varieties in the northern part of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan. Until at least 1970, the Birgid language was spoken north of Nyala in Darfur but is now extinct.”

Nubia and the Noba people