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Ancient Nubia in Raleigh: the kings of Kush and the hieroglyphs they wrote
7 November 2026
Ancient Nubia: Excavating Treasures of the Nile is at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh until 10 January 2027. It comes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which holds the largest collection of ancient Nubian art outside Africa, and Raleigh is the last stop of a tour that began in 2018.
The show covers 3,000 years of the Kingdom of Kush in what is now Sudan, from Kerma to Meroe. Its centre is the century when Kushite kings ruled Egypt too, as its 25th Dynasty, and wrote their names in hieroglyphs inside cartouches like any pharaoh.
Four signs spell Taharqa
Taharqa ruled Egypt and Kush from 690 to 664 BC and is the best known of the Kushite pharaohs. The Bible calls him Tirhakah. His name, written thrq, is a Kushite name spelled out by sound: the bread loaf () is t, the reed shelter () is h, the mouth () is r, and the sandy hill () is q, a k from deep in the throat.
The show has one of his shabtis, a small figure in the shape of a mummy made to do the king's work in the next life. Over 1,070 of them, in granite, green stone and alabaster, were found in his tomb under the largest pyramid at Nuri, the cemetery where some twenty later kings followed him. Each carries his name and a spell from the Book of the Dead, written in columns down its body.
Tanwetamani lost Egypt to Assyria
The exhibition rebuilds the tomb of Tanwetamani, the last Kushite king to rule Egypt, and a Digital Dig lets visitors uncover his statue piece by piece. His name, tnwt-imn, holds Amun's name, like Tutankhamun's. Amun of Jebel Barkal, the holy mountain near Napata, was the great god of the Kushite kings.
In 664 BC he marched north and retook Memphis, killing Necho I of Sais, whom the Assyrians had set up as a vassal. The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal struck back, drove him south and sacked Thebes in 663 BC. Necho's son Psamtik I then ruled all of Egypt, and Kushite kings ruled only in the south. Tanwetamani was buried in the family cemetery at el-Kurru, where the painted chambers of his tomb still survive.
The gold collar sign writes gold
Much of the show is gold. Egyptians and Kushites wrote the word for gold, nbw, with a picture of a broad gold collar with beads hanging from it (). Nubia was the great source of Egypt's gold, and its desert mines were one reason pharaohs fought over it for 2,000 years.
Look for a gold falcon amulet from Taharqa's reign, a Hathor-headed pendant of gold and rock crystal from the 8th century BC, and the winged Isis pectoral of 538 to 519 BC on the posters.
Isis is named by her throne
The pectoral shows Isis with her wings spread to protect the wearer. Her name, ꜣst, is written with the seat or throne (), the bread loaf () for the t ending, and often a seated woman () to show a goddess. The seat on her head in statues is the same sign: she wears her own name.
Isis was worshipped in Nubia long after Egypt's own temples closed. At Philae, on the border between the two lands, Nubian pilgrims still came to her temple in the 5th century AD.
Reisner's dig filled the Boston collection
Almost everything on show was dug up in the 1910s and 1920s by the Harvard University and Museum of Fine Arts expedition led by George Reisner, at Kerma, Jebel Barkal, el-Kurru, Nuri and Meroe. Large photo murals show the pyramids of Jebel Barkal as the expedition saw them, taken by its Sudanese photographer Mohammedani Ibrahim Ibrahim.
Reisner credited Kush's greatest works to rulers from outside it, a view shaped by the racism of his time and long since dropped. The exhibition, curated in Raleigh by the Nubiologist Caroline Rocheleau, shows his methods and finds and leaves his conclusions behind. Rocheleau sums up the main point for visitors: Egypt was ruled by Nubian kings for almost a century.
Tickets cost $20 and members go free
The NCMA is at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh. The exhibition has its own tickets, $20 for adults, free for members, with docent tours from Wednesday to Sunday on request. Talks run alongside it, among them one on Taharqa on 20 November.
Take a photo of a shabti's columns and try the camera on this site on the signs. The name inside the cartouche is the easiest place to start.
Questions
How long is the Ancient Nubia exhibition at the NCMA?
It opened on 17 October 2026 and runs until 10 January 2027. Raleigh is its last stop.
Did Nubian kings rule Egypt?
Yes. Kushite kings from what is now Sudan ruled Egypt as the 25th Dynasty for almost a century, until about 656 BC. Piye, Shabaka, Taharqa and Tanwetamani are the best known.
Did the Nubians write in hieroglyphs?
Yes. Kushite kings used Egyptian hieroglyphs for their names and monuments. Later, at Meroe, they also wrote their own Meroitic language in two scripts, one based on hieroglyphs and one cursive.
Glossary
- amulet
- A small charm worn by the living or wrapped with a mummy for protection, often shaped like a sign such as the ankh or the scarab.
- Book of the Dead
- A collection of spells written on papyrus and placed in burials from the New Kingdom on, to guide the dead through the afterlife. Egyptians called it the Spells for Coming Forth by Day.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- dynasty
- A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- mummy
- A body dried and wrapped in linen so that it would last. Egyptians believed the spirit needed it in the afterlife.
- pharaoh
- The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
- pyramid
- A royal tomb with four sloping sides meeting at a point, built in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza is the largest.
- shabti
- A small figure placed in a tomb to do farm work in the afterlife for the person buried there.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston museum
- Philae Temple site
Sources
More to read
- How to read hieroglyphs How to read hieroglyphs: find the way the signs face, sound out the alphabet signs, spot the silent ones. A king's name read sign by sign.
- Which way do you read hieroglyphs? Which way do you read hieroglyphs? Toward the faces: birds, snakes and people look at the start of the line. Rows, columns and the odd exceptions.
- The hieroglyph alphabet: 24 signs and their sounds The hieroglyphic alphabet: the 24 one-consonant signs Egyptologists list, with the picture, the sound and how to spell an English name with them.