El-Kurru

El-Kurru was the first of the three royal cemeteries used by the Kushite royals of Napata, also referred to as Egypt's 25th Dynasty, and is home to some of the royal Nubian Pyramids. It is located between the 3rd and 4th cataracts of the Nile about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the river in what is now Northern state, Sudan. El-Kurru was first excavated by George Reisner in 1918 and 1919 and after his death his assistant Dows Dunham took over his work and published the excavation report on El-Kurru in 1950. The El-Kurru cemetery was primarily used from about 860 BC until 650 BC. The first tomb with a name attached to it is that of King Piye (also known as King Piankhy) dating to about 750 BC, the sixteen earlier tombs possibly belong to Piye's royal predecessors. The last 25th dynasty king, Tantamani, was buried at El-Kurru around 650 BC. The subsequent Napatan rulers chose to be buried at the royal cemetery at Nuri instead. However, in the mid-4th century the 20th king, whose name is unknown, chose to have his tomb, as well as that of his queen, built at El-Kurru.

Reisner thought that the earliest tomb, Tum.1, dated back to the time of Pharaoh Sheshonq I of Ancient Egypt (c.860 BC) and predates the Kingdom of Napata by some 200 years. At the present, some scholars (Hakem, Torok) think the early cemetery stretches back to the Ramesside period and date the earliest burials to the end of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (c.1070 BC). However, other scholars, including Kendall, more or less agree with Reisner's chronology, and move the date of initial use to 850-830 BC as opposed to Reisner's proposed date of 860 BC. The cemetery is divided into three parts by two wadis. The central section seems to be the oldest and contains several tumulus type tombs that predate the Kingdom of Napata. The highest part of the cemetery contains four tumulus tombs (Tum. 1, 2, 4 and 5). Tum. 6 is located to the north, across the northern wadi. To the east of the tumuli is a row of at least eight pyramids. One of them partially intrudes on a tumulus tomb (Tum. 19). According to Dunham and Reisner, the southernmost of this row of pyramids (Ku.8) belongs to King Kashta and (presumably to) his wife Pebatjma, and tomb Ku.9 belongs to King Alara, however there are no written records of names associated with these tombs. Before this row is another row of pyramids which includes those of Piye, Shabaka and Tantamani. The southern pyramids are located to the south of the pyramid of Pebatjma, across the southern wadi. These are the pyramids of the Queens: Naparaye (Ku.3), Khensa (Ku.4), Qalhata (Ku.5), and Ku.6 which possibly belongs to Arty. As mentioned previously, not all of the tombs at El-Kurru are pyramids. Tombs Tum. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (tum. standing for tumulus), and Ku.19 are all Nubian style tumuli that consist of a rock-cut pit covered by a circular mound of gravel, pebbles, and rubble. This style of tumulus is also seen in C-Group burials and at burials at Kerma. However, the style of the tumuli changed with time. Tum.6 and Ku.19 both have circular enclosure walls, which are sturdier than the rubble piles that topped the previous tombs, and had offering chapels. The following ten tombs built, Ku. 14, 13, 11, 10, 9, 23, 21, 8, 20, 7, also had offering chapels (except for Ku.21 and Ku.20) and had square plan rather than circular. Reisner believed that these square tombs were mastabas, flat topped structures, but scholars Lohwasser and Kendall argue that they were actually topped with small pyramids that were removed when the tombs were looted. King Piye's tomb (Ku.17) marks another change in the building style of the tombs at El-Kurru, he was buried in a vaulted chamber that was both rock cut and built with stone masonry. The royal pyramids built after King Pi

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