The mysterious culture of ancient Kush is coming into sharper focus through ceramics and other artifacts discovered by archaeologists excavating a major temple complex in modern Sudan.
A recent paper in Antiquity reports that an international team of archaeologists has uncovered new evidence challenging longstanding claims that Kushite culture was merely a copy of that of its more famous northern neighbor, ancient Egypt.
Located in Sudan’s northern state near the town of Karima, the Sanam temple discovery dates to the Middle Napatan Period (c. 750–580 BCE) of the Kushite empire. During part of this period, the Kushites expanded beyond Nubia to control Egypt itself, demonstrating that they were no mere inferiors.
The Neglected World of Nubia
Researchers have devoted tremendous time and energy to exploring and interpreting the remains of ancient Egypt, while its powerful neighbor, Kush, has received comparatively little attention, especially in popular culture. Although Kush certainly drew influence from Egypt, new work at the Sanam temple suggests that local traditions also played a major role in shaping this underappreciated ancient culture.
The temple stands in the ancient Napatan region, an important center of Kushite power, and was built by King Taharqo. This ruler was among the Kushite kings whose territory extended into Egypt after an earlier king, Piankhy, conquered it. Taharqo’s reign saw a number of impressive monumental building projects extending from Kush into Egypt itself.
The Sanam temple was a major feature of Taharqo’s building initiatives, forming part of a larger administrative complex within the region’s urban landscape. Archaeologists have identified features including a royal treasury and several cemeteries in the surrounding area. Although the first excavations at the site occurred more than a century ago, limited technical capabilities and an incomplete understanding of ancient Kushite culture hampered those early investigations.
Kushite Mysteries
“Recent scholarship has increasingly challenged older views that portrayed Kush simply as a copy of Egypt, but important questions remain about how the Kushite state controlled resources, labour, production, and the distribution of prestige goods,” said lead author Dr Rennan Lemos from Durham University.
Lemos teamed with New York University’s Dr. Kathryn Howley to investigate these questions at the Sanam temple site. Some of the biggest outstanding issues centered on temples’ role in Kushite society: in Egypt, these religious buildings also served as centers of commerce, controlled by the ruling dynasty. However, little is known of the Kushite temples’ role in commerce and power.
At the Sanam temple, researchers discovered an entire faience (glazed ceramics) workshop, still containing hundreds of beads and a shabti figure, showing an advanced production operation at the site and potentially holding clues to these questions.
Faience Explained
Made from a mixture of silica, alkali, and lime, faience is a glazed ceramic-like material known for its glossy surface. Copper compounds can give it a distinctive blue or green color, although it can also be white. Producing the material involved firing objects at relatively low temperatures compared with some other ceramics, a process that could generate considerable smoke and fumes.
Although faience was also popular in Egypt, the Kushites appear to have adapted the technology to suit locally available resources. Rather than relying on limestone, which was not readily available in the region and would have required importation, they used an alternative source of calcium carbonate: crushed seashells.
Given the potentially unpleasant conditions associated with faience production, the archaeologists were surprised to find evidence of such an operation so close to a religious building. They note that this differs from Egyptian examples, where comparable facilities were often located toward the edges of settlements.
Power in Kush
Because temples were closely associated with royal authority, the archaeologists interpret the workshop’s location as evidence that the Kushite state exercised control over the production of valuable goods, even placing these activities within important religious spaces.
“This evidence demonstrates that Sanam Temple was not simply a religious monument but also a center of state-controlled production,” Lemos says. “The workshop produced faience objects associated with royal power, including shabtis destined for the royal cemetery at Nuri.”
From their interpretation of the site, the archaeologists believe they have identified an important distinction between Kushite and Egyptian expressions of royal power. In Egypt, rulers demonstrated their authority in part through control of land and agricultural resources. The researchers suggest that Kushite rulers also emphasized control over the production of prestigious goods by regulating access to raw materials, labor, and specialized knowledge.
“This highlights the creativity and agency of ancient Nubian societies,” Lemos concluded. “Rather than merely adopting Egyptian cultural practices, the Kushites selectively adapted foreign technologies and ideas, developing their own production methods and creating objects that carried specifically Kushite social and political meanings.”
The paper, “Crafting Power in Kush: Faience Production and State Control in the Napatan Region,” appeared in Antiquity on October 19, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.