About 270 BCE there was major event in Kushite history. The royal tombs were suddenly no longer built at Napata but at Meroe. At the same time, many other important changes took place in art and writing. For this reason, archaeologists speak of the earlier phase, before 270 BCE, as the "Napatan Period" and the later phase, as the "Meroitic Period."
The Greek historian Diodorus wrote about the likely reason for these changes. He explained that the high priests of Kush (probably at Napata) had the power to force the king to commit suicide. They would send him a letter, as if it came from the great god, informing him that his reign was over, and that he must take his own life. According to Diodorus, the kings obeyed these orders until about 270 BCE. At that time, a king named Ergamenes (Arkamani in Meroitic) received his letter. He doubted that these were the words of the god, so he marched to the temple and killed the priests.
The earliest royal tomb built at Meroë belongs to Arkamani. From then on, almost every ruler of Kush built his pyramid at Meroë, on ridges about 2.5 km east of the city.
During the Meroitic Period over forty kings and queens were buried at Meroë. Their tombs, built under steep pyramids, were all badly plundered in ancient times, but pictures preserved in the tomb chapels tell us that the rulers were mummified and covered with jewelry and laid in wooden mummy cases. The larger tombs still contained remains of weapons, bows, quivers of arrows, archer's thumb rings, horse harnesses, wooden boxes and furniture, pottery, colored glass and metal vessels, and other things, many of them imported from Egypt and the Greek and Roman worlds. Sometimes sacrificed servants were buried with the kings and queens - sometimes even horses, oxen, camels and dogs.
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| View from the outskirts of Meroë city looking east toward the royal pyramids, built between 280 BCE and 350 CE. Most of the pyramids were damaged in 1833, when treasure hunters tore down their tops. |
| Photo: T. Kendall. |
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| View through one of the ruined pyramid chapels of Meroë. The chapels were small rooms, finely carved with images of the dead rulers, their family members, servants, and court, and were probably tended by special priests, who left offerings of food and drink inside. |
| Photo: T. Kendall. |
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| Photograph of one of tomb chambers beneath the pyramids of Meroë. Although the tombs were badly plundered in ancient times, this tomb still contained many large jars, in which food and drink were stored during the burial of the dead for his or her exclusive. |
| Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. |
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Vessel, found at Meroë, made in the shape of a mounted female warrior by the Athenian Greek potter Sotades about 425 BCE. It was found in the pyramid chapel of a Meroitic prince, who may have died about 50 years later. |
| Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. |