Mount Jebel Barkal

Near the Nile, 320 kilometers north of Khartoum, 96 meters above the surrounding plain rises a lonely rock of sandstone with a strange pointed tower, nestled near one of the walls. Today this place bears the Arabic name Jebel (Mountain) Barkal, and in the XV century BC the Egyptian conquerors of Nubia spoke of it as the Pure Mountain.

Here the new rulers founded Napata, a city that for four centuries marked the southern borders of the Egyptian Empire. Later, when the Egyptians left Nubia, Napata became the northern capital and the main cult center of the independent Nubian state, called Kush. In the VIII century BC, Cushite kings conquered Egypt and founded the XXV dynasty there.